There is one highly hazardous problem with what you plan to do. If
you
do manage to install the upgrade, what prior version are you going to
use if you later have to wipe the hard disk and reinstall that
upgrade?
You destroyed the only prior version that you had. Now the upgrade
won't have a qualifying old version when to do the wipe and reinstall.
That means you'll have an upgrade version but nothing from which to
upgrade.
Not necessarily! There *is* a way to perform a clean install of Vista
using the Upgrade disk but without qualifying media!
From
http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase/winvista_upgrade_clean.asp
<quote>
Here's how it works.
Step 1: Install Windows Vista
Boot your PC with the Windows Vista Upgrade DVD. After the preliminary
loading screen, click the Install Now button to trigger Vista Setup. In
the next screen, you normally enter your product key. However, there's a
little-known trick in Windows Vista Setup whereby you can simply skip
this phase and use the install media (Upgrade or Full, any version) to
perform a clean install of virtually any Vista product edition. What you
do is leave the Product Key field blank, deselect the option titled
"Automatically activate Windows when I'm online," and then click Next.
Vista Setup will ask you whether you would like to enter your Product
Key before continuing. Click No.
In the next Setup screen, you'll be presented with a list of the Windows
Vista product editions you can install. This list may vary from locale
to locale, but in the US, you'll see Vista Home Basic, Home Premium,
Business, Ultimate, and some N editions. Choose the product edition you
actually own. You'll be asked to verify that you've chosen the correct
version. Do so to continue past the End User License Agreement (EULA)
screen.
In the next screen, you select the type of install. Choose Custom
(Advanced) instead of Upgrade. Next, you choose the partition to which
to install Windows Vista. If you need to format the disk, select the
Drive options (advanced) option to do so and then continue.
Now, Setup copies the Vista install image to your PC, expands it, and
installs Windows. This phase of Setup should take about 15 to 20 minutes
and trigger at least one reboot. When Vista is installed, you'll step
through the penultimate phase of Setup in which you enter, in
succession, your user name and password, computer name, and the date,
time, and time zone. Then Setup runs its final task, a performance test
that could take about 5 minutes. If everything goes well, and you're
running fairly modern hardware, you should hit the Welcome screen and,
after logging on, the new Vista desktop less than 30 minutes after you
began this process.
Step 2: Upgrade
What you've installed is decidedly temporary. You've got 30 days during
which you can run this non-activated version of Windows Vista. If you
try to activate Windows now, it will fail, because you've performed a
clean install of Vista and you only have an Upgrade product key.
What to do, what to do? If you read Microsoft's support note carefully,
you will have seen that the Upgrade versions of Vista support upgrading
from "a compliant version of Windows, such as Windows Vista, Microsoft
Windows XP, or Microsoft Windows 2000." Well, you just installed Windows
Vista, so why not just upgrade from this install? That's right: You're
going to upgrade the non-activated clean install you just performed,
which will provide you with a version of the OS that you can, in fact,
activate.
To do this, just open Computer and double click on the icon for the DVD
drive that contains the Vista Upgrade media. Run Setup again, this time
from within Vista. Choose Install Now, and then "Do not get the latest
updates for installation" in the next screen. Then, in the now-familiar
Product Key phase, enter your product key. It's on the back of the
pull-out Vista packaging. You can choose to automatically activate
Windows when online or not, it's your choice. In the next screen, accept
the Windows EULA.
Now, choose the Upgrade option. Windows will install as before, though
you might notice that it takes quite a bit longer this time. (Upgrade
installs seem to take up to 45 minutes, compared to 30 minutes or less
with clean installs, and reboots at least one additional time.)
Because you've just completed an upgrade install, you won't be prompted
to enter your user name and so forth (only the time zone screen is
presented). Instead, you'll just boot directly to the Welcome screen
when the performance check is complete. Using the user name and password
you created during the first install, logon to Windows.
Once again, you have 30 days in which to activate Vista. However, this
time activation will work: To activate Vista immediately (unless you
told it to do so during Setup), open the Start Menu, right-click
Computer, and choose Properties. Then, at the bottom of the System
window that appears, click the link titled Activate Windows now.
Is this legal?
One might naturally wonder whether the aforementioned instructions
describe an action that is legal or ethical. After all, anyone could
purchase an Upgrade version of Windows Vista (therefore saving a lot of
money when compared to a Full version) and use it to perform a clean
install even if they don't own a previous, compliant Window version.
After telling my "Windows Vista Secrets" coauthor Brian Livingston about
this workaround, he wrote that using this process was indeed ethical, in
his opinion. "Microsoft itself created the upgrade process," he wrote in
a newsletter article describing the workaround. "The company designed
Vista to support upgrading it over a previously installed copy of XP,
W2K Pro, or Vista itself. This isn't a black-hat hacker exploit. It's
something that's been deliberately programmed into the approved setup
routine."
Fair enough. Of course, if you do use this workaround to clean install
Vista with the Upgrade media, and you don't own a previous, compliant
version of Windows, you're most certainly violating the Windows EULA
and, thus, breaking the law. Proceed at your own risk.
Final thoughts
This is an interesting and viable workaround for anyone who owns a
previous Windows version but would like to perform a clean install of
the new operating system on their existing hardware. While I'm a bit
nervous about legal implications and Microsoft's ability to cut off this
process in the future, I'm glad that innocent Windows upgraders do in
fact have all the options that were available to them in previous
Windows versions. For its part in this silliness, Microsoft gets a
virtual slap on the wrist: Sometimes, it seems, the company forgets that
Windows is expensive and paying customers should be able to easily
install the new OS without taking on the added clutter of a previous
Windows installation.
--Paul Thurrott
February 3, 2007
</quote>
