comp527

As most of you know, Windows 7 RTM is officially out as of yesterday. According to Gregg Keizer’s article, we do not need to buy full versions of Windows 7, instead we can just use the upgrade versions (which are considerably cheaper) for a clean install.

The hack is actually quite simple:

1. First we need to install Windows 7 from the upgrade DVD without entering a key.
2. After installing, we just need to change one registry key (1 to 0) and enter “slmgr /rearm” to command prompt.
3. After rebooting,  we can activate Windows with our upgrade key (before the hack, the key was not valid)

Actual details can be found in this blog. There was a similar (but more tedious) “install twice” hack for vista, now with Windows 7, it is even simpler.

Thank you again, Microsoft!