I give this product 4 stars. 5 Stars for the quality of features unlocked and less 1 star for the hoops and hurdles involved in getting the Win 7 XP mode to be fully functioning.
Well, if you were previously like me, having a Win 7 Home Premium O/S, hesistant about spending an extra US$129.99 (as at the time of writing) for an O/S upgrade, there are a couple of things you might want to know before taking the plunge.
My Toshiba Qosmio X505-Q898 laptop (also bought from Amazon) came pre-installed with Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit. Unless you require practical features such as Bitlocker, XP Mode and the ability to use other languages for your O/S, the Ultimate edition is an overkill for the typical consumer. Well, as for “intangible” benefits, running Win 7 Ultimate comes with bragging rights too… hee hee
This product will only upgrade Win 7 Home Premium 32 Bit/64 Bit to Win 7 Ultimate 32Bit/64Bit respectively. It will not work with any other combination of OSes. For e.g., if you currently have Win 7 HP 32 Bit, you will only get Win 7 Ultimate 32 Bit, NOT Win 7 Ultimate 64 Bit. Another e.g., if you have Win 7 Starter, Win XP (any variant) or Vista (any variant), this product will not work.
This product does not come with any discs, neither DVD nor CD. You are actually purchasing a serial-number printed onto a little card. The card itself is enclosed in a plastic box the size of one’s palm. The plastic box is itself wrapped by a cardboard sleeve. This is what one would expect to physically receive from purchasing this product.
On my system,it only took 5 mins to perform the upgrade. I attribute this to the SSD boot drive on my system. MS states that the upgrade will take 10mins. I reckon the other extra 5 mins is required for conventional systems which boot up from a non-SSD HDD. This is because your system needs to reboot a couple of times after the upgrade is performed.
The actual upgrade from Home Premium to Ultimate is the easy (as a,b,c) part. All you have to do is to follow a couple of instructions printed on the other side of the serial number card and key in the said number. You will unlock the Bitlocker and multiple languages features this way. The latter requires an additional optional download for your choice of extra language packs from MS Windows Update. Need to spell “gravlaks” or “krabbelag” in Norwegian? Well, now you know what’s been missing from your current OS installation.
However, getting the XP mode upgrade feature requires one to be more IT savy. Firstly, your processor must support Intel virtualization technology. You must also enable this in your BIOS. Next, you have to download 3 other files (of which 1 was and still is 500mb!!! in size) from MS Windows Update website. Getting the XP mode to work after you’ve done all the above requires one to Google for even more detailed instructions. So, be prepared to jump through a couple of hoops before you can actually run your older (non Win 7) programs under XP mode.
HDD Considerations: Keying in the upgrade key will require an additional 10 GB of space as extra features are unlocked. Installing the XP mode requires an additional 1 GB of HD space. Actually using the XP mode may require up to an additional 15GB space. So if you cannot spare an extra 26GB of space on your HDD, you might have to reconsider purchasing this upgrade.
Cost Savings: Amazon sells this for US$10 less than that at MS’ online store. With super saver shipping thrown in, what are you waiting for?
After reading all the above details, I’m sure that you can now appreciate why I’ve chosen the “(ALMOST) As Easy as A, B, C” title for the name of my review.
P.S. Norwegian “gravlaks” or “krabbelag” are not included.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
This review is from: Microsoft Windows 7 Anytime Upgrade (Home Premium to Ultimate) [Online Code] (Software Download)
In order to use bitlocker, your computer must have a TPM chip in it. If not, you can turn bitlocker on but have to use a USB drive to hold the key file every time you boot it up. An acceptable solution for a desktop, but for a laptop a bit of an inconvenience having a USB drive sticking out of it, plus it takes up a USB port. My 2 month old Dell XPS laptop had the option of having Win 7 Home Premium, Professional, or Ultimate installed, so I assumed I could upgrade afterwards. Turns out they must only put that chip into models shipping with Ultimate already. So double check that if bitlocker is important to you.
Other than this issue, the update process was quick and painless. It seemed to take less time than installing a regular software program since it didn’t have to load off the CD and do a lot of registry changing.
Ultimate itself with the XP mode seems a good upgrade for me. A few hardware items and some software just doesn’t work with Win 7. Plus I needed encryption for some files. While I use some third party encryption, it’s just easier for some files if the OS does it without having to log into another software. Some of the other differences between Ultimate and Professional aren’t relevant to me, so Professional was probably a better match.
3/28/11 Additional note: Found a website that says the TPM chip not only handles the encryption key, it actually does the encrypting and decrypting activity so that the CPU does not have to. When using a USB drive for the key, the CPU does the encrypting/decrypting which reduces performance.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Authors bio is coming up shortly. 
(ALMOST) As Easy as A, B, C,
I give this product 4 stars. 5 Stars for the quality of features unlocked and less 1 star for the hoops and hurdles involved in getting the Win 7 XP mode to be fully functioning.
Well, if you were previously like me, having a Win 7 Home Premium O/S, hesistant about spending an extra US$129.99 (as at the time of writing) for an O/S upgrade, there are a couple of things you might want to know before taking the plunge.
My Toshiba Qosmio X505-Q898 laptop (also bought from Amazon) came pre-installed with Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit. Unless you require practical features such as Bitlocker, XP Mode and the ability to use other languages for your O/S, the Ultimate edition is an overkill for the typical consumer. Well, as for “intangible” benefits, running Win 7 Ultimate comes with bragging rights too…
hee hee
This product will only upgrade Win 7 Home Premium 32 Bit/64 Bit to Win 7 Ultimate 32Bit/64Bit respectively. It will not work with any other combination of OSes. For e.g., if you currently have Win 7 HP 32 Bit, you will only get Win 7 Ultimate 32 Bit, NOT Win 7 Ultimate 64 Bit. Another e.g., if you have Win 7 Starter, Win XP (any variant) or Vista (any variant), this product will not work.
This product does not come with any discs, neither DVD nor CD. You are actually purchasing a serial-number printed onto a little card. The card itself is enclosed in a plastic box the size of one’s palm. The plastic box is itself wrapped by a cardboard sleeve. This is what one would expect to physically receive from purchasing this product.
On my system,it only took 5 mins to perform the upgrade. I attribute this to the SSD boot drive on my system. MS states that the upgrade will take 10mins. I reckon the other extra 5 mins is required for conventional systems which boot up from a non-SSD HDD. This is because your system needs to reboot a couple of times after the upgrade is performed.
The actual upgrade from Home Premium to Ultimate is the easy (as a,b,c) part. All you have to do is to follow a couple of instructions printed on the other side of the serial number card and key in the said number. You will unlock the Bitlocker and multiple languages features this way.
The latter requires an additional optional download for your choice of extra language packs from MS Windows Update.
Need to spell “gravlaks” or “krabbelag” in Norwegian? Well, now you know what’s been missing from your current OS installation.
However, getting the XP mode upgrade feature requires one to be more IT savy. Firstly, your processor must support Intel virtualization technology. You must also enable this in your BIOS. Next, you have to download 3 other files (of which 1 was and still is 500mb!!! in size) from MS Windows Update website. Getting the XP mode to work after you’ve done all the above requires one to Google for even more detailed instructions. So, be prepared to jump through a couple of hoops before you can actually run your older (non Win 7) programs under XP mode.
HDD Considerations:
Keying in the upgrade key will require an additional 10 GB of space as extra features are unlocked.
Installing the XP mode requires an additional 1 GB of HD space.
Actually using the XP mode may require up to an additional 15GB space.
So if you cannot spare an extra 26GB of space on your HDD, you might have to reconsider purchasing this upgrade.
Cost Savings:
Amazon sells this for US$10 less than that at MS’ online store. With super saver shipping thrown in, what are you waiting for?
After reading all the above details, I’m sure that you can now appreciate why I’ve chosen the “(ALMOST) As Easy as A, B, C” title for the name of my review.
P.S. Norwegian “gravlaks” or “krabbelag” are not included.
Was this review helpful to you?
|Make sure your computer has a TPM chip,
In order to use bitlocker, your computer must have a TPM chip in it. If not, you can turn bitlocker on but have to use a USB drive to hold the key file every time you boot it up. An acceptable solution for a desktop, but for a laptop a bit of an inconvenience having a USB drive sticking out of it, plus it takes up a USB port. My 2 month old Dell XPS laptop had the option of having Win 7 Home Premium, Professional, or Ultimate installed, so I assumed I could upgrade afterwards. Turns out they must only put that chip into models shipping with Ultimate already. So double check that if bitlocker is important to you.
Other than this issue, the update process was quick and painless. It seemed to take less time than installing a regular software program since it didn’t have to load off the CD and do a lot of registry changing.
Ultimate itself with the XP mode seems a good upgrade for me. A few hardware items and some software just doesn’t work with Win 7. Plus I needed encryption for some files. While I use some third party encryption, it’s just easier for some files if the OS does it without having to log into another software. Some of the other differences between Ultimate and Professional aren’t relevant to me, so Professional was probably a better match.
3/28/11 Additional note: Found a website that says the TPM chip not only handles the encryption key, it actually does the encrypting and decrypting activity so that the CPU does not have to. When using a USB drive for the key, the CPU does the encrypting/decrypting which reduces performance.
Was this review helpful to you?
|