Vista Upgrade Coupon

[Guest]

I read that MSFT plans to give coupons to customers buying PCs from October
26 to allow them to upgrade to Vista for free once its out.

I'm sure MS did the same when XP was nearing release (I don't recall the
details) but my question is would the coupon be good for a Full version of
Vista or just an upgrade version, in which case requiring the user to have XP
pre-installed and running and be able to only run an upgrade routine.

It would be great if that coupon was for a full version allowing clean
installs from a formatted HD.

Anyone have any idea which will be the case?

 

[Tom Porterfield]

I read that MSFT plans to give coupons to customers buying PCs from
October 26 to allow them to upgrade to Vista for free once its out.

I'm sure MS did the same when XP was nearing release (I don't recall the
details) but my question is would the coupon be good for a Full version of
Vista or just an upgrade version, in which case requiring the user to
have XP pre-installed and running and be able to only run an upgrade
routine.

It would be great if that coupon was for a full version allowing clean
installs from a formatted HD.

Anyone have any idea which will be the case?

All of the articles on this indicate it is a Windows Vista Upgrade coupon,
so I would not expect a clean install version. You are correct in that they
did this with Windows XP as well. But important details is that the coupon
will be offered through the PC manufacturer, not directly from Microsoft.
So you'll need to purchase from an OEM that is taking part in the free
upgrade program. When they did this with XP, it was an upgrade version of
XP that most PC manufacturers sent.

 

[Dan W.]

All of the articles on this indicate it is a Windows Vista Upgrade
coupon, so I would not expect a clean install version. You are correct
in that they did this with Windows XP as well. But important details is
that the coupon will be offered through the PC manufacturer, not
directly from Microsoft. So you'll need to purchase from an OEM that is
taking part in the free upgrade program. When they did this with XP, it
was an upgrade version of XP that most PC manufacturers sent.

My suggestion is to wait and buy the full retail version especially if
you plan to dual-boot or even tri-boot like I do with 98 Second Edition
for old school programs -- aka DOS and Windows 3.0 and 3.1 and for
general just loving it feeling with the ability to go into DOS mode and
a text based maintenance system, like Chris Quirke, MVP suggests based
on the 9x source code and the ability of feeling like an all powerful
system administrator without being compromised by the lockdowns that XP
Professional and Windows Vista have. That being said I am thinking more
and more that XP Professional is a test bed and kinda of like garbage
because of the 100% CPU error --- this error is when users try to open a
bunch of things at once and XP Professional sometimes cannot read
something --- 98 Second Edition will generate an error and/or just give
up after a while ---- not the infamous XP Pro. 100% CPU error -- it will
just keep trying and trying and cause businesses to get behind in their
work and have to switch to another computer. As you can see my other
operating systems are XP Professional and Windows Vista -- Ultimate 32
bit and this one does indeed rock but I do indeed miss the power trip
that 98 Second Edition delivers to the knowledgeable user and the great
ability to create and remove keys in the registry to provide a
customized 98 Second Edition is just so awesome. Thanks for listening
and it is almost time for me to get ready for work.

 

[Tom Scales]

My suggestion is to wait and buy the full retail version especially if you
plan to dual-boot or even tri-boot like I do with 98 Second Edition for
old school programs -- aka DOS and Windows 3.0 and 3.1 and for general
just loving it feeling with the ability to go into DOS mode and a text
based maintenance system, like Chris Quirke, MVP suggests based on the 9x
source code and the ability of feeling like an all powerful system
administrator without being compromised by the lockdowns that XP
Professional and Windows Vista have. That being said I am thinking more
and more that XP Professional is a test bed and kinda of like garbage
because of the 100% CPU error --- this error is when users try to open a
bunch of things at once and XP Professional sometimes cannot read
something --- 98 Second Edition will generate an error and/or just give up
after a while ---- not the infamous XP Pro. 100% CPU error -- it will just
keep trying and trying and cause businesses to get behind in their work
and have to switch to another computer. As you can see my other operating
systems are XP Professional and Windows Vista -- Ultimate 32 bit and this
one does indeed rock but I do indeed miss the power trip that 98 Second
Edition delivers to the knowledgeable user and the great ability to create
and remove keys in the registry to provide a customized 98 Second Edition
is just so awesome. Thanks for listening and it is almost time for me to
get ready for work.

Why pay extra money? The Dell upgrade will install in a dual boot setup by
using the Dell XP disk as the 'upgrade from'. It will do a clean install,
assuming it works like the XP upgrade they provided.

Tom

 

[Will]

A clean install on a newly formatted drive can be done with all other
versions of windows I can't see why vista would be any different
using the upgrade version of Xp you just boot from the cd and during the
install process it asks you to insert the disks of a qualifying product this
is when you put the win98 cd in the drive and it verifies it.
and your XP updrade edition goes back in and the setup continues

 

[Chris]

A clean install on a newly formatted drive can be done with all other
versions of windows I can't see why vista would be any different

Could you go:
98 Full
XP upgrade
Vista upgrade?

I.E. if you have already upgraded from 98.

 

[Drew]

no only one upgrade so either go back to 98 then upgrade to vista or do a
full version of vista and do a clean install. Can only have one upgrade not
two upgrades. I may be wrong but think others would agree with me.

 

[Tom Porterfield]

no only one upgrade so either go back to 98 then upgrade to vista or do a
full version of vista and do a clean install. Can only have one upgrade
not two upgrades. I may be wrong but think others would agree with me.

Don't know for sure with Vista as I haven't tested that scenario, but in the
past installing an upgrade over an upgrade has not been a problem.

 

[Drew]

you wotn know till the final rtm or shall I say the gold version comes out
because so far the prerelease betas dont let you upgrade they force you to
do a clean install unless you have dual boot.

 

[Tom Porterfield]

you wotn know till the final rtm or shall I say the gold version comes out
because so far the prerelease betas dont let you upgrade they force you to
do a clean install unless you have dual boot.

??? I have done some upgrade scenarios. Just not an upgrade of an
upgrade. It should work though.

 

[Guest]

Thanks for all the replies. I guess time will tell but sadly it sounds more
likely that it would be an Upgrade-only option.

While reading the replies, I just thought of something. The upgrade coupon,
I presume, would be for an upgrade Vista DVD and a Key. Would it then not be
legal to simply get a copy of the Full DVD and use the key from the coupon to
activate?

After all, MS said that they would have a single full DVD carrying all
versions on one disk and the Product key will determine the correct version
to install, in essence we're buying a product key, not the DVD.

 

[Drew]

Notes:
If you are currently using Windows 2000 Professional or Windows XP
Professional x64, you are eligible for an upgrade copy to a corresponding or
better edition of Windows Vista, but a clean install is required.

For versions of Windows earlier than Windows 2000, upgrade copies are not
available. These earlier versions of Windows require you to install a full
copy of Windows Vista.

If the edition of Windows Vista that you choose to install will result in a
loss of functionality over your current edition of Windows, a clean install
must be done or the installation must be completed to a new partition on
your PC.

the link is here
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsvista/getready/upgradeinfo.mspx

 

[Tom Porterfield]

If you are currently using Windows 2000 Professional or Windows XP
Professional x64, you are eligible for an upgrade copy to a corresponding or
better edition of Windows Vista, but a clean install is required.

Upgrade installs for x86 versions of Windows are supported.

 

[Guest]

Hello All,
I currently use windows home xp sp2, this upgrade option sure sounds
interesting . My computer does meet the requirements for vista, how will I
know when this upgrade is available ? I have downloaded but not yet installed
vista rc-1 beta. Should I just wait ?
Thanks
David