Warning to university students and educators purchasing Windows 7 from Digital River

Published on October 22, 2009 By SirBedwyr In Personal Computing

Microsoft is offering Windows 7 to students for $30 for a limited time. HOWEVER.

As far as I can tell from social.technet, Microsoft and Digital River messed up the OS packaging. Customers who are currently running XP or Vista 32 bit will be unable to successfully extract and run the Win7 64 download download, even if they intend to format a partition and install. Note: You do NOT get an ISO with this purchase. Customers running a 64 bit OS should have no problem.

There is a workaround to create an iso file that I'll be attempting shortly (from social.answers.microsoft.com):

* * SOLUTION * *

There is a way to create an image file dispite recieving this error we seem to be all recieving.

1. You will need to use an additional Microsoft command-line tool, called Oscdimg.
    Details here
    Download here

    Download the .zip file and extract it. Then cut and paste the Oscdimg.exe file into your C:\Windows\System32 directory

2. You now need to start up your command prompt, which can be done by Start->Run then enter 'cmd' into the prompt. (Run as administrator if in Vista!)

3. You should now have the command prompt open, now you need to use the Oscdimg tool to create the image, by entering the following:
   Oscdimg.exe -u2 -bC:\<YOUR DIR> \expandedSetup\boot\etfsboot.com -h C:\<YOUR DIR> \expandedSetup C:\<YOUR DIR> \Win7.iso

For example: Oscdimg.exe -u2 -bC:\Users\James\Downloads\expandedSetup\boot\etfsboot.com -h C:\ Users\James\Downloads \expandedSetup C:\ Users\James\Downloads \Win7.iso

   It will now scan the source tree then begin creating the image. PLEASE note: you must replace '<YOUR DIR> ' appropriatly as to where you have downloaded the files.

4. You should now have an image file, called Win7.iso, in the same directory.

5. You can now burn this .iso file to a blank DVD using appropriate software. I personally use PowerISO (You dont need the paid version to burn the image)

6. Viola! You have your not so shiney Windows 7 disk. Restart your computer and install away!

- I take no acknowledgment for this, I dug about and found the info at: http://www.sevenforums.com/general-discussion/30470-make-bootable-iso-student-d-l.html
Thanks SIW2

Edited byNixonInnes 18 hours 40 minutes agotypo's

Edited byNixonInnes 18 hours 32 minutes ago

Marked As Answer byKevin HauMSFT, Moderator9 hours 0 minutes ago

Edited byKevin HauMSFT, Moderator5 hours 42 minutes agostep to run CMD as admin

So fair warning to anyone purchasing from this source. You do so at your own risk. There is little to no support available. I consider the money I spent today as good as burned.

Comments (Page 2)

SirBedwyr

on Oct 28, 2009

Further update:

MSI has been surprisingly good. I must be incredibly jaded because I saw a lengthy form I had to fill out to get any support (what's your bios revision, what's your ram brand, double sided, etc, etc). I thought I'd get blown off as is often the case. Instead I got a response and an actual email conversation. They said they'd contact Nvidia about the problem. I'll take that as a quite reasonable version of "we're working on it, hang in there" answer which I was not expecting.

In the interim, I'm reasonably satisfied through running some heavy 3d apps that the BSOD issue is limited only to the sleep issue and that I can live with it for now. I don't think there are other demons living somewhere in the drivers out to get me. And otherwise, 7 is a decent OS. Networking is mostly automatice and the interface is a good one.

So "Karma" awarded for this event:

-5: to Microsoft for blowing the academic promotion.

+3: to Microsoft for having decent, quick, helpful support that solved at least one problem.

-10: to Digital River for making Microsoft look bad.

+1: to Digital River for at least answering my emails.

-5: to Digital River for refusing a refund as they'd apparently given to a number of users, giving me boiler plate responses instead.

-2: to Digital River for referring me to Microsoft for product key issues. It turned out not to be their problem but it could very well have been an invalid ID and I would've been out $30 in that case.

-2: to Nvidia for referring me directly to the card manufaturer for support even though they wrote the software.

-5: to Nvidia for not catching the problem over several iterations before RTM.

+1: to Nvidia for not being AMD/Radeon and their driver support ( )

+2: to MSI for actually responding, if not solving the problem and acting like a team of engineers willing to solve the problem instead of blowing me off.

-5: to Me for getting panicky and upset too quickly and not being emotionally ready for unexpected install problems.

-5: to Me for expecting a smooth install as I'd had for XP and Vista.

-2: to Me for breaking my rule of waiting 6-12 months before installing a new OS, EVEN IF they all say it's more stable and faster than Vista.

+5: to Me for being willing to endure multiple installs to work the problem.

+1: to Me for not going completely off the deep end after having 3-4 unrelated problems rear their heads at the same time.

+1: to Me for getting over the BSOD factor and decide finally to be patient and let the drivers issues work their way through the system.

+5: to you guys being willing to commiserate.

Totals:

Microsoft: -2

Digital River: -16

Nvidia: -6

MSI: +2

Me: -5

The Impulse/Wincustomize Community: +5

CarGuy1

on Oct 28, 2009

Car guy, what brand card is your GTS and can you give me the exact driver number. Is it 190.7?

Sorry about the delay in answering your question...I missed it.

Here's what you asked for... EVGA and 191.07.

twifightDG

on Oct 30, 2009

Honestly I'd give Microsoft a solid +8 for their efforts on Windows 7. It's close to all I could ask of an OS at this point in time. So:

+8 to Microsoft

-31846730287 for Microsoft NL. Those assholes refuse to participate in the prelaunch price cuts, refuse to lower introduction price around launch time, refuse to drop even 1 euro in price even though every other country on this planet has low introduction prices for Win7 at this time. MS NL just says "we are not participating in those offers" and gives us the big finger. Can't believe what fucktards must work there, forgive me for the language but they deserve 100% of it.

In the end I got an upgrade very cheap because of a government employee licence, but MS NL still sucks. MS made a big step towards actually doing what the customer wants.

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