Upgrading Windows 7

I am due to receive my new system with specs as below on Monday (Man, am I psyched) but due to a mistake Dell has sent it with Windows 7 HP rather than ultimate installed. Because of this they are also sending me the ultimate OS, which is due to arrive some days after my system.

However, I presume that this would require me to do a fresh partition install, and I would then lose the alienware software that comes preinstalled. Is this software readily available somewhere and easy to install? Will there be certain things I would not get back after reinstalling? Or is it possible to simply unlock HP and upgrade without an upgrade version but with a full Windows 7 Ultimate version?

Appreciate any feedback, and enjoy weekend !

Edit: Actually.. Is there a post with a step by step process for us noobs on a fresh install to receive alienware software, necessary drivers, and so forth?

 

Err not sure if you're saying you want to do a fresh install or not .

If you want to upgrade from Win7 HP to Ultimate there is no need to do a fresh install all you need to do is click Start, and search for "anytime upgrade" without the quotation marks . You can then input the Ultimate key from the Ultimate disks they've sent you and it'll then upgrade to Win7 Ultimate and you can keep your files and setting intact, ofc you could make a backup before doing this just to be safe!

Otherwise what you can do if you want a clean install is to do the clean install with the Win7 disks, which you should be able to do without troubling the recovery partition. Once you've got the fresh install all the programs and drivers you need are on the Dell website. There is this great thread about having the latest and updating things, ofc ignore the ATI/AMD specific things and the vbios flash and get the relevant nVidia driver.
A useful thread with links and info about a clean install if you choose to take that route here.

Hope that answers your question! Using Windows Anytime Upgrade is simple and yes you can just use the Ultimate key, doesn't have to be an upgrade key, it'll accept the Ultimate key too . Anything else I'm sure others can answer!

 

Thank you for great answer !! I wasnt sure what I really wanted myself, but all my options were laid out for me here Very much appreciated ! I will read through those threads and see if I manage to figure out what is the newest, or most stable, nVidia driver !

 

As far as the nVidia drivers go,
Latest release - here.
Discussion on the stability and issues - here.
Includes links to the latest SLI profiles etc.

Hope that helps .

 

You rock !!!

Thanks to everyone in general who have been very helpful on this site ! Greatly appreciated by a noob, who loves to learn new stuff..

 

One thing to watch is that you may not get a new key with the Win 7 Ultimate discs.

The Home Premium disc that ships with the M17x has an OEM key embedded in it, and uses SLIC (OEM pre-activation) for Windows activation. This means that you never have to enter a key, and Windows is activated as soon as it's installed.

If this is the case, and you get a Dell/Alienware-branded disc with no serial number, then you may need to reinstall Windows. This isn't a big issue - you simply install the OS, then the latest drivers off the Dell support site. Don't use any drivers that may come on a disc with your system, as they'll be out of date and may cause issues (e.g. using the original video drivers if you've performed the Video BIOS update). Simply download the latest drivers, reinstall Windows, then install the drivers.

 

A question regarding this. My understanding is that these OEM copies of Windows use a combination of 3 things for the automatic activation:

1. An OEM product key
2. An OEM certificate built in to the install disc
3. The SLIC somewhere within the hardware or firmware of the machine

My question is this, does the SLIC only identify the OEM manufacturer (ie. Alienware) or does it also specify which version of Windows you're licensed for.
If it specifies the version of Windows as well, is it possible to have the SLIC updated to reflect your version, or have you permanently lost the ability to have automatic activation?

 

As far as I'm aware, each OEM only gets a single certificate. This means that Dell shares a certificate for all of the slightly different Windows 7 discs it builds for its entire product range, regardless of the edition of Windows.