Questions regarding Anytime Upgrade

[dirty old man]

I am sorry if these questions have been asked before, but...

1) If I have Vista Business installed and purchase a key through
Anytime Upgrade for Vista Ultimate, can I just insert the Vista
DVD, supply the new key, and lay down Ultimate over the Business
install, or will I have to wipe out Business and install Ultimate fresh
with the new key?

2) If I decide to do a complete reinstall of Vista Ultimate, will I
have to first install Vista Business and then use the Anytime Upgrade
key to install Vista Ultimate?

dom

 

[Lee Steele]

The information you want can be found on Microsoft's website at this link:
http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/en-US/help/3af7e05f-4d2a-4af7-a168-9242f9093bb81033.mspx

Lee Steele

 

[Colin Barnhorst]

1. As the title implies it is an upgrade. You run Setup from your Vista
Business desktop, enter the AU pk, choose the upgrade option, and you get a
clean installation of Vista Ultimate (all installations of Vista are clean
whether you choose upgrade or custom). None of your files, settings, or
apps will be disturbed in the slightest.

2. Yes, you would start with Business again. MS recommends strongly that
you make an image backup of your system with it just the way you want it and
restore from that rather than reinstalling and reactivating a chain of
editions. I suggest you make two image backups, one for Business as a
fallback base system and one for Ultimate as your final base system before
further apps are added.

 

[dirty old man]

Thanks for the response.
Although, I didn't see my particular answers there.
Maybe it's just me.

dom

| The information you want can be found on Microsoft's website at this link:
| http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/en-US/help/3af7e05f-4d2a-4af7-a168-9242f9093bb81033.mspx
|
| Lee Steele
|
| | >I am sorry if these questions have been asked before, but...
| >
| > 1) If I have Vista Business installed and purchase a key through
| > Anytime Upgrade for Vista Ultimate, can I just insert the Vista
| > DVD, supply the new key, and lay down Ultimate over the Business
| > install, or will I have to wipe out Business and install Ultimate fresh
| > with the new key?
| >
| > 2) If I decide to do a complete reinstall of Vista Ultimate, will I
| > have to first install Vista Business and then use the Anytime Upgrade
| > key to install Vista Ultimate?
| >
| > dom
| >
| >
|

 

[dirty old man]

Thank you, Colin.

Damn, just one more product key to loose!
And one more necessary install!

I was hoping I could just toss the Business pk and do just one install
of Ultimate with the Anytime Upgrade pk alone.

Guess I'll keep Business for x64 and buy the full Ultimate for x86 so I
can use ALL my hardware and cope with one install and one image
at a time.

dom


| 1. As the title implies it is an upgrade. You run Setup from your Vista
| Business desktop, enter the AU pk, choose the upgrade option, and you get a
| clean installation of Vista Ultimate (all installations of Vista are clean
| whether you choose upgrade or custom). None of your files, settings, or
| apps will be disturbed in the slightest.
|
| 2. Yes, you would start with Business again. MS recommends strongly that
| you make an image backup of your system with it just the way you want it and
| restore from that rather than reinstalling and reactivating a chain of
| editions. I suggest you make two image backups, one for Business as a
| fallback base system and one for Ultimate as your final base system before
| further apps are added.
|
| | >I am sorry if these questions have been asked before, but...
| >
| > 1) If I have Vista Business installed and purchase a key through
| > Anytime Upgrade for Vista Ultimate, can I just insert the Vista
| > DVD, supply the new key, and lay down Ultimate over the Business
| > install, or will I have to wipe out Business and install Ultimate fresh
| > with the new key?
| >
| > 2) If I decide to do a complete reinstall of Vista Ultimate, will I
| > have to first install Vista Business and then use the Anytime Upgrade
| > key to install Vista Ultimate?
| >
| > dom
| >
| >
|

 

[Kevin Young]

1. As the title implies it is an upgrade. You run Setup from your Vista
Business desktop, enter the AU pk, choose the upgrade option, and you get
a clean installation of Vista Ultimate (all installations of Vista are
clean whether you choose upgrade or custom). None of your files,
settings, or apps will be disturbed in the slightest.

2. Yes, you would start with Business again. MS recommends strongly that
you make an image backup of your system with it just the way you want it
and restore from that rather than reinstalling and reactivating a chain of
editions. I suggest you make two image backups, one for Business as a
fallback base system and one for Ultimate as your final base system before
further apps are added.

Any recommendations on a fail safe image back-up program that will work with
Vista to create the image files?

 

[Tom Porterfield]

Any recommendations on a fail safe image back-up program that will work
with Vista to create the image files?

Windows Vista Business, Enterprise and Ultimate all include an image backup
program. You can learn more about that at
http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/en-US/Help/ca11e84f-fce6-4e3e-82ef-467870bb6baf1033.mspx.
My testing has shown this to be quite reliable.

In other versions of Vista, or other versions of Windows, I have always used
Bootit NG from http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/bootitng.html. One of the
many things it does is create images that can be burned to CD or DVD
(includes spanning support if needed). They also have a separate app called
Image for Windows that is more robust for creating images.

 

[DevilsPGD]

In message <uCh#[email protected]> "Colin Barnhorst"

2. Yes, you would start with Business again. MS recommends strongly that
you make an image backup of your system with it just the way you want it and
restore from that rather than reinstalling and reactivating a chain of
editions. I suggest you make two image backups, one for Business as a
fallback base system and one for Ultimate as your final base system before
further apps are added.

Makes sense, activation call centers can't be cheap.

In fairness, for your average end user this probably makes sense.
Personally, I've usually changed enough hardware that a clean install
makes more sense.

 

[Colin Barnhorst]

No. I'm afraid not. I don't like the idea of two and three tiered upgrades
at all. I am sticking to full editions. That doesn't mean I think everyone
should, but everyone has his own comfort zone about such things.

 

[Colin Barnhorst]

We all have to get used to what a clean install means in Vista. With
upgrades you cannot do it. However, since all installations of Vista,
upgrade or custom, are clean installs of the OS a custom installation comes
close enough.

 

[Richard Urban]

TrueImage HOME Edition 10.0 (with the updates) works great with Vista.

http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/products/trueimage/

Don't compute without it!

--


Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User
(For email, remove the obvious from my address)

Quote from George Ankner:
If you knew as much as you think you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!

 

[DevilsPGD]

In message <[email protected]> "Colin Barnhorst"

We all have to get used to what a clean install means in Vista. With
upgrades you cannot do it. However, since all installations of Vista,
upgrade or custom, are clean installs of the OS a custom installation comes
close enough.

Yeah... We'll see how the user experience pans out.