Activated XP necessary to install Vista upgrade - But what happensin a few years ?

[Thorsten]

Hello,

At the moment you hear very often that it is necessary to have a
activated XP installed to use the VISTA Upgrade-DVD. OK so far.


When I reinstall next year. I have to install my old XP first and
activate it again. And then I can install Vista with my Upgrade-DVD.

But what happens in perhaps 4 years ? I will still be able to activate
my old XP then ? The support for XP will be already ended then.

Thanks
Thorsten

 

[Mike Hall - MS MVP Windows Shell/User]

Why will you have to re-install next year and every year thereafter?

 

[Thorsten]

Why will you have to re-install next year and every year thereafter?

There are a few reasons :

- Perhaps my system is crashed
- perhaps I have upgraded my computer with a new harddisc or mainboard

 

[Guest]

That would be my concern.
As we're getting closer to buying, I see a lot of "Posters", who are not
your mainstream users, question the praticality of purchasing the Upgrade.
I will format my HD every 8 to 10 months for maintenence.
Does this mean I have to reinstall my XP every time?
We don't have to with an XP Upgrade disc. Just have our prior 98/ME/2000
discs.

"> There are a few reasons :

 

[Guest]

Or a maintenence format and reinstall. Which I do with my XP upgrade CD.
All I need is my 98/ME/2000 original CD.
Pete

 

[Thorsten]

That would be my concern.
As we're getting closer to buying, I see a lot of "Posters", who are not
your mainstream users, question the praticality of purchasing the Upgrade.
I will format my HD every 8 to 10 months for maintenence.
Does this mean I have to reinstall my XP every time?
We don't have to with an XP Upgrade disc. Just have our prior 98/ME/2000
discs.

"> There are a few reasons :

The process changed...

You will have to reinstall XP first, and then you can use your
VISTA-Upgrade-DVD.

 

[JW]

I think that the flowing link may ease your mind:

http://blogs.business2.com/beta/2007/01/microsoft_helps.html

 

[Colin Barnhorst]

When I asked this question during an MVP chat, the answer was that if XP is
ever removed from the activation servers MS will provide a different means
for users to reactivate. Such a decision has not been made and is not
anticipated, but likely it would be by means of a download that would
provide for dummy activation of some sort. In any case, MS says it is
committed to guaranteeing XP users that their software will never be
orphaned due to a suspension of XP activation services at MS.

 

[Colin Barnhorst]

You will have to install and activate XP each time you rebuild from scratch.
Or you can image the system just after upgrading to Vista and archive the
image.

 

[Colin Barnhorst]

Not any more. An XP cd is irrelevant to Vista. An upgrade edition only
checks for installed OS's.

 

[Thorsten]

You will have to install and activate XP each time you rebuild from
scratch. Or you can image the system just after upgrading to Vista and
archive the image.

Yes, I know the idea about imaging the partition..

But this only works when I have the same hardware..

When I upgrade my harddisc or my mainboard, I cannot use the image anymore..

I will have to reinstall from scratch.. And this will mean, first XP and
then vista upgrade.

The question now is.. What happens when the XP support periode is ended.
Will it still be possible to activate XP then ?

Because I will need a activated XP to install my vista upgrade.

 

[Paul-B]

The question now is.. What happens when the XP support periode is
ended.

As XP is going to be supported for 10 years the occasion is unlikely to
arise.

 

[David A. Lessnau]

Related to this, I thought the activation of a Vista Upgrade "ate" the
upgraded OS's (in this case, XP's) license (so a person can't upgrade to
Vista then turn around and set up the old OS on some other system). If
that's true, how will someone re-install and activate the old XP OS so they
can install Vista over the top?

 

[Colin Barnhorst]

It eats the license, but whether or not the product key is cancelled on the
MS servers is another, and unanswered, question. It is technically possible
and was done when users traded in their XP Pro x86 product keys for XP Pro
x64 during a special program a year ago. In such a case you would get an
"invalid product key" sort of message when activating. MS has not announced
that this will happen. I don't think so. MS knows that a user who has to
reconstruct his Vista operating system with an upgrade edition will need an
activated XP to build on.