Bought the wrong Vista Edition

[Guest]

I have an IBM Thinkpad with XP Pro. It passed all the hardware checks in the
Vista Upgrade Advisor and IBM/Lenovo has upgraded drivers and Vista
instructions. I bought a retail version of Vista Home Premium.

IBM/Lenovos upgrade instructions are to do an upgrade but during the install
Vista said I'd need Business or Ultimate to upgrade from XP Pro. I went
ahead and made a fresh install. Afterwards, I couldn't attach to the
Internet. My Ethernet adapter said it was working correctly but there was a
second "Other" Ethernet Controller that didn't have a driver. Vistga
couldn't find my built in wireless adapter either. After trying
unsuccessfully to install drivers all day I contacted MS support from another
XP machine. It said I wasn't eligible for the 90 day support and they wanted
$60 for an incident report. I suspect it may have been because I was on a
separate machine - since Vista wouldn't connect.

In any event, I spent the rest of the day rebuilding the machine back to XP.

I hate to have wasted the $160 on Vista Home Premium. I may be willing to
go the extra for Ultimate but only if I can pay the difference between the
two. Or I suppose, I can give up, write of the $160 and stay with XP.

Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks.

 

[Michael Jennings]

Here is my modest proposal:
Send Vista Home Premium back. Wait for the refund check. When you
get the $160, then buy the Vista Ultimate upgrade. It gives you a month
or two to cool off, and it puts an aggravation on Microsoft.

 

[Chad Harris]

Steve --

You bought a retail version of VHP.

To upgrade from XP Pro these are the paths:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/windowsvista/buyorupgrade/upgradepaths.mspx

Seems to me you have 3 choices:

1) Return to seller and see if they'll take it back.
2) Return to MSFT using this info if in NA:
http://www.microsoft.com/mscorp/productrefund/refund.asp

3) Try upgrading using this method:

http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=196#more-196

CH

 

[Guest]

OK. Thanks. I may try it.
--
SteveB

Here is my modest proposal:
Send Vista Home Premium back. Wait for the refund check. When you
get the $160, then buy the Vista Ultimate upgrade. It gives you a month
or two to cool off, and it puts an aggravation on Microsoft.

 

[Pete]

Your answer is here:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/windowsvista/buyorupgrade/upgradepaths.mspx

 

[AJR]

Steve - did you install another card after Vista installation?

 

[AJR]

Steve - I did not read the previous replies to your post. I asked if you
had installed a network card because many ThinkPad's(not all) had a BIOS
listing of cards and if an installed card did not "match" the listing the
result was a note about "another card..." and failure to recognize a card.

 

[Rock]

I have an IBM Thinkpad with XP Pro. It passed all the hardware checks in
the
Vista Upgrade Advisor and IBM/Lenovo has upgraded drivers and Vista
instructions. I bought a retail version of Vista Home Premium.

IBM/Lenovos upgrade instructions are to do an upgrade but during the
install
Vista said I'd need Business or Ultimate to upgrade from XP Pro. I went
ahead and made a fresh install. Afterwards, I couldn't attach to the
Internet. My Ethernet adapter said it was working correctly but there was
a
second "Other" Ethernet Controller that didn't have a driver. Vistga
couldn't find my built in wireless adapter either. After trying
unsuccessfully to install drivers all day I contacted MS support from
another
XP machine. It said I wasn't eligible for the 90 day support and they
wanted
$60 for an incident report. I suspect it may have been because I was on a
separate machine - since Vista wouldn't connect.

In any event, I spent the rest of the day rebuilding the machine back to
XP.

I hate to have wasted the $160 on Vista Home Premium. I may be willing to
go the extra for Ultimate but only if I can pay the difference between the
two. Or I suppose, I can give up, write of the $160 and stay with XP.

Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks.

Whatever version of Vista you use, you'll still have to address the problems
that appeared here after the clean install. Using Ultimate isn't going to
change that.

 

[Guest]

Thanks to all - especially Chris. I went to the blog you provided and
followed the procedure. I'm now installed and on the Internet with an
activated license. It took most of this weekend but all seems to be well.

Thanks again for everyone's help.