Upgrading from OEM to Retail edition

[Sushubh]

I bought a Dell Inspiron notebook which came with Vista Home Premium OS.

Now, I own a Vista Ultimate retail set which I bought seperately...

How can I upgrade my notebook to the Ultimate edition?

Would it require a reinstallation?

Basically I had read somewhere that all Vista DVDs contain the single
installation and the serial key decide which edition it ends up working as.

So, I believe I can just use that Ultimate key to convert my Home to
Ultimate edition...

Comments...

 

[Richard G. Harper]

You should be able to simply use your Ultimate disc and key to upgrade the
existing OEM copy - but I must say I have not personally done this so I
cannot 100% guarantee it will be painless or without problems.

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[Andre Da Costa[ActiveWin]]

Windows Vista Ultimate is a subset of Home Premium, so you will be presented
with the option to Upgrade. Your product key for Ultimate already determines
what will be installed or upgraded to, if you choose not to enter a product
key during setup, you will be presented with a selection of Vista SKUs to
choose from.

 

[Iain]

I bought a Dell Inspiron notebook which came with Vista Home Premium OS.

Now, I own a Vista Ultimate retail set which I bought seperately...

How can I upgrade my notebook to the Ultimate edition?

Would it require a reinstallation?

Basically I had read somewhere that all Vista DVDs contain the single
installation and the serial key decide which edition it ends up working as.

So, I believe I can just use that Ultimate key to convert my Home to
Ultimate edition...

Comments...

I purchased my Toshiba P205 laptop, which came with Home Premium
preinstalled, in August.

Last month, I upgraded to Ultimate.

Upgrade was simple. Just install your upgrade disk in DVD drive, enter
product key located on inside front cover. Vista will then offer you two
upgrade options:
1) Full complete install, which will overwrite everything
2) Preserve existing environment, which completely installs Ultimate,
but preserves everything on disk.

I chose item 2.

Upgrade was painless and fast. Activation code can be obtained from MS
either online or via telephone; either way, you have 30 days to do so.
Later I ran cleanup tool.

Recommend you perform a full backup before upgrade.