Windows 7: Upgrade or not? *** UPDATE ***

I've updated my post on upgrading to Windows 7 and which edition is best for you. http://rebmordechaiwrites.blogspot.com/2009/11/windows-7-upgrade-or-not.html

For those who have already read the article, the additional section is reproduced here:

What's the difference between the OEM, VUP and Retail Editions?

OEM stands for "Original Equipment Manufacturer". In theory this means that you are only allowed to purchase this edition at a special reduced rate when buying a new computer. You should then receive your new computer with Windows preinstalled. Computer stores should not sell you this edition on its own. My experience however with Windows XP OEM was that stores were selling it as an individual product and it installed without any issues. I've seen Israeli online stores advertising Windows 7 OEM editions so I assume they will also install on your existing PC without a problem. I havn't tried this yet though.

VUP is the Version Upgrade Edition. This is also sold cheaper than the Retail Edition and is meant for those who have a previous version of Windows Vista or Windows XP. This means that one cannot do a fresh install with this product. (Actually I found a few Internet Sites where they manage to get round this but I assume this method is legally questionable).

Warning to XP users: As I've mentioned before, Windows XP cannot be upgraded and needs a fresh install of Windows 7. So how can this VUP Edition work with an XP machine? Well what is supposed to happen is that you need to run the DVD within Windows XP and it will do a machine restart and begin a fresh install. Preseumably you cannot boot it from a blank harddisk which means that if you need to replace the harddisk for any reason you must first reinstall XP and and then Windows 7. What a pain! The problem is that I've read nightmare stories on various forums that this Microsoft trick doesn't always work. The machine restarts and at some stage gets stuck. then you are left with a corrupt harddisk with no legal way of doing a fresh install. My advise is to stay away from this if you you have Windows XP. Retail Edition: This is the complete no nonsense edition which can be installed on any machine either by doing an upgrade or a fresh install either on a new harddisk or by overwriting an existing Windows version. That is, during the installation, Windows will format the drive.