Apparently you cant install in certain ways

[Colin Barnhorst]

No, I don't.

If it is a retail upgrade edition of XP and you remove the Vista upgrade
edition completely from the machine you should be able to transfer the
upgrade edition of XP to another machine because it is a retail and not an
OEM edition of XP. Any retail upgrade edition of Windows may be
transferred to another computer. If you are not using the Vista upgrade
edition license any more how can you still be tieing the XP license to it?

 

[Diamontina Cocktail]

XP Pro entitles you to purchase any of the four upgrade editions, Home
Basic, Home Premium, Business, or Ultimate. If you purchase one of the
Home upgrade editions you must do a custom install. If you purchase
Business or Ultimate you may do either an upgrade or custom install.

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsvista/getready/upgradeinfo.mspx says with XP
Pro I can not do anything other than a clean install from XP Pro (the
non-x64 edition I mean) to Vista. See the chart there. Many home users use
Pro version and wish to go to Vista but not a corporate version. So, they
either pay for the higher cost Vista or do a clean install losing installed
programs and having to reinstall them again.

 

[Diamontina Cocktail]

Sheesh. It is the SAME THING to multitudes of people and law courts across
the planet. I am not buying the company, I am buying the OS to use on my
computer.

 

[Diamontina Cocktail]

You may have a point about there being a difference in Australia
(been there -- had a great time) and other countries outside the US.
But at least here in the US, the EULA is legally binding and enforceable,

Yeah sorry but from what I have read up to date - and I may have missed
something this month for all I know as I havent been closely looking - it is
STILL a debate as to whether clicking you agree on an OS EULA is actually
something that can be used in court against the person doing the clicking.
After all, if you are presented with the chance to give your brand new Rolls
Royce car keys to the man in front of you for no return or get a bullet in
the head, you probably realise that you cant use the Rolls when dead but you
CAN use your life with the Rolls gone. The Eula is before the experience,
too, which is entirely another point that hasnt been resolved, either. It
isnt as if you get Vista as shareware after all.

and here in the US, one does not really own the software and
one only owns the license to use the software. The right to use the

No difference. I bought a legal XP licence. I buy a legal Vista upgrade
licence. Suddenly, after Vista upgrade I am down one licence but I havent
gotten the value of that licence back.

old software is forfeited when one uses the Upgrade edition and
clicks the "I Agree" button.

I still believe that even in USA that point hasnt been 100% clarified.

 

[Diamontina Cocktail]

The difference is in the installers. The installer is the software that
ensures that the installation is in accordance with the license.

Here's an interesting question:

I install the Vista upgrade of my choice and it goes well and all is working
and now my XP licence is toast. 2 months later, I stupidly click on an email
link saying I won millions of bucks and click here to pick it up. I don't
have any antivirus. Well what did you expect if I clicked on that link?
Anyway, I click, machine sprays nice sounds and colours and turns crashes. I
hit the reset button and nada. I realise what an idiotic thing that was to
do, call "Joe the PC Repairman" and he comes out, sees I have Vista,
installs XP in order to upgrade to Vista once more. First off, will Vista
say "Nope that licence is invalid now so you cant have Vista?" seeing it was
used only a short time ago to do the exact same thing - eg, upgrade?
Secondly, did anyone at Microsoft actually think how long it is going to
take to install XP again and upgrade to Vista in such circumstances thus how
much EXTRA it is going to cost a customer to fix problems?

BTW, doesn't have to be an idiot. Could be a burned out motor on the HD and
you buy a new blank one that caused all this and the person was too stupid
to have done image backups.

 

[Diamontina Cocktail]

Interesting point. Thanks.

 

[Colin Barnhorst]

You are correct. Anyone running XP Pro x86 who wants to buy either an
upgrade or full edition of Vista Home Premium will have the upgrade install
option disabled and must perform a custom installation. This is not an
upgrade-in-place, of course, so the user must do a migration in which he
saves his files and settings for restoration later and must reinstall his
apps.

I think that the problem is one of expectations. Users read the words
"upgrade edition" and assume at first that this means a quick, simple
upgrade-in-place. Unfortunately, upgrade edition refers to the pricing and
licensing rather than to a set procedure all can use.

A home user running XP Pro can easily forget that he is running a business
OS so it is quite a surprise when he finds out that he cannot just upgrade
the bits when adoping a home OS for XP Pro's successor.

But then, now is the time some will take advantage of upgrade pricing to
migrate from x86 to x64 and that can only be done by a migration anyway so
things are not so bad.

 

[Colin Barnhorst]

Probably the best prevention is to image the completed Vista upgrade before
installing any apps other than the image backup software.

Most won't think to do that, so for them it should not be a problem to
reinstall and reactivate the legacy OS and then upgrade to Vista again. MS
is well aware of all these scenarios and is not interested in blocking them.
The most I think might happen is that you might be instructed to use
telephone activation. The activation center's job is to make sure that you
are not attempting to use a single license on two or more computers. Once
they determine that the legacy license is being used to recover your Vista I
see no reason why they would be other than very helpful.

 

[miss-information]

I bought a legal XP licence. I buy a legal Vista upgrade
licence. Suddenly, after Vista upgrade I am down one licence but I havent
gotten the value of that licence back.

XP Pro upgrade retail CD = $150.00 + Vista Ultimate upgrade retail DVD =
$250.00 = $400.00

Vista Ultimate Full version retail DVD = $400.00

"value"?

mi

 

[Diamontina Cocktail]

You are correct. Anyone running XP Pro x86 who wants to buy either an
upgrade or full edition of Vista Home Premium will have the upgrade
install option disabled and must perform a custom installation. This is
not an upgrade-in-place, of course, so the user must do a migration in
which he saves his files and settings for restoration later and must
reinstall his apps.

I think that the problem is one of expectations. Users read the words
"upgrade edition" and assume at first that this means a quick, simple
upgrade-in-place. Unfortunately, upgrade edition refers to the pricing
and licensing rather than to a set procedure all can use.

Well, no-one but Microsoft is to blame for that, then. Previous upgrade
Windows disks I have all say they are upgrade editions. It was as simple as
booting your machine in its old OS, putting the CD in and saying yes you did
want to upgrade and away it went, did its thing and then an hour later
(generally speaking) you had the new OS in place. If they meant something
different to all that with Vista (and please, I am not doubting you), then
they should have been one hell of a lot more careful in their wording. This
is only going to cost them a lot of money with people on the phone
needlessly.

A home user running XP Pro can easily forget that he is running a business
OS so it is quite a surprise when he finds out that he cannot just upgrade
the bits when adoping a home OS for XP Pro's successor.

Yes, that is true but you seem to forget - as is evident that Microsoft
does - that these days, thanks in no small part to Microsoft Windows XP -
many businesses are one person affairs running from home. Xp Pro is used for
various reasons that are valid by these single person companies. While they
are single person, often they hire someone for a few days to work on things
that can only be accessed at their computer. I even have a law firm customer
who had an office fire and lost all records. The partners moved the work to
everyone's homes while they decided where to move to, next. Ultimately they
decided that things were happier and more productive where they were forced
to go - home. Now they use internet the way that you would think a business
should use it, everyone reports to their computer, they have teleconferences
(though really they are only within a 30 minute drive of each other) and if
something is hand written it is scanned and sent for typing to the right
person and if a dictation for typing, recorded directly to the computer and
emailed to the right person yet again. No office means no rent cost. Whoever
needs a printer, a scanner, whatever to get the business done had one bought
for them and they get to use them for personal needs. It really is a very
good setup and was forced upon them but with discussion they realised that
it could stay this way. Imagine getting out of bed and turning the computer
on to go to work for a law firm. Everyone loves it. These people wont be
able to upgrade unless the more expensive Vista is bought for them.

But then, now is the time some will take advantage of upgrade pricing to
migrate from x86 to x64 and that can only be done by a migration anyway so
things are not so bad.

From the user point of view, I have to disagree emphatically.

 

[Diamontina Cocktail]

Probably the best prevention is to image the completed Vista upgrade
before installing any apps other than the image backup software.

I'd agree with that. Good thought. Now the only problem will be - does the
image software really work with Vista? Acronis say True Image 10 does but I
often find the proof of the pudding is in the eating, as they say.

Most won't think to do that, so for them it should not be a problem to
reinstall and reactivate the legacy OS and then upgrade to Vista again.
MS is well aware of all these scenarios and is not interested in blocking
them. The most I think might happen is that you might be instructed to use
telephone activation. The activation center's job is to make sure that
you are not attempting to use a single license on two or more computers.
Once they determine that the legacy license is being used to recover your
Vista I see no reason why they would be other than very helpful.

I have often wondered this with XP. I made a major change with my own XP at
one stage and it wanted to reactivate within 3 days and I sent it to
Internet to do that automatically and it did it. Not a long time later, the
file (name forgotten) that tells Windows it is an activated copy was
corrupted and it wanted activation again so I sent it for it and it wouldnt
do it on the net. I rang MS and it wouldnt do it on the phone program and
sent me to an operator. I explained what had happened and they kindly said
OK and gave me the numbers to activate it. Now all this DID happen the way I
said and sure I could have avoided it by restoring from backup but I decided
activating was easier, silly me. Anyway, I now had my XP activated again but
how did the operator know I was telling the truth?

 

[Colin Barnhorst]

Not if you tried to upgrade from Windows 2000 to XP Home. That required a
clean installation of XP Home even though you were eligible for upgrade
pricing since you owned an earlier, qualifying edition of Windows.

 

[Colin Barnhorst]

I'd double-check with Acronis. The Disk Director is not fully functional at
last report but I believe that True Image is. If it isn't it soon will be.
Probably by launch.

The activation center operators are instructed to question you about your
use of the product and unless they discover an out-of-compliance issue (such
a trying to transfer an OEM copy to another computer or installation of a
retail copy on two computers at once) they will activate you. They are
pretty experienced at detecting when someone is telling a fish story. Don't
worry about it.

 

[Colin Barnhorst]

Vista Ultimate is NOT the equivalent of XP Pro. Vista Business is the
equivalent of XP Pro. Vista Ultimate has no XP equivalent.

 

[MICHAEL]

True Image 10 works well in Vista. I've tested one
image- flawless.

-Michael

 

[miss-information]

Vista Ultimate is NOT the equivalent of XP Pro. Vista Business is the
equivalent of XP Pro. Vista Ultimate has no XP equivalent.

No sh%t! So what is your POINT?

The OP has his panties in a wad and I used the most expensive option
scenario to show that value wise it is a wash. For myself I will buy the
Ultimate upgrade for my desktop PC and then purchase two Vista Home Premium
editions @ MS pricing of $50.00 for my husbands desktop and my laptop. Which
increases the value of the total package even more.

mi

 

[Diamontina Cocktail]

No sh%t! So what is your POINT?

The OP has his panties in a wad and I used the most expensive option
scenario to show that value wise it is a wash. For myself I will buy the
Ultimate upgrade for my desktop PC and then purchase two Vista Home
Premium editions @ MS pricing of $50.00 for my husbands desktop and my
laptop. Which increases the value of the total package even more.

Yeah, that option available for the world as seen by most large American
companies - America and Canada and the rest of us can get stuffed.

 

[Diamontina Cocktail]

I'd double-check with Acronis. The Disk Director is not fully functional
at last report but I believe that True Image is. If it isn't it soon will
be. Probably by launch.

I can attest that Disk Director isnt. You dont want your machine to crash
when using it. You have to uninstall every single Acronis product and put
them back again before they will see that you actually have a hard disk in
your machine.

The activation center operators are instructed to question you about your
use of the product and unless they discover an out-of-compliance issue
(such a trying to transfer an OEM copy to another computer or installation
of a retail copy on two computers at once) they will activate you. They
are pretty experienced at detecting when someone is telling a fish story.
Don't worry about it.

Still, there are sales people all over the place that can sell people a
story.

 

[MICHAEL]

I would think Media Center would come close. It is WinXP Pro
plus the Media Center additions.

-Michael