Paul Thurrott on his SuperSite blog recently revealed that the Windows 7 upgrade path isn’t going to be as easy as we could hope.  In fact, it looks like a nightmare.

It seems as though in order to use the upgrade versions of Windows 7, we will need to have a licensed and activated prior version of Windows, already installed on the hard drive for us to perform the Win7 install.  What a pain!  This means that if the OS (or hard drive) dies and needs reinstallation later on that we’ll have to reinstall the earlier OS fully, activate it, and then install Win7 over the top of it.

Paul had discovered that, with Vista, it was possible to use the upgrade media to install on a clean hard drive, but then don’t activate it.  That could then be used as the OS that you’re upgrading from.  Pretty handy.  But I’ll bet Microsoft decided to plug that hole.

Overall, I don’t have a problem with this method, except that it will be a huge pain if (when?) the OS needs a reinstall.  But here’s my attempt at being realistic.

By far, most Win7 users will get it with a new PC.  Problem solved.  Those of us that wish to upgrade, well, my plan is to go through the upgrade once, and then back up everything I can.  This way, a reinstall is really just a simple restore.  Easy-peasy.  And I hope that Win7 has a built-in full-system backup this time.  Vista only has it in the higher versions (Ultimate, etc.).

If that doesn’t seem to work, here’s my next idea.  Hopefully it will work.

Create a smallish partition, say around 5-10GB.  Install the previous version of Windows in it, with no extra stuff, in order to keep it small.  Hopefully, then I can install Windows 7, show it the small partition as proof of my already being a legitimate Windows user, and then install Win7 cleanly in the other partition that remains.

That way, assuming I will need to do a clean reinstall of Win7 from time to time, I can just wipe out the bigger partition to do it, keeping the small Win XP (or Vista or whatever) partition intact.  In fact, I should probably make a backup of that partition, just in case the whole drive goes.

Here’s another potential solution.  Instead of a small partition, how about a thumb drive?  They can be had for a song these days.  If WinXP or Vista could be installed to be bootable from a thumb drive, then perhaps Win7 could be installed onto a clean hard drive, using the thumb drive as a referent to my status as a legitimate Windows user.

Of course, in the end, it might be easiest to just buy the full version of Windows 7… after all, how much is my time really worth?

If you have any ideas on how we can save money by getting the upgrade version of Windows 7 and then still install it into a clean partition, weigh in in the comments below.  I’m sure we’d all love to get a solution to this.