Dual booting with Vista upgrade editions (yellow dot scenarios)

[Colin Barnhorst]

I have been running tests today with an upgrade edition product key. It
turns out that an upgrade edition product key is sufficient for setting up
dual boot systems. I must admitted I am surprised that an installation
using an upgrade edition product key to a target volume other than the OS
being upgraded is tolerated.

The results of x86 scenarios with upgrade disabled (yellow dots in the
upgrade matrix) so far are:

Dual drive system with Windows 2000 Professional SP4 on drive 0, drive 1
empty. 768MB ram.

Ran Vista x86 Setup with an upgrade edition pk for VHP from the W2k desktop.
Disk Options are not available, therefore modifications to the disks are not
possible from Setup (no ability to format the target from within Setup).
Any modifications need to be made in W2k prior to running Vista Setup.
Upgrade option disabled. Custom option permits a choice of disk 0 or disk
1. Selection of disk 1 results in installation of Vista to drive E: and a
dual boot options menu. Both W2k and VHP boot as expected.

Dual drive system with Windows XP Professional SP2 on drive 0, drive 1 is
empty. 512MB of ram.

Ran Vista x86 Setup with an upgrade edition pk for VHP from the XP desktop.
As expected, disk options are not available, yada yada yada. Again the
custom option permits a choice of target volume and selection of drive 1
results in a dual boot system with both XP and Vista fully functional.

This appears to violate the EULA since it permits the continued use of the
legacy system, but it is not blocked.

I am about to switch to the upgrade-enabled scenarios (green dots) to check
if there is any difference. I am also going to spend some time on the x64
scenarios to see what additional tools are available and to investigate the
very discouraging results using an x86 upgrade pk with XP Pro x64 and Vista
x64 as the legacy systems. I am not using virtual machines because of the
licensing issue so this all takes some time.

 

[MICHAEL]

Great information, Colin.

I have been wondering where you had been all day...
you've been busy.

Please, help clear up some the confusion.

-Michael

 

[Rock]

I have been running tests today with an upgrade edition product key. It
turns out that an upgrade edition product key is sufficient for setting up
dual boot systems. I must admitted I am surprised that an installation
using an upgrade edition product key to a target volume other than the OS
being upgraded is tolerated.

The results of x86 scenarios with upgrade disabled (yellow dots in the
upgrade matrix) so far are:

Dual drive system with Windows 2000 Professional SP4 on drive 0, drive 1
empty. 768MB ram.

Ran Vista x86 Setup with an upgrade edition pk for VHP from the W2k
desktop. Disk Options are not available, therefore modifications to the
disks are not possible from Setup (no ability to format the target from
within Setup). Any modifications need to be made in W2k prior to running
Vista Setup. Upgrade option disabled. Custom option permits a choice of
disk 0 or disk 1. Selection of disk 1 results in installation of Vista to
drive E: and a dual boot options menu. Both W2k and VHP boot as expected.

Dual drive system with Windows XP Professional SP2 on drive 0, drive 1 is
empty. 512MB of ram.

Ran Vista x86 Setup with an upgrade edition pk for VHP from the XP
desktop. As expected, disk options are not available, yada yada yada.
Again the custom option permits a choice of target volume and selection of
drive 1 results in a dual boot system with both XP and Vista fully
functional.

This appears to violate the EULA since it permits the continued use of the
legacy system, but it is not blocked.

I am about to switch to the upgrade-enabled scenarios (green dots) to
check if there is any difference. I am also going to spend some time on
the x64 scenarios to see what additional tools are available and to
investigate the very discouraging results using an x86 upgrade pk with XP
Pro x64 and Vista x64 as the legacy systems. I am not using virtual
machines because of the licensing issue so this all takes some time.

Thanks Colin. Yes, it's surprising the dual boot is not blocked. Are you
going to do the double install method for installing with an upgrade pk
without the qualifying OS to see what happens?

 

[Colin Barnhorst]

No. I bought VHP upgrade edition off of Amazon so I could run these tests.
I plan to give it to my grandson when I am done. I am being careful not to
activate on any of the tests and that scenario should include activation to
see if it really works. What I am actually doing is installing from an MSDN
dvd using just the pk from the purchased box. I want to keep my gift fresh
so anything requiring activation is out. Naturally I uncheck the "activate
when I get online" box each run.

Anyway, that scenario may be outside of the scope of the license and I am
being very very wary about advising users to use it. My advice is don't
unless you have checked with a Microsoft local office for an official
opinion. I don't use upgrade edititions so I don't really care.

 

[Dennis Pack]

Colin:
Great work. I looks like the information that we've been given is
how the system should work on paper, but how it works in reality is another
story. Have a great day.

 

[Chad Harris]

Good work and good information.

I've been wondering what the purpose of the choice of editions when you
install is, since the code is the code and what is going to set up is
determined by the code on the DVD. If you don't have the code for MCE or bit
locker, on Vista Business, it's not going to show up because you check
"Ultimate."

I wonder if it only shows up when you bypass putting in a product key. I
setup Vista today and it completed expanding files>rebooted>asked me to put
in the PK again in setup. It wouldn't take the PK the second time, so I
bypassed it, then decided to abort it and went back to an XP boot and when I
realized that there was a normal sized Vista on the drive through
Diskmangement, I restarted and selected Vista and it booted up to complete
the setup. So I can't remember if the the pull down for editions will
occur if you put the product key in but I'm pretty sure it doesn't.

CH

 

[Colin Barnhorst]

I forgot to mention that the time to do a custom install is affected
adversely by ram below 768MB. At 512MB the "expanding files" stage takes
much longer than at 768MB. Other stages are about the same at 512MB as
768MB. Ram above 768MB does not have much effect on the time for expanding
files. 768MB seems to be about the sweet spot for quick custom
installations.

 

[Colin Barnhorst]

The choice of editions is when you bypass entering the pk. It knows what
edition you want when you put in the pk so it doesn't need to ask.

The dvd contains manifests for each edition. I don't think that there are
different manifests for upgrade or full. However, the pk tells Setup
whether you are licensing as a full or upgrade edition and so changes the
behavior of Setup, but not the content of the edition you are installing.
That is determined by the manifest. A pk for Ultimate will get you the same
Ultimate regardless of whether the pk is upgrade or full.

The Windows image file contains all possible files for all editions of
Vista. No file appears twice (single-instancing) even if the manifest calls
for multiple installations of the same file during an installation. The
manifest for each edition tells Setup what to use from the Wim file to
install the edition. This is how they got all the editions on one dvd.

 

[Rock]

Lol, I didn't think you would.

No. I bought VHP upgrade edition off of Amazon so I could run these
tests. I plan to give it to my grandson when I am done. I am being
careful not to activate on any of the tests and that scenario should
include activation to see if it really works. What I am actually doing is
installing from an MSDN dvd using just the pk from the purchased box. I
want to keep my gift fresh so anything requiring activation is out.
Naturally I uncheck the "activate when I get online" box each run.

Anyway, that scenario may be outside of the scope of the license and I am
being very very wary about advising users to use it. My advice is don't
unless you have checked with a Microsoft local office for an official
opinion. I don't use upgrade edititions so I don't really care.

 

[Bill Condie]

Could someone explain these Yellow dots and Green dots?

 

[Ronnie Vernon MVP]

Bill

They are shown in the upgrade matrix on the following website. About half
way down the page.

Windows Vista: Upgrade Paths from Previous Versions:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/windowsvista/buyorupgrade/upgradepaths.mspx


--


Ronnie Vernon
Microsoft MVP
Windows Shell/User

 

[Tom Porterfield]

I have been running tests today with an upgrade edition product key. It
turns out that an upgrade edition product key is sufficient for setting up
dual boot systems. I must admitted I am surprised that an installation
using an upgrade edition product key to a target volume other than the OS
being upgraded is tolerated.

Thanks for taking the time to run these various scenarios, it helps
tremendously.

 

[Chad Harris]

Thanks. This is interesting info I don't think I could have found easily or
at all.

CH

 

[Kerry Brown]

Thank you for all the hard work. It clears up a lot. Do you have a web site
where you can make this accessible? It's a lot of work and it would be nice
to have somewhere to link to when people ask the questions.

 

[Ronnie Vernon MVP]

Colin

Thank You very much for posting the information and for going to the trouble
of documenting this. It answers a bunch of tough questions.

--


Ronnie Vernon
Microsoft MVP
Windows Shell/User

 

[Colin Barnhorst]

A green dot means that the upgrade option is enabled in Setup so you can
perform either an upgrade-in-place or do a custom install, your choice.

A yellow dot means that the upgrade option is disabled and you must do a
custom install.

 

[Colin Barnhorst]

No, I don't have a web site. Sorry.

 

[Kerry Brown]

If you're interested in writing it up I'd be happy to put it on my site.

 

[Ronnie Vernon MVP]

Excellent idea, Kerry.

It would be good to have all of this information in one place.

 

[Colin Barnhorst]

If windowsreinstall.com doesn't I'll consider it. I think they will and
they do an excellent job of covering all the angles.