Installing Vista home Premium over Vista Business

[Daniel G.]

Hello everyone,
I recently bought a Refurbished Dell 1525 from Dell outlet. The online
specifications for this particular machine said was loaded with
Windows Vista Business. However, when I got the machine it was in fact
loaded with Vista Business but did not include an operating system
install disc of any kind. Also, the build sheet that came with this
laptop states it should be loaded with Vista Home Premium but again,
there was no OS install disk of any kind.

I called Dell and after speaking with five different people and being
disconnected once I finally found a representative who told me this
machine should have come with Vista Home Premium and said she would be
sending the install discs for home premium. However, today in the mail
I received the DVD but it states it's for reinstalling the OS that's
already installed on the laptop. I'm assuming since Vista Business is
the OS already installed on the laptop, trying to install Vista Home
Premium with this DVD would not be possible? Or, does the Home Premium
install disc treat this like an upgrade from Vista Business to Home
Premium?

I figured I would ask around before spending several hours on the
phone with Dell! Thanks in advance for any information.

 

[Earle Horton]

My Dell came with reinstall disks but apparently you have to ask for them
now. They can be used for installing the system from scratch, which is
necessary if you have to replace the hard disk for example. The message
about reinstalling the OS that is already on the laptop is for the retail
consumer, so that they don't think they have to do anything with the disks
when they take them out of the box. Normally, you would just store them in
a safe place.

Did you get a drivers disk? That is a good thing to have too, although
current drivers should be on the support.dell.com web site.

Does the computer have a Windows Vista Certificate of Authenticity and
Product ID on it somewhere? If so, that determines which version of Vista
you actually have the rights to use. If so, it will say Home Premium or
Business on the sticker. OEM copies of Windows distributed installed on a
computer are supposed to come with a Certifcate of Authority, usually stuck
to the computer case. Make sure you have a Vista Home Premium Product ID
before attempting to install Vista Home Premium.

Look under Computer for a System Recovery Partition, about ten Gigabytes in
size. New Dells come with this in place. You can use the reinstall disk to
make this a bootable partition. Once you do that you will find a program
called (I think) PCRestore that can be used to restore the system to factory
defaults. Since this is a refurbished machine with Vista Business installed
I am not sure what you will have.

I don't think you can upgrade from Business to Home Premium. You may have
to do a replacement or repair install. That is why you want to make sure
you have the proper Product ID on your computer.

Earle

 

[LVTravel]

Hello everyone,
I recently bought a Refurbished Dell 1525 from Dell outlet. The online
specifications for this particular machine said was loaded with
Windows Vista Business. However, when I got the machine it was in fact
loaded with Vista Business but did not include an operating system
install disc of any kind. Also, the build sheet that came with this
laptop states it should be loaded with Vista Home Premium but again,
there was no OS install disk of any kind.

I called Dell and after speaking with five different people and being
disconnected once I finally found a representative who told me this
machine should have come with Vista Home Premium and said she would be
sending the install discs for home premium. However, today in the mail
I received the DVD but it states it's for reinstalling the OS that's
already installed on the laptop. I'm assuming since Vista Business is
the OS already installed on the laptop, trying to install Vista Home
Premium with this DVD would not be possible? Or, does the Home Premium
install disc treat this like an upgrade from Vista Business to Home
Premium?

I figured I would ask around before spending several hours on the
phone with Dell! Thanks in advance for any information.

When you boot from the DVD and use the install key that is located on the
bottom (laptop) or back or top (desktop) of the computer (should be there as
it is a Dell machine) it will install the correct version of the OS. Vista
disks are different than the ones for XP. XP had a disk for each version
while Vista disks contain all the different OS versions and rely on the key
to "turn on" the correct version. Of course 32 bit Vista comes on one disk
and 64 bit comes on a different disk.

When you do the install, you do realize that all data on the computer will
be removed so make sure that you backup your data first. Ensure that the
computer is booted from the DVD and select to remove and overwrite the
previous install.

 

[RalfG]

Regardless of whether recovery discs came with the computer it should have a
recovery partition on the harddrive that you can access by pressing ctrl and
F11 while booting the computer. An exception might be if someone overwrote
the existing DELL installation with a new OS. The recovery discs you get
from Dell should indicate which version of Vista is on them. I saw both
Vista Home Basic and Premium listed as possible OS for this machine so odds
are the discs you get will be one of those.

http://www1.ca.dell.com/content/products/productdetails.aspx/inspnnb_1525?c=ca&l=en&s=dhs&cs=cadhs1

Recovery discs aren't like retail Vista installation discs. The recovery
disc is typically a mirror image (clone) of the installed OS, drivers and
software that were bundled on that computer. Not sure but I don't think
Vista Home Premium is a legitimate upgrade for Vista Business edition, which
would mean you'd have to do a clean install of a retail version of Home
Premium. A clean reinstallation of the OS from a Vista disc could be
problematic if you cannot source the various hardware drivers you'd need.

 

[Daniel G.]

I'm assuming since Vista Business is

When you boot from the DVD and use the install key that is located on the
bottom (laptop) or back or top (desktop) of the computer (should be there as
it is a Dell machine) it will install the correct version of the OS. Vista
disks are different than the ones for XP. XP had a disk for each version
while Vista disks contain all the different OS versions and rely on the key
to "turn on" the correct version. Of course 32 bit Vista comes on one disk
and 64 bit comes on a different disk.

When you do the install, you do realize that all data on the computer will
be removed so make sure that you backup your data first. Ensure that the
computer is booted from the DVD and select to remove and overwrite the
previous install.

Thanks for all the replies. Vista Business is the OS listed on the
bottom. LV, just to confirm, your saying I cloud use the Home Premium
DVD Dell sent to rei-install Vista business should the need arise?

Thank!