Don't throw away that Win98 disc!

[Tim]

At the risk of beating a dead horse, I have a question about the Vista
upgrade disc.

My version of XP Pro is an "upgrade" disc. My recollection is that it asks
you to insert your prior OS disc to qualify for the "upgrade." Luckily, I
have an old Win98 disc laying around.

So, (since I'd be installing on a new hard drive) in order to install the
Vista upgrade, I must first install XP, which requires a Win98 disc? Is
this silliness really the way it's going to work?

 

[Carey Frisch [MVP]]

One must have a genuine and activated Windows XP
installation running in order to upgrade to Windows
Vista using the Windows Vista upgraded disc.

In your case, I would suggest purchasing a "Full Version"
of Windows Vista, unless you want to install Windows XP
before upgrading to Windows Vista.

--
Carey Frisch
Microsoft MVP
Windows Shell/User

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

:

| At the risk of beating a dead horse, I have a question about the Vista
| upgrade disc.
|
| My version of XP Pro is an "upgrade" disc. My recollection is that it asks
| you to insert your prior OS disc to qualify for the "upgrade." Luckily, I
| have an old Win98 disc laying around.
|
| So, (since I'd be installing on a new hard drive) in order to install the
| Vista upgrade, I must first install XP, which requires a Win98 disc? Is
| this silliness really the way it's going to work?

 

[Colin Barnhorst]

No longer. A Vista Upgrade Edition does not ask for shiny media to verify
that you qualify for upgrade pricing. You can only use a UE to upgrade to
Vista from the desktop of a running legacy OS. UE Setup will only run on a
Win 2000 or XP desktop. If you boot with a Vista dvd and then enter your
upgrade edition product key you will be informed that you cannot proceed and
must run Setup from your legacy Windows desktop and then Setup will exit.
This is covered in many threads in this newsgroup and discussion there is
going on today. Join in there.

 

[Tim]

Yes, I've read the other threads. I guess my point was that, to install
Vista using the upgrade disc, some people, including me, will have to locate
a physical disc for an operating system that is nearly 10 years old and not
supported anymore by Microsoft. It just seems a little strange.

 

[Colin Barnhorst]

If you mean a disc to insert when the installer asks to verify that you own
a previous copy of Windows, that will not ever happen. Vista Upgrade dvd's
do not work the way XP Upgrade cd's do in that regard. It isn't that Setup
will reject one, it is that Setup will never ask for one.

If you mean a disc from a ten year old operating system so you can install a
legacy OS to upgrade from should your Vista system fail some time in the
future, then yes that very well could be what you might have to do. If you
buy a Vista Upgrade Edition do hang on to that Windows 2000 or Windows XP
cd. You might need it again to reinstall a legacy OS. Of course, the
solution to that is to use an Image Backup program like CompletePC Backup or
if you don't mind the expense, Acronis True Image, to protect your
investment. Naturally, you are not required to do that, but if you don't
then by all means hang on to that cd.

Personally, I agree with Carey. Go with a full edition if you can fit it
into your budget. The OS is one place I don't cut any corners.

 

[Synapse Syndrome]

If you mean a disc to insert when the installer asks to verify that you
own a previous copy of Windows, that will not ever happen. Vista Upgrade
dvd's do not work the way XP Upgrade cd's do in that regard. It isn't
that Setup will reject one, it is that Setup will never ask for one.

If you mean a disc from a ten year old operating system so you can install
a legacy OS to upgrade from should your Vista system fail some time in the
future, then yes that very well could be what you might have to do. If
you buy a Vista Upgrade Edition do hang on to that Windows 2000 or Windows
XP cd. You might need it again to reinstall a legacy OS. Of course, the
solution to that is to use an Image Backup program like CompletePC Backup
or if you don't mind the expense, Acronis True Image, to protect your
investment. Naturally, you are not required to do that, but if you don't
then by all means hang on to that cd.

Personally, I agree with Carey. Go with a full edition if you can fit it
into your budget. The OS is one place I don't cut any corners.

He means he needs the Win98 CD to install his upgrade version of XP so that
can install his upgrade disc of Vista.

ss.

 

[Colin Barnhorst]

That will work as long as he makes a copy or two of the cd's so that bad
media doesn't eventually catch up with him. The obvious risk is that it
increases the number of potential failure points and the possibility that he
might eventually buy new hardware on which Win98 won't even install. But it
will do the job right now.

 

[Jupiter Jones [MVP]]

It is not really that silly.
Since your Windows XP Pro is an upgrade, the Windows 98 license is tied to
that computer.
With the Vista upgrade, your Windows XP Pro upgrade and Windows 98 licenses
are tied to the computer.
To have a valid license, you will need all 3, that is nothing new with
Windows Vista.

 

[David Wilkinson]

It is not really that silly.
Since your Windows XP Pro is an upgrade, the Windows 98 license is tied
to that computer.
With the Vista upgrade, your Windows XP Pro upgrade and Windows 98
licenses are tied to the computer.
To have a valid license, you will need all 3, that is nothing new with
Windows Vista.

Jupiter:

I think it is new. Previous upgrades did not require the existing OS to
be installed.

Fast forward to 2020. There have been 4 new versions of Windows.
Installing each as an upgrade requires the previous one to be installed.
Your hard drive crashes...

David Wilkinson

 

[Colin Barnhorst]

Exactly. I like full editions more the more I think about these things.

 

[Rich Milburn [MVP]]

You've no doubt seen this in another thread, but... the upgrade media will
perform a clean install. I do not know how it checks whether it's a valid
upgrade - possibly it asks for a CD key from your old installation media -
but the only Windows versions you can run Vista setup from are XP and Vista.
Other versions must be a clean install. So clearly the media will perform a
clean install.

I would be surprised if the media is different from the full version anyway.
I suspect upgrade keys are going to prompt the system to ask for validation
that you have a valid product to upgrade from, and if you don't, you'll have
to at least pay the difference online to go to full, or else it just won't
activate, period. Again, this is merely my speculation, I could be way
off... but it's a fact that you can upgrade from Windows 2000, it's a fact
that you have to perform a clean install when you do, and it is very
unlikely there will be two versions of upgrade media. It is reported that
there are 6 disks in all - 2 Retail, 2 OEM, and 2 Enterprise, each in 32 and
64 bit versions.

Rich

 

[JustFYI ...]

I have done the upgrading thing from Win 95 on to ME.
the Windows 95 Setup asks for the Diskettes of the full edition of Win 3.11
98 Setup akss for the upgrade cd of 95
ME asks for the 98 CD..

XP Home would ask for any of them

and now for vista I have to waste 1 hour to first install and activate XP in
any edition, only to have in Mind, that this suddenly installed OS is going
to be wiped off the disk and replaced by vista...

all for piracy-reasons to proove my xp as genuine..

Ridiculous in many ways.

Why not asks vista upgrade for BOTH , the xp and vista Product-keys to check
them = ?

to first install an old OS is so silly.

 

[Colin Barnhorst]

Because you are assigning a license and not merely a product key. The
license is tied to the computer by activation now and not when you enter a
product key. The pk is only part of the hash used by activation.

Having said that, I do agree that loading a chain of OS's is a big
inconvenience.

Of course none of this is needed if you use CompletePC Backup or a third
party image backup program to protect your investment.

But I know what you mean.

 

[xfile]

Of course none of this is needed if you use CompletePC Backup or a third

party image backup program to protect your investment.

Which is something that I don't feel comfortable. For personal systems, I
always performed a clean installation on a single brand new HDD and until
everything (drivers, networks, applications, etc) have been tested without
problems, would I start moving data and documents from the old HDD and
reformat it for other purposes. Although I do have image backups for data
and system files.

So in order to accomplish what I used to do without installing Vista on top
of existing XP system, I can use a single brand new HDD installed with
qualified OS but without anything else, and start upgrade installation from
there. After everything has been tested, I then move the old data and
documents from the old HDD and reformat it as before?

Thanks.

 

[Colin Barnhorst]

You can do that. You would run the WET wizard on the old hard drive to
capture your Vista files and settings, then set up the new hard drive with
XP. Then you would run the Upgrade Edition Setup from the XP desktop and
choose Custom Installation instead of Upgrade. That would give you the
equivalent of a clean installation in XP parlance after which you would run
the WET wizard again and then install the apps. As far as I can see, that
is the only way a Vista Upgrade Edition user can replace the system drive
without restoring from an image backup file or do a "clean reinstallation"
of Vista.

I am only speculating here, but I suspect that if you select Custom
Installation with the Upgrade Edition Setup you will only have one volume
that is not greyed out in the Target screen and that will be the XP system
volume. I am very interested in the answer to that one.

 

[xfile]

Hi,

Many thanks.

For the following part,

[...]if you select Custom Installation with the Upgrade Edition Setup you
will only have one volume that is not greyed out in the Target screen and
that will be the XP system volume.

Based on your assumption, it will be similar for other qualified OSes (2K,
98) as well, right?

I probably will buy just one copy (if they don't change WGA N) and intend to
use the oldest qualified OS instead of using XP.

 

[David Wilkinson]

Because you are assigning a license and not merely a product key. The
license is tied to the computer by activation now and not when you enter a
product key. The pk is only part of the hash used by activation.

Colin:

I don't follow you here. If Vista transmits the XP product key to MS,
then MS can check then that it is an allowed ID on the machine in
question. A "virtual activation" of XP, followed by an actual activation
of Vista.

Forcing the user to physically (re)install XP only proves that he/she
knows how to install XP. Totally unnecessary.

I agree with you that imaging your Vista disk once you have it set up is
going to be absolutely necessary for these upgrade versions. But the
cost in software and hardware to do this could easily eat up the price
difference between full and upgrade versions.

I say, keep your XP (or sell it, if it is retail) and buy the full
version of Vista.

David Wilkinson

 

[Alias]

One must have a genuine and activated Windows XP
installation running in order to upgrade to Windows
Vista using the Windows Vista upgraded disc.

So how many times will that make that you have to prove to MS that
you're not a pirate?

In your case, I would suggest purchasing a "Full Version"
of Windows Vista, unless you want to install Windows XP
before upgrading to Windows Vista.

I would suggest not even considering Vista and using Linux that doesn't
assume you're a thief over and over and over again.

Alias

 

[jwardl]

Taking the chance of being redundant...

This means that it won't be possible to do a "clean" upgrade? If you want to
wipe your drive and start fresh (or install on a new HD), one cannot use
Vista upgrade?

If so, glad you mentioned it before I wasted my money on Vista.

 

[Rich Milburn [MVP]]

for some reason this didn't go through...
You've no doubt seen this in another thread, but... the upgrade media will
perform a clean install. I do not know how it checks whether it's a valid
upgrade - possibly it asks for a CD key from your old installation media -
but the only Windows versions you can run Vista setup from are XP and Vista.
Other versions must be a clean install. So clearly the media will perform a
clean install.

I would be surprised if the media is different from the full version anyway.
I suspect upgrade keys are going to prompt the system to ask for validation
that you have a valid product to upgrade from, and if you don't, you'll have
to at least pay the difference online to go to full, or else it just won't
activate, period. Again, this is merely my speculation, I could be way
off... but it's a fact that you can upgrade from Windows 2000, it's a fact
that you have to perform a clean install when you do, and it is very
unlikely there will be two versions of upgrade media. It is reported that
there are 6 disks in all - 2 Retail, 2 OEM, and 2 Enterprise, each in 32 and
64 bit versions.

Rich