My laptop gave up on me and so I've bought a used laptop off eBay but it has vista not 7 installed. I can get a disc off eBay for W7 for £40 but wondered if it's as easy as just putting a disc in and waiting a couple of hours? Any help would be appreciated.

The laptop I've bought is a HP DV7 2030ea if it helps

Cheers

Pretty much.

If the laptop can support booting from a USB stick and you have a spare 4Gb one lying around I can highly recommend this piece of software:

http://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msusa/html/pbPage.Help_Win7_usbdvd_dwnTool

It puts the Windows 7 CD on USB, therefore boots and installs much quicker.

Excellent cheers and I'm not sure about booting from usb. I'll have a look into it when I get it. Hopefully sometime this week. I actually bought it thinking it had W7 but turns out I was wrong but it wasn't too expensive so I can drop 40 quid on W7 and it'll be ok. I also now just have to wait to see if it's 32 or 64 bit so I can buy the right disc.

Some information here for you:

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?docname=c01859348&tmp_track_link=ot_faqs/top_issues/en_us/c01859348/loc:1&cc=us&dlc=en&lc=en&product=3927504

Specs are here:

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/...amp;dlc=en&lc=en&product=3927504

I think 32 bit will be better suited for this machine.

Windows 7 comes with 2 disks. 32bit and 64bit. Just install from the right disk

Sound so if I just buy a 32 bit windows 7 from eBay I just bung the disc in, follow some on screen instructions, type in a product key, agree to sell my soul to Microsoft and all the other T's&C's you have to agree to and then wait a bit and BOOM I have windows 7 ???? Sounds too easy to be true... is it really just as easy as installing a game or a new piece of software ie iTunes ???

Only the retail pack comes with both,OEM you have to pick which one you want.

Cheers. Yeh I am bidding on an official one on ebay but also watching a couple of OEM type ones which are somewhere around 40 quid each for 32 bit versions. So will have a look when I get the laptop... which I bought Sunday afternoon and still hasn't been posted...

Post a link to the one your buying please, mist software on ebay is fraudulent.

http://www.ebuyer.com/259862-microsoft-windows-7-home-premium-w-sp1-licence-and-media-1-gfc-02021

sure,

the one i'm bidding on is This one
i'm watchig this one - 'microsoft partner' OEM software
i'm also 'watching' this one (disc and serial key only) and this one - not a microsoft partner,...ative feedback over 600,000+ ebay sales.

please let me know if there's anything sketchy about any of them, i'm not a complete novice when it comes to computers and tend to know what i'm doing both hardware and software wise, i have just never installed a new OS so hence why i'm asking here as i really don't want to spend money on something that won't work! but i don't fancy spending more than i need to hence the £40 and £44 ones i'm watching on ebay. as i said, please let me know if A) they're legal (my understanding is ebay is a lot more legal now than it used to be with software) and B) if they'll work.

i presume the 2 auction links of ones from people rather than companies are both genuine and will be ok, but obviously i have to win an auction for them rather than the buy-it now options which i can get without last minute ebay-snipers.

anyone else able to advise if the above links to ebay sales are sketchy or ok?

Fought off a last minute ebay sniper and won this one for £38.55 seems genuine enough for my liking. Cheers for everyone that helped. I would buy you all a pint if I had the money to. But I don't so buy yourselves a pint and pretend it's off me.