Upgrading Windows 7 Beta to Windows 7 RC

19May/090

Upgrading Windows 7 Beta to Windows 7 RC

A couple of months ago I attended a MSDN Live session in Stavanger Norway, where I talked to a Microsoft representative regarding the Windows 7 beta-program. To avoid too much extra work, I considered waiting for the RC before installing the Windows 7, but based on the "guarantee" from Microsoft that upgrading for Windows 7 beta to RC 1 and final version be would straight forward, I went ahead and installed the beta!

The beta it selves has worked pretty good, a few annoying bugs is just as expected, eg: My Lenovo T61 WLAN driver crashes on hibernate and is dead until next full restart. Searching for proxy settings takes a loong time even though I don't use use proxy....

But Windows 7 is sweet, and just minor details in a beta version. However, when I today decided to upgrade to the RC 1 of Windows 7, the installer told me that, sorry, you cant upgrade to Windows 7 RC 1 for Windows 7 beta!!!!

I Googled the problem, and found the answear in a Microsoft official blog. And Microsofts answear: "Since upgrade from Windows 7 beta is not a real-world scenario, we advise you to down-grade to Vista, and the upgrade to Windows 7 RC 1. We will not prioritize to use our money to add this feature". Thats how Microsoft thanks the beta-testers.....

I did however find a description on how to skip the version-check, and managed to upgrade to Windows 7 RC 1 without any problems with Visual Studio 2008 and Spotify. Live messenger on the other hand had to be re-installed, and Google Chrome is totally dead, and wont even work on a clean install!

How to install RC 1 from the Beta?