Vista Upgrade licence terms

[Guest]

Hi again,

I purchased the retail upgrade edition of Windows Vista Home Premium, as I
saw no point in paying the extra to get a full retail version of Vista when I
had paid nearly £100 ($200) for Windows XP Home Retail just 6 months ago
(which I was forced to do after upgrading my motherboard).

However when I came to install, I assumed, as was the case with 98/XP, that
I would be able to do a clean Vista install provided I could prove my
ownership of XP, this seems fair to me. This turned out not to be the case,
I was unable to install from the boot DVD, it errored saying that it has to
be run from within Windows, then I tried doing a key-less install and
activating later, the install went ok but when I tried to activate Windows,
it somehow remembered how it was installed and told me it could not be
activated.

Much to my frustration I had to reinstall XP from scratch, THEN reinstall
Vista, this was the closest I could get to having a 'clean' Vista
installation.

So this leads me to some concern, what exactly have I just paid antoher £100
($200) for? I assumed because I was paying almost twice as much as the OEM
version of Home Premium which is roughly £50, that I would be getting a
Retail version of the software, but it seems to me that anytime I want to
re-install Windows (I'm a bit of a power user, so I do it 3 or 4 times a
year, because of upgrades to my system mainly) that I am going to have to
jump through hoops every time.

So can someone tell me for good, what the upgrade licence I have bought
entails?
Do I have a 'retail' version of the software or is it more like an OEM
licence?
If I upgrade my motherboard (the big no-no for OEM installations) will my
upgrade licence still be valid (assuming I install XP first again)?
Am I entitled to the same level of support as full retail licence holders?
Will I ever be able to perform a proper 'clean' install?
Are there other restrictions on Upgrade editions that I don't yet know about?

It strikes me that Upgrade versions are supposed to reward long-time users
of Windows products by giving them cheaper ways to have the latest versions,
but so far having the upgrade version has been nothing but trouble.

Seb.

 

[mikeyhsd]

I do not know what license you purchased.
here is a link on how to do a clean install using an UPGRADE disk.

http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=5932



(e-mail address removed)



Hi again,

I purchased the retail upgrade edition of Windows Vista Home Premium, as I
saw no point in paying the extra to get a full retail version of Vista when I
had paid nearly £100 ($200) for Windows XP Home Retail just 6 months ago
(which I was forced to do after upgrading my motherboard).

However when I came to install, I assumed, as was the case with 98/XP, that
I would be able to do a clean Vista install provided I could prove my
ownership of XP, this seems fair to me. This turned out not to be the case,
I was unable to install from the boot DVD, it errored saying that it has to
be run from within Windows, then I tried doing a key-less install and
activating later, the install went ok but when I tried to activate Windows,
it somehow remembered how it was installed and told me it could not be
activated.

Much to my frustration I had to reinstall XP from scratch, THEN reinstall
Vista, this was the closest I could get to having a 'clean' Vista
installation.

So this leads me to some concern, what exactly have I just paid antoher £100
($200) for? I assumed because I was paying almost twice as much as the OEM
version of Home Premium which is roughly £50, that I would be getting a
Retail version of the software, but it seems to me that anytime I want to
re-install Windows (I'm a bit of a power user, so I do it 3 or 4 times a
year, because of upgrades to my system mainly) that I am going to have to
jump through hoops every time.

So can someone tell me for good, what the upgrade licence I have bought
entails?
Do I have a 'retail' version of the software or is it more like an OEM
licence?
If I upgrade my motherboard (the big no-no for OEM installations) will my
upgrade licence still be valid (assuming I install XP first again)?
Am I entitled to the same level of support as full retail licence holders?
Will I ever be able to perform a proper 'clean' install?
Are there other restrictions on Upgrade editions that I don't yet know about?

It strikes me that Upgrade versions are supposed to reward long-time users
of Windows products by giving them cheaper ways to have the latest versions,
but so far having the upgrade version has been nothing but trouble.

Seb.

 

[Rick Rogers]

Hi,

A significant change in the upgrade license is the way it authenticates.
Meaning, no more showing proof of ownership of a qualifying OS by simply
inserting that OS's media. An upgrade disk is not meant for clean installs,
it is meant to upgrade an existing installation. You can actually get a
clean install by using the custom option and, by the way, had you simply
"upgraded" that keyless install and entered the product key at that point
(basically installed twice - without the key, then with it), you would have
been able to activate.

So can someone tell me for good, what the upgrade licence I have bought
entails?

Just what its name implies. It upgrades an existing installation of a
qualifying operating system.

Do I have a 'retail' version of the software or is it more like an OEM
licence?

I hate licensing technicalities. Basically, you have an upgraded OEM
license.

If I upgrade my motherboard (the big no-no for OEM installations) will my
upgrade licence still be valid (assuming I install XP first again)?

Your upgrade license is retail, so you'd be able to move it to new hardware.
However, it does require a qualifying license, which the OEM license will no
longer be due to the change in hardware. However, if you use the double
install method mentioned above you can work around it.

Am I entitled to the same level of support as full retail licence holders?
Yes.

Will I ever be able to perform a proper 'clean' install?

If that's what you want then you should be purchasing the full disk for it.

Are there other restrictions on Upgrade editions that I don't yet know
about?

No.

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP

Windows help - www.rickrogers.org
My thoughts http://rick-mvp.blogspot.com

 

[John Barnes]

Your best bet for the future is to make a full system backup after you do
your install (possibly after getting your settings updated) so that you can
avoid the XP reinstall in the future and still have a good starting point.