Anytime Upgrade

[Colin Barnhorst]

For those of you still trying to decide on what sku of Vista to purchase,
consider a few facts about Anytime Upgrade.

It is only for upgrading from one edition of Vista to another. You cannot
use Anytime Upgrade to upgrade from XP to Vista.

The only upgrades possible are:
HomeBasic to Home Premium
Home Basic to Ultimate
Home Premium to Ultimate
Business to Ultimate

Home Basic and Home Premium may not be upgraded to Business via Anytime
Upgrade.

(Enterprise is not available to the general public and the upgrade from
Business to Enterprise is only available to Software Assurance customers.)

You do not purchase the upgrade certificate from Microsoft. When you access
the Anytime Upgrade website, Anytime Upgrade checks your present edition of
Windows and advises you as to what options are available to you. You select
the option and then you are redirected to a page listing participating
Microsoft Partners (Best Buy, Amazon, etc) and you purchase the upgrade
certificate on the Partner's site.

You must have your Vista dvd to complete the upgrade processing.

It is always more expensive to use Anytime Upgrade to move to a higher
edition of Vista than it is to buy that edition in the first place. For
example, it will cost you more to buy Vista Home Basic and upgrade to Vista
Home Premium than to just buy Premium.

Anytime Upgrade certificates are one-time only and are tied to the computer
for which you purchased the certificate. Even if you purchase a retail
edition of Vista, only that edition can be transferred to another computer.
Example: I purchase Home Premium and install it. I buy an Anytime Upgrade
certificate for Ultimate. Later I buy a new computer and decide to transfer
my Vista to it. I can only transfer the original Home Premium. The upgrade
to Ultimate will not transfer because the way the certificate works it can
only be used on the original computer. It simply won't work on the new one.

The only way to recover an upgraded copy of Vista is with a full system
restore. The upgrade certificate is a one-time thing. If you have to do a
fresh installation of Vista from the dvd the upgrade certificate will not
work a second time.

My advice is to make up your mind what you want before buying Vista and not
get into this type of upgrading. When in doubt, buy up not down. If you
think you might want Ultimate eventually, buy Ultimate up front.

Let the flaming begin.

 

[David Sanders]

Any chance of changing their mind about this. Only being able to use the
upgrade once is not really fair to the customer.

 

[Mark D. VandenBerg]

So I can't "slipstream" an upgrade?

If I purchase a music file from iTunes, for example, and then reformat, I
can re-download the authorization for that file from iTunes. I realize that
piracy is an issue, but there will be a serious backlash from people who
purchase an upgrade and then later (think two years) re-format and can not
use their upgrade. Someone needs to rethink this.

 

[Tom Ziegmann]

The digital license that you receive as part of WAU can be stored in your
"digital locker" in case you do decide 2 years down the road you need to
reformat. After you reformat you can go into your "digital locker" and get
that license file and do the upgrade.

 

[Colin Barnhorst]

The Anytime Upgrade team got hit hard by this very question. No movement.

 

[Colin Barnhorst]

Thanks for the reminder. I forgot about the digital locker.

 

[Colin Barnhorst]

No. The upgrade doesn't work that way in Vista because the bits are already
on your dvd. The difference between editions is the manifests that list
what each edition includes. The WIM file contains all of these components
and they are single instance files. Change the manifest and you pull the
needed extra files from the WIM file. No need to slipstream. (Anyway it is
an upgrade and slipstreaming only applies to updates). Include everything
in the WIM file and voila, you have Ultimate. That is how Ultimate came
about. It is the pool from which all other editions are built.

 

[Mark D. VandenBerg]

Okay, not to sound sarcastic, but that is kind of an important part of the
process and solves my hypothetical issue.

Since it is well documented that I back-up on a religious level, this would
not be an issue for me. Also, since I agree with Colin in that I will
probably be purchasing a copy of Ultimate from the "get-go" and this will
not be an issue for me, but I can envision this scenario being a real issue
for many users.

Thank you both for the insight.

And totally off topic, for Colin:

Do you know someone at Cyberpower that I should speak with for a new
notebook? Falcon NW is really being nice to me right now but I want to
explore all my options. I will also look at Voodoo, if I can get a better
deal.

Email me direct if it is more comfortable.

 

[David Sanders]

Well, its no an "Anytime" upgrade, its an "Only-this-time"(tm) upgrade.

 

[Colin Barnhorst]

It is more like an "only on this machine" upgrade. It is ironic that with
XP only the base OEM license was non-transferrable, while with Anytime
Upgrade for Vista it is the upgrade certificate that is not transferrable.
I say just buy the edition you think you will eventually want up front and
don't depend on Anytime Upgrade. It is cheaper that way anyway.

 

[William]

Maybe Microsoft should give away Windows Vista for free to anyone who wants it and live off the profits from selling applications that are optimized for Windows Vista.

William
So I can't "slipstream" an upgrade?

If I purchase a music file from iTunes, for example, and then reformat, I
can re-download the authorization for that file from iTunes. I realize that
piracy is an issue, but there will be a serious backlash from people who
purchase an upgrade and then later (think two years) re-format and can not
use their upgrade. Someone needs to rethink this.

 

[Mario Rosario]

I think this is a policy issue rather than a technology issue. I believe it
has the capability to mutate from one edition to the other. Again this is
just a guess.

 

[Colin Barnhorst]

Setup could certainly be invoked to lay down a fresh copy of Vista according
to the manifest for the downgrade edition. But there could already be
files, etc on the hard drive that would crash the system due to the removal
of dependent features. There would certainly be elements that the installer
simply could not rationalize. A simple example might be, what to do with
the domain login part of a user's profile if Vista no longer supported
logging into a domain? It probably would be very expensive to test and work
out workarounds for all the possible combinations of things like that,
especially when dealing with one-time events following an installation. If
it is a policy decision, I'll bet it has to do with the cost of ensuring a
smooth transition from one edition to a lesser one.

 

[SAM-R]

All of the Vista DVDs contain 4 versions. Home Basic, Home Premium,
Business, and Premium. It is the key you use that determines what version
you get. For the CPP program all keys are for Premium only. Tech Beta, MSDN,
and TechNet Plus have a choice of which one of the 4 keys they want to use.