Microsoft now focused on "real world" Windows 7 install testing

The Microsoft Engineering blog has news that Microsoft would rather see future installs of Windows 7 (presumably the release candidate) take place on real world systems, i.e. those running Windows Vista or XP. Naturally, that's going to be a problem for everyone who has enjoyed the stability of the recent beta versions and has become used to relying on them for day-to-day computing.

As the post itself starts out; "This is a little bit of a tricky post to write because we’re going to be asking everyone using our Windows 7 Beta to help us out, but doing so is going to take a little time and require a bit of a commitment to helping test the next milestone." If you have been using virtual machines or a spare computer to test Windows 7 on then this won't make much of a difference, but if you primary machine has already been Seven'ed, then you can either go back to Vista or use the workaround explained below.


Windows 7 installs are about to get tricky

For Windows XP users, there is an interesting warning of problems to come, basically a full reinstall will be required "Speaking of the real world, many have asked about upgrading from Windows XP. There's no change here to the plan as has been discussed on many forums.  We realized at the start of this project that the “upgrade” from XP would not be an experience we think would yield the best results. There are simply too many changes in how PCs have been configured (applets, hardware support, driver model, etc.) that having all of that support carry forth to Windows 7 would not be nearly as high quality as a clean install. This is something many of you know and already practice. We do provide support for moving files and settings and will prompt at setup time, but applications will need to be reinstalled. We know that for a set of customers this tradeoff seems less than perfect, but we think the upfront time is well worth it."

However, there will be a way around it for those not willing to enter into the spirit of the test. It is a little convoluted and involves lowering the version number in a .ini file to trick the installer thinking that your RC edition is actually an older version that it actually is.

1. Download the ISO as you did previously and burn the ISO to a DVD.
2. Copy the whole image to a storage location you wish to run the upgrade from (a bootable flash drive or a directory on any partition on the machine running the pre-release build).
3. Browse to the sources directory.
4. Open the file cversion.ini in a text editor like Notepad.
5. Modify the MinClient build number to a value lower than the down-level build. For example, change 7100 to 7000 (pictured below).
6. Save the file in place with the same name.
7. Run setup like you would normally from this modified copy of the image and the version check will be bypassed.