Until Windows Vista, it had been possible to install a clean copy of Windows without a previous version being installed. During the installation, it would ask you to insert the disk of the previous version and voila… it worked.
Microsoft changed things slightly with Vista (but I never actually upgraded so this didn’t affect me). With Windows 7 things are the same, except Paul Thurrott of the SuperSite for Windows website has a solution, with the help of some others. The solution can be found here:
Thanks to Kevin Fisher and a bit of testing, I have a simple workaround that does work.
After performing the clean install, ensure that there are no Windows Updates pending that would require a system reboot. (You'll see an orange shield icon next to Shutdown in the Start Menu if this is the case).
Then, open regedit.exe with Start Menu Search and navigate to:
HKLM/Software/Microsoft/Windows/CurrentVersion/Setup/OOBE/
Change MediaBootInstall from "1" to "0".
Open the Start Menu again and type cmd to display a shortcut to the Command Line utility. Right-click this shortcut and choose "Run as administrator." Handle the UAC prompt.
In the command line window, type: slmgr /rearm
Then tap ENTER, close the command line window and reboot. When Windows 7 reboots, run the Activate Windows utility, type in your product key and activate windows.
Voila!
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