The *Question* remains

[Dr. Heywood Floyd]

After days of banter, bank and forth, on the subject of Vista *Upgrade*
Disks being bootable, or not, the question remains - unanswered.

Is/will the commercial, consumer purchased post Jan 30, 07, *upgrade*
(that's U P G R A D E - for those of you that want to discuss others)
be a bootable disk?

The question *is NOT* asked about Vista RTM
The question *is NOT* asked about XP
The question *is NOT* asking for speculation or opinion

 

[Chris Holmes [Chris123NT]]

Everything I have seen says that the upgrade disk will NOT be bootable. You
will need to start the upgrade process inside an existing windows install as
the installer will do a Genuine check to make sure you aren't trying to
upgrade from a pirated copy of Windows.

Chris

 

[Colin Barnhorst]

I don't know that the concern is piracy as much as casual copying. That is
the reuse of the XP license (or continued use) after using it to qualify for
upgrade pricing.

 

[Dale]

This is why, as far as I am concerned, there should only be one version of
Vista - the full Ultimate. I remember that when XP first came out,
Microsoft was tired of supporting various versions, such as XP Home and XP
Pro. The talk at the time was that the next version of Windows would
eliminate the different versions. Well, we see how that turned out.
Instead of two, we have twelve versions!

Dale

 

[Dr. Heywood Floyd]

Thanks Colin and Chris. Please - no disrespect intended. You are,
both, excellent participants in this News Group.

However - it took only one reply to the OP for 'speculation' to be
offered and the reply to that one changed the subject entirely.

I assure the answer to the OP is we are NOT going to get an answer from
anyone that knows certain and is willing to stake their, and
Microsoft's, reputation on an honest answer.

 

[Colin Barnhorst]

I'll bet Marketing drove that decision.

This is why, as far as I am concerned, there should only be one version of
Vista - the full Ultimate. I remember that when XP first came out,
Microsoft was tired of supporting various versions, such as XP Home and XP
Pro. The talk at the time was that the next version of Windows would
eliminate the different versions. Well, we see how that turned out.
Instead of two, we have twelve versions!

Dale

 

[Barry Watzman]

If Microsoft wanted to be really aggressive about strict enforcement of
the XP EULA relative to upgrades, they could implement a scheme in which
you had to install Windows Vista upgrade under a running, activated and
validated copy of XP, and then the act of upgrading to Vista actually
canceled that XP product key for good ... the XP product key would no
longer activate or be validated as genuine. Of course, that would cause
a HUGE problem for reinstallation from scratch, for example if a hard
drive failed and had to be replaced. Hopefully, they have not done
anything that draconian.

Still, I agree that fundamental and important questions remain
unanswered. And I suspect will remain unanswered until we get our hands

 

[Guest]

Dr. Heywood Floyd - Thanks for an intelligent post.
You don't get many of these!
I am in the same realm as you, 'how will the upgrade
from XP SP2 to Vista perform'.
As we all know, there isn't a upgrade version
available, yet. I apologise in advance, but I am of the
opinion that if ONE has gremlins in XP SP2, then they
will carry forward in any Vista upgrade!
As with you, I will have to wait 'til post 30 Jan '07
to see the (chaos) whoops, results.

regards to you and all

(my) Last Word

 

[Colin Barnhorst]

I don't think so. Even an upgrade from xp to Vista is a clean installation
of Vista so no vestige of the xp code is left. All files, settings, and
apps are moved to another part of the drive, the area needed for the image
is formatted and then the image is laid down and installed. Only then are
the apps reinstalled. Vista does not install by file copy the way XP and
earlier do. It is more like a block copy.

 

[Guest]

Thanks Colin. I have always relied on your advise.
However, we are getting away from the post
from Dr. Floyd.
Enough said. We will have to wait for Vista's release
and rely on MVP's and yourself for information
that is currently available.

regards

 

[Chris]

Aren't those the same guys that invented spam? =P

I'll bet Marketing drove that decision.

 

[Chad Harris]

You don't have to wait long to find out because there will be upgrade
versions sitting on the shelves at Comp USA if you are in the USA on
Thursday, Novembe 30, 2006 or in 3 days.

Marketing drive a decision at Softie soft--man they are such engineering
purists I nearly fell outta this chair when I saw this.

Marketing--

You mean like CPA non-engineer OEM VP who couldn't build a pc to save his
life Scotti D as they call him in the Mafia Social Clubs in Seattle pushing
the OEMs until Dell defied them with Vista lol and kicked MSFT off the OEM
Dell desktop trying to foce OEMs not to ship an OS DVD in Vista or CD in XP
and Mr. Marketing Stevie the Sinofsky (trains better run on time whether
they go off track or not)?

Naw Marketing doesn't drive excellence in Software at Softie soft.

This is the cure for the ole Doc.

The upgrade CD will be "bootable" in the same sense that it has always been.

See:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsvista/getready/upgradeinfo.mspx


It says there in the Notes:
If you are currently using Windows 2000 Professional or Windows XP
Professional x64, you are eligible for an upgrade copy to a corresponding or
better edition of Windows Vista, but a clean install is required.

It specifically says that an upgrade copy is possible and with that upgrade
dvd, you will have to perform a clean install. This already shows that the
upgrade DVD will allow you to do a clean install, provided you have an
eligible copy of a previous version of Windows.

I have no idea if this is "really aggressive" or not but I do know the Vista
Kill Switch has attracted a spate of federal law suits.

The fact that bright experienced users are having so much difficulty
understanding upgrade is further evidence that MSFT is extremely lazy and
inept at communicating the situations on their products as they begin to
roll them out despite million dollar contracts with Wagner Edstrom,
McCannEricson World Wide, and highly paid marketing perssonel.

It's a lot like their non-intuitive menus or the non-intuitve fact that in
Windows Explorer in Vista to confer column choices on differrent views or
remove them you have to right click the icon in the lower left of the
explorer Windows in Vista.

Dr. Heywood Floyd - Thanks for an intelligent post.
You don't get many of these!

You don't get many of them 'cause a lot of us are dumb Americans sitting
with our thumbs in our splenic flexures watching kids, fathers, mothers
being killed predominantly from small town USA with total apathy until
everyone has a stake in the game with a draft.

The talking heads on TV and the people who direct this are taking very
careful measured steps to make sure they and their families and children do
not get in harm's way but rather send low waged hired help with minimal
benefits and medical protection to die.

CH

 

[Chad Harris]

You don't have to wait long to find out because there will be upgrade
versions sitting on the shelves at Comp USA if you are in the USA on
Thursday, Novembe 30, 2006 or in 3 days.

Yes. The Upgrade Disc is Bootable as it has always been.

Marketing drive a decision at Softie soft--man they are such engineering
purists I nearly fell outta this chair when I saw this.

Marketing--

You mean like CPA non-engineer OEM VP who couldn't build a pc to save his
life Scotti D as they call him in the Mafia Social Clubs in Seattle pushing
the OEMs until Dell defied them with Vista lol and kicked MSFT off the OEM
Dell desktop trying to foce OEMs not to ship an OS DVD in Vista or CD in XP
and Mr. Marketing Stevie the Sinofsky (trains better run on time whether
they go off track or not)?

Naw Marketing doesn't drive excellence in Software at Softie soft.

This is the cure for the ole Doc.

The upgrade CD will be "bootable" in the same sense that it has always been.

See:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsvista/getready/upgradeinfo.mspx


It says there in the Notes:
If you are currently using Windows 2000 Professional or Windows XP
Professional x64, you are eligible for an upgrade copy to a corresponding or
better edition of Windows Vista, but a clean install is required.

It specifically says that an upgrade copy is possible and with that upgrade
dvd, you will have to perform a clean install. This already shows that the
upgrade DVD will allow you to do a clean install, provided you have an
eligible copy of a previous version of Windows.

I have no idea if this is "really aggressive" or not but I do know the Vista
Kill Switch has attracted a spate of federal law suits.

The fact that bright experienced users are having so much difficulty
understanding upgrade is further evidence that MSFT is extremely lazy and
inept at communicating the situations on their products as they begin to
roll them out despite million dollar contracts with Wagner Edstrom,
McCannEricson World Wide, and highly paid marketing perssonel.

It's a lot like their non-intuitive menus or the non-intuitve fact that in
Windows Explorer in Vista to confer column choices on differrent views or
remove them you have to right click the icon in the lower left of the
explorer Windows in Vista.

Dr. Heywood Floyd - Thanks for an intelligent post.
You don't get many of these!

You don't get many of them 'cause a lot of us are dumb Americans sitting
with our thumbs in our splenic flexures watching kids, fathers, mothers
being killed predominantly from small town USA with total apathy until
everyone has a stake in the game with a draft.

The talking heads on TV and the people who direct this are taking very
careful measured steps to make sure they and their families and children do
not get in harm's way but rather send low waged hired help with minimal
benefits and medical protection to die.

CH

 

[Colin Barnhorst]

Now that the long holiday is over in the US I am going to start posting to
some MS contacts until I get hooked up with the right team. Maybe I can do
it, maybe not.

 

[Robert Moir]

I don't think so. Even an upgrade from xp to Vista is a clean
installation of Vista so no vestige of the xp code is left.

Colin, you say that, and I don't doubt the intention of the designers and
I'm certainly not doubting your knowledge (you know that by now) but my
experience of the Vista upgrade process does not leave me with the warm
fuzzy feeling that your words ought to make me feel.

Upgrade in lab conditions, where you install XP, maybe an app or two, then
whack in the Vista disk. Sure, no problem. However, I've not seen what I
would call a satisfactory upgrade of a 'real life' system that has actually
been running for a while and picked up some good cruft.

Regards
Rob

 

[Colin Barnhorst]

Agreed. But it is not the OS that has been the issue in the upgrade
experiments I have run on copies of XP vm's. I have accumulated quite a lot
of software on some of these vm's over the last couple of years and added
all the crappy stuff I could think of for purposes of the experiments.

As I suspected when I started, the quality of the upgrade is very much a
product of how closely the user follows the compat report Setup generates at
the beginning of an upgrade.

As it turned out, it did not make much difference whether I left all these
apps in place and did an upgrade or did a Custom install and threw them on
afterwards. Most such systems performed poorly. Having done a Custom
install instead of an upgrade did not turn out to improve things noticeably.

I only got good performing upgrades by religiously following the compat
report. I removed everything the compat report even mentioned. Forget
finding updates, I took them off. Even then, a few items weren't caught by
the compat report that I think should have been.

As a result of what I have found doing this, I don't plan on upgrading
because most of the good results were from, as you indicate, systems with
only a few well behaved apps and I can reinstall those on a Vista system in
shorter time than Vista can reinstall them during last stages of the upgrade
process. An upgrade takes a lot longer than a Custom install, so how long
can it take to install Office with our current crop of high speed computers
anyway? Five minutes? Ten?

What I am saying is that folks should not blindly cling to the urban legends
left over from past experiences with previous versions of Windows and judge
when to upgrade and when not to based on bad results they got when upgrading
to XP.

If we are going to advise against upgrading to Vista then we ought to do so
for reasons based on how Vista upgrading works and not how XP upgrading
worked (or not).

Even though I don't encourage folks to use the upgrade route, it is not
because I think that the OS will be a mess like the Win9x/ME to XP upgrades
so often were. That cannot happen now and I hate to see folks continuing to
use that kind of reasoning when advising others on whether or not to
upgrade. It is a disservice.

My reason for preferring the Custom installation route over upgrading when
advising others is that too much XP software causes issues and I don't think
most folks are going to clean out the XP apps the way they should before
starting the upgrade, even with the extensive advice given in the compat
report.

(I hope that was not too muddly)

 

[John Barnes]

I agree. It may be nice that none of the old code remains, but when the
result is a mess, nobody really cares why. My upgrades of a 1 year old XP
system never worked and left a mess. If you have to uninstall and reinstall
many apps anyway, what's the purpose of risking the messes I ended up with.

 

[Colin Barnhorst]

But at least you are giving a reason that relates to how Vista upgrading
works, not legacy Windows. MS really changed how Windows is now installed.

 

[Darrell Gorter[MSFT]]

Hello,
The Volume License upgrade disk will not be bootable.
The Retail Upgrade disk will be bootable. ( You will be able to boot from
the disk to run repairs)
Thanks,
Darrell Gorter[MSFT]

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights
--------------------
<Date: Sun, 26 Nov 2006 13:12:17 -0800
<From: "Dr. Heywood Floyd" <[email protected]>
<User-Agent: Thunderbird 1.5.0.7 (Windows/20060909)
<MIME-Version: 1.0
<Subject: Re: The *Question* remains
<References: <uBrw#[email protected]>
<[email protected]>
<[email protected]>
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<X-Tomcat-NG: microsoft.public.windows.vista.general
<
<Thanks Colin and Chris. Please - no disrespect intended. You are,
<both, excellent participants in this News Group.
<
<However - it took only one reply to the OP for 'speculation' to be
<offered and the reply to that one changed the subject entirely.
<
<I assure the answer to the OP is we are NOT going to get an answer from
<anyone that knows certain and is willing to stake their, and
<Microsoft's, reputation on an honest answer.
<
<
<
<Colin Barnhorst wrote:
<> I don't know that the concern is piracy as much as casual copying. That
is
<> the reuse of the XP license (or continued use) after using it to qualify
for
<> upgrade pricing.
<>
in
<> message <>> Everything I have seen says that the upgrade disk will NOT be bootable.
<>> You will need to start the upgrade process inside an existing windows
<>> install as the installer will do a Genuine check to make sure you
aren't
<>> trying to upgrade from a pirated copy of Windows.
<>>
<>> Chris
<>>
<>> <>>> After days of banter, bank and forth, on the subject of Vista
*Upgrade*
<>>> Disks being bootable, or not, the question remains - unanswered.
<>>>
<>>> Is/will the commercial, consumer purchased post Jan 30, 07, *upgrade*
<>>> (that's U P G R A D E - for those of you that want to discuss
others)
<>>> be a bootable disk?
<>>>
<>>> The question *is NOT* asked about Vista RTM
<>>> The question *is NOT* asked about XP
<>>> The question *is NOT* asking for speculation or opinion
<>
<>
<

 

[John Barnes]

Thanks Darrell.

Hello,
The Volume License upgrade disk will not be bootable.
The Retail Upgrade disk will be bootable. ( You will be able to boot from
the disk to run repairs)
Thanks,
Darrell Gorter[MSFT]

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights
--------------------
<Date: Sun, 26 Nov 2006 13:12:17 -0800
<From: "Dr. Heywood Floyd" <[email protected]>
<User-Agent: Thunderbird 1.5.0.7 (Windows/20060909)
<MIME-Version: 1.0
<Subject: Re: The *Question* remains
<References: <uBrw#[email protected]>
<[email protected]>
<[email protected]>
<In-Reply-To: <[email protected]>
<Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
<Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
<Message-ID: <O$R8H#[email protected]>
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<X-Tomcat-NG: microsoft.public.windows.vista.general
<
<Thanks Colin and Chris. Please - no disrespect intended. You are,
<both, excellent participants in this News Group.
<
<However - it took only one reply to the OP for 'speculation' to be
<offered and the reply to that one changed the subject entirely.
<
<I assure the answer to the OP is we are NOT going to get an answer from
<anyone that knows certain and is willing to stake their, and
<Microsoft's, reputation on an honest answer.
<
<
<
<Colin Barnhorst wrote:
<> I don't know that the concern is piracy as much as casual copying.
That
is
<> the reuse of the XP license (or continued use) after using it to
qualify
for
<> upgrade pricing.
<>
in
<> message <>> Everything I have seen says that the upgrade disk will NOT be
bootable.
<>> You will need to start the upgrade process inside an existing windows
<>> install as the installer will do a Genuine check to make sure you
aren't
<>> trying to upgrade from a pirated copy of Windows.
<>>
<>> Chris
<>>
<>> <>>> After days of banter, bank and forth, on the subject of Vista
*Upgrade*
<>>> Disks being bootable, or not, the question remains - unanswered.
<>>>
<>>> Is/will the commercial, consumer purchased post Jan 30, 07, *upgrade*
<>>> (that's U P G R A D E - for those of you that want to discuss
others)
<>>> be a bootable disk?
<>>>
<>>> The question *is NOT* asked about Vista RTM
<>>> The question *is NOT* asked about XP
<>>> The question *is NOT* asking for speculation or opinion
<>
<>
<