Upgrade questions

[Flybi749]

Purchased it used. Got home it boots up Vista Home Basic x64.

Has filed windows.old. Would that be the Windows 7 and can they be recovered. Was going to upgrade but was just wondering. Until I upgrade, I thought 7 would be better than Vista.

[Grzwacz]

Greetings,

Welcome back to the forum.

I am not a HP employee.

A Windows.old folder on a Vista system would probably contain Windows XP OS and data.

Regards

[Flybi749]

It has a Microsoft key product sticker with Windows 7 Pro OA. Could the people that owned it installed Vista? Would it still have something from 7 still within it? Just wondering.

[Grzwacz · Accepted solution]

Hi,

You should be able to install W7 Pro if you have a product key. HeiDoc (Link) had been offering OEM versions of W7 ISOs at certain times of the month.

A strange situation.

Windows will create an .old folder when you upgrade but going from W7 Pro to Windows Vista Home version is not an upgrade and the operating system versions don't match.

I don't know what's going on. Did you check the .Old folder? Maybe you can check for the operating system version by poking around. 

I have never had the occasion to check the Windows.old folder to determine the OS version.

Maybe try running Command.exe in the System32 folder.

This should give you the Windows version if you can open an administrative command prompt. Or try copying this file to the Vista desktop. Then try running it as an administrator.

Regards

[Flybi749]

Thanks. The .old file wouldn't let me do anything with it. Computer meets requirements for 10 x32 so I'll just do a clean install and be done with it. Can't believe it had Vista on it when I got it home. I thought the old files would let me do something but they won't. Don't know anyone that has 7 to use my key so I think clean install is my only option. Thank you for your help.

[Grzwacz]

Hi,

You're very welcome.

Regards