Anytime Upgrade - License and Language?

[Guest]

I currently have the version of Vista Business in Japanese (I live in Japan).
I want to purchase the Anytime Upgrade for Ultimate, but I've checked the
FAQs and there's two questions I haven't found answers to:

1) When purchasing this upgrade, will my license go from OEM to the full
(transferable) retail version? The price seems to suggest/justify such a
change. If not, it's almost cheaper to buy the full Ultimate OEM version, and
practically worth it to just break down and buy the Ultimate Upgrade pack and
use my old XP license.

2) The Anytime Upgrade doesn't seem to be available in Japanese... from
inside the Japanese OS, if I select Anytime Upgrade it takes me to a page
with American retailers, naturally all in English. If I purchase the Anytime
Upgrade from them, will it work on the Japanese OS? Will it (hopefully...
magically?) turn my OS into English? I'm sure I can change the language with
the MUI in Ultimate, but I'm mostly curious if the English upgrade will
actually work on the Japanese version of Vista.

Thanks for the info!

 

[Guest]

1) The OEM license becomes a Retail Upgade license.
But, should you have to reinstall, you may have issues with the OEM
license. WAU does not provide a readily available Product Key which requires
you to reinstall the original software first and then upgrade. This hassle
can be bypassed, but may push legalities.

Non-English versions of Vista cannot be upgraded to English versions
(which may be why #2 exists below.)

2) WAU can be accessed from anywhere, but an actual purchase requires:
American billing address, American Credit Card

I don't really know why.

 

[Guest]

2) WAU can be accessed from anywhere, but an actual purchase requires:
American billing address, American Credit Card

I don't really know why.

Thanks for the reply! I have both, but Amazon is now telling me that the
download must be accessed from a US IP address. But even if I could get past
that hurdle, I have a more refined question:

Could the Anytime Upgrade, purchased from Amazon or another US retailer in
English, be used to upgrade the Japanese Vista Business to the Japanese Vista
Ultimate (using the same install disk)?

I may just end up buying Vista Ultimate from a US retailer and calling the
20000yen I spent on the OEM Business version a loss.

 

[Rock]

Thanks for the reply! I have both, but Amazon is now telling me that the
download must be accessed from a US IP address. But even if I could get
past
that hurdle, I have a more refined question:

Could the Anytime Upgrade, purchased from Amazon or another US retailer in
English, be used to upgrade the Japanese Vista Business to the Japanese
Vista
Ultimate (using the same install disk)?

I may just end up buying Vista Ultimate from a US retailer and calling the
20000yen I spent on the OEM Business version a loss.

Sorry I don't know the answer to your question about upgrading a Japanese
Vista Business version. I think you need to call MS directly with that
question.

Even if you could there is a restriction with the AU license that doesn't
exist with the other licenses. It can only be transferred to a different
device once. A regular retail license can be transferred as many times as
you want as long as it is only installed on one device. Based on this
restriction I don't find the AU license very attractive.

 

[Pecos]

Even if you could there is a restriction with the AU license that doesn't
exist with the other licenses. It can only be transferred to a different
device once. A regular retail license can be transferred as many times as
you want as long as it is only installed on one device. Based on this
restriction I don't find the AU license very attractive.

Hi Rock,

Microsoft has wisely relaxed the terms of the Anytime Upgrade license. The
Anytime Upgrade license replaces the original license whenever a Windows
Vista customer uses the Anytime Upgrade program to upgrade their version of
Vista.

As I read it, (and you should read it yourself for the full and correct
interpretation), they have removed the 'sell only once' and the 'sell only
with licensed device' restrictions of the Anytime Upgrade clause in the
original Vista EULA.

See http://www.mindspring.com/~anorton1/Vista_Confusion.html#Transfer
--
Alan Norton
Reviews of ABIT AN8 SLI, ECS P965T-A & Foxconn 975X7AB-8EKRS2H MBs
Vista Confusion, Missing Post Mystery & Playing the Rebate Game Articles
Arizona Pics and Cute Animal Pics
http://www.mindspring.com/~anorton1/

 

[Rock]

Hi Rock,

Microsoft has wisely relaxed the terms of the Anytime Upgrade license.
The Anytime Upgrade license replaces the original license whenever a
Windows Vista customer uses the Anytime Upgrade program to upgrade their
version of Vista.

As I read it, (and you should read it yourself for the full and correct
interpretation), they have removed the 'sell only once' and the 'sell only
with licensed device' restrictions of the Anytime Upgrade clause in the
original Vista EULA.

See http://www.mindspring.com/~anorton1/Vista_Confusion.html#Transfer

I did read it, a significant time after the original changes were made to
the retail license removing the restriction on moves. But it looks like
this is a very recent change. That's good too, I didn't understand why they
left it at one transfer when that restriction was lifted from the other
licenses. Maybe it was just an oversight?

In any event thanks for the update.