You now need to actually have an install of the OS before you can upgrade. The upgrade from XP will be a clean install, but you do need the installation to verify it. I'm not sure if Vista requires a clean install to upgrade (probably not).

I can't blame them, 'cause you know everyone just copied or lent CDs for the upgrade verification.

Well, they probably expire the keys from the old version now. So I have no choice but to do an in-place upgrade? That is moronic. Although the computer is relatively new (june), I have never been comfortable with Microsoft's "upgrade" process. Argh.

http://windows7news.com/2009/10/22/how-to-clean-install-from-windows-7-upgrade-media/

Hrm, this says you can do it.

I don't know when I'm gonna get my upgrade. i haven't received any info. It said it was supposed to ship today... so who knows?

Oh it came out finally? I'm rocking on the MSDN version for like 2 months now

I've heard you can install clean from an upgrade, but it will require a previous version key. You can upgrade directly from Vista (if you have the right version, IIRC).

You can install clean from an upgrade, but the upgrade key won't work. However, you can complete the installation without a key. Then, when you've installed it, you can launch the upgrade installation a second time from inside windows, do another clean install, and put in your key. This time it will work.

So I installed XP mode to play with it and the only thing I really need it for is if I'm developing and need to test sites in IE6. Are there any other legacy apps worth installing?

try jk in xp mode?

Download "Internet Explorer Collection" and you won't even need it for that.

Windows XP Mode is probably worth keeping around for use with programs that don't like 7. Also VMs work good as a sandbox for running programs of questionable origin, but I dunno how Windows XP Mode handles sharing files between the host and guest, so it might not make a good sandbox.

Jedi Knight HW accel doesn't work right on Vista/7, yes? On XP it should run hardware accelerated just fine. This assumes of course that Windows XP Mode has Direct3D HW accel support built in... but the other major VM softwares do so I'd hope MS' offering finally gets it.

There is a fix on JKhub.
It won't work on XP mode, atleast not for me over the course of a year trying.

Windows XP Mode hasn't been out for a year, in beta or final release form...

[Edit: Looks like Windows XP Mode/Virtual PC STILL doesn't support DX HW accel, which is kinda lame since both VMWare and VirtualBox support it.]

Well, I tried it the day the beta first had it, the day I got the RTM, and just a week ago.
All failures.

Just installed Windows 7 on my Boot Camp partition on my Mac. I must say that the install was still a bit wonky for me. It kept freezing at "Completing Installation", but after checking around seems like the solution was to just unplug most everything from the laptop. It actually worked after I unplugged my second monitor :/. Also, since there was no support for Boot Camp 3.0 drivers for Win 7, had to do a quick change to run the setup under a different compatibility version.

Other than that however, I'm very much loving it. It seems to handle temperatures and the fans even better than OSX does. Also, DEFINITELY handles it better than XP did, at least on my machine. I remember just running JK on XP my fan used to go absolutely nuts, with Win 7 temperatures are much lower and its much more selective.

Will you explain that?

Does JK work on windows 7?

On a PC, yes with some fiddling and a fanpatch on the hub.

Mine is finally installed.

i still havent had time to install. hoping tomorrow is the day.

Wat. Windows 7 runs god awfully on my Macbooks, both of them. The performance is okay, but everything else is terrible. Power usage is ridiculous (I'm looking at 2 hours at most, versus 6 hours in OSX at idle), temperature is equally much higher, and to top it off, the trackpad driver is horrible. I hate running Windows on my macs.

Not that any of this is particularly Microsoft's fault. I'm sure the real issue lies with Apple on this one.

Official support for W7 in Boot Camp comes out later

I had to run the BootCamp64.exe with the compatability mode turned on, then it installed. Before I kept getting a "does not support this model" message or something.

And JK does work just dandy. I didn't try it without the ddraw.dll fix, but it runs just fine right now.

And Matty, I actually have yet to try my Pro without the power adapter. It is primarily my desktop, and is plugged in pretty much 24/7, so you may be right there, and of course I would not be surprised. Just not a big factor for me right now. Re: the trackpad, I'm unsure what you mean by it's horrible. Everything for me works just fine, including the double finger click for right click. The temperatures for me still are better than OSX. I am at least getting sub 60C temperatures on 7 pretty consistently. I'm thinking though that this might have to do with other factors that are arising the more I have used OSX. I have a feeling Spotlight is just crucifying my computer trying to index my external hard drive which is NTFS, hence leading to rather constant high CPU useage.

I had to jump through some hoops for mine (had a dynamic partition or somesuch..had to be deleted via cmd), but once it started installing it was pretty fast...doesn't require much input, either - just the username/password, date/time, network computer name /network type (home/work/public) and license key, IIRC.

The latest bootcamp update finally added right click tapping stuff, but it's still terrible. It'll stick, not register clicks, it's terrible at dragging, scrolling is abysmally bad (either way too fast or way too slow), etc.

Yeah, I basically just told it to install and it didn't almost everything itself. People in the chat can tell you that I don't know a thing about computers and even I managed it without a hitch.

Woooo! Props to Windows for including SoftAP this time around!

I used it for the first time for just a couple minutes today at Fry's. First impressions are terrible, I wanted to pull my hair out. Hopefully there is a way to make it a little more intuitively like XP/previous versions. I couldn't figure out how to do anything.

I don't think it's really any less intuitive...I do think that a lot of people skipped Vista, and have used the same layout (95, 98, 2000, XP) for almost fifteen years. So, something new is weird.

It takes getting used to, but when you do it really is far faster.

The taskbar at least can be made more like XP, but really, you shouldn't. The new OS makes things much more sensible and manageable. It irked me at the start, but I warmed up to it fast, and now I hate working on XP machines.