Vista 32 bit to W7 64 bit

Hello everyone,
I've been scouring the net for answers to my questions but I haven't anything that seems to help. Let me start off by saying I currently have Windows Vista Ultimate 32 bit installed on my PC and I've purchase Windows 7 Pro 64 bit upgrade. I am aware that I can not do a straight upgrade and that a custom install is required.

I bought my copy of W7 from digital river (the company microsoft used for "the ultimate steal" promo for students) and got the student discount, which means that my download was not already an .ISO (it only is when it's purchased directly from the microsoft store). It came with a .exe unpacker called Win7-P-Retail-en-us-x86.exe and and two other files named setup1.box and setup2.box. Here is what I've tried:

- Unpacked the compressed files and running them straight from my hdd. I get an error saying "The version of this file is not compatible with the version of Windows you're running..."

- Unpacked the compressed files and burned them straight to DVD. I get an error saying essentially the same thing, "The installation disk isn't compatible with your version of Windows...". The disk will not boot on restart either. Boot priority has been set to CDROM and I tested with my old vista install disk and it boots no problem so the drive/boot settings are fine.

- Created multiple .ISO files with a plethora of different programs and trying to get it to be recognized by Windows 7 USB DVD download tool but they won't recognize. ( It is my understanding that it only recognizes the signed .ISOs that are downloaded directly from the microsoft store.)

I do not have a 4gb usb drive to attempt the usb stick suggestions I've read about and frankly I would be surprised if that would be my only option at this point. I must be missing something.. Any help would be greatly appreciated

Thanks

Cyprius

 

Dataright, that right there is an awesome link. I'll try it out and report back. Thanks for the help.

 

Looks like it might be a while before I can give this one a try. oscdimg.exe was taken down so I need to download the complete Windows Automated Installation kit which is 1.7 gb.

 

Well I found the ocsdimg on another site but when I follow the steps I get an error in CMD that says, ERROR: Could not delete existing file "D:\chris\win7\expandedSetup"
Error 5: Access is denied.


Not sure why I'm getting it, none of the files are blocked and I'm running CMD in admin.. any ideas?

 

Well the error turned out to be caused by bad syntax.. which is surprising because the error message definitely did not elude to that. W7 is installing right now and I hope everything goes well from here! Thanks a ton DataRight