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I'm feeling a little bit upset with Microsoft right now. The computer I use at home for the TV, this webserver and my home email server was running Vista and I upgraded it to Windows 7 in order to accommodate a new TV tuner that required the updated operating system.

I bought the upgrade and performed the install a few months back and everything was fine and dandy.

Then ... the hard disk crashed. No idea what happened to it, but it wont read and I (still) can't seem to mount it (computer won't boot when it's attached). Annoying, but these things happen. So, I switched some drives around and then re-installed the operating system.

Now here's the kicker. I used the Windows 7 upgrade disk to install the operating system given that this is what I need on the machine. No problems with the install, loaded perfectly without any issues.

And everybody lived happily ever after .... at least for 30 days anyway.

A message pops up on the screen telling me I don't have a valid license for the operating system. I enter the license and it tells me it's an upgrade license and not a clean install license. OK - makes sense, but I can enter the Vista key and then the W7 key .... hmmm, no way to do this, so phone the help desk.

The help desk was incredibly unhelpful, although I'm not necessarily going to blame the individual I was talking to as they're working within the bounds they're told to. The result was to tell me that I have to install Vista first and then install the upgrade on top as I only have an upgrade license. Now, the fun part is that I'd thrown away the Vista recovery disks thinking I'd no longer need them. I explained this to the person I was talking to and they told me I had to go back to the original equipment manufacturer (OEM) and get the Vista disks from them.

I will give credit where credit's due - HP provided me with excellent service for the machine and sent me the recovery disks and we're now up and running fine (after re-installing Vista and then upgrading to W7 - what a memorable weekend that was).

Microsoft .... not so much. I find it hard to believe that I couldn't validate my license keys and get something that would work for the machine. There's no piracy going on here - I'm trying to use a product that I have a valid license for and I have to go through this ridiculous procedure of re-installing one operating system and then upgrading the next.

I've got quite a number of Microsoft products form Operating Systems to XBoxes. I keep getting told to look at Linux and the Playstation. Maybe it's time to listen.