Possible to use MSDN Ultimate to upgrade Home Premium?

[Guest]

Hi all, I was searching around but wasn't able to find an answer to this
question but hopefully it should be a quick yes/no from someone knowledgeable.

I'm getting a new laptop which will have some flavor of windows vista on it.
As it turns out we have 5 nice Ultimate licenses unused from our msdn
subscription; do I need a special 'upgrade' version or can I use those discs
/ etc and upgrade from say, home premium? That would be a great way for me to
save some cash on this configuration.

Thanks so much!

 

[Andrew McLaren]

As it turns out we have 5 nice Ultimate licenses unused from our msdn
subscription; do I need a special 'upgrade' version or can I use those
discs

Well, I hate to be an apologist for Microsoft's licensing police. So I'll
just mention this "FYI", then leave it to you, to decide what best to do ...

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/subscriptions/aa948864.aspx
<quote>
Can I use the operating systems in my MSDN subscription to install or
upgrade my development PCs?
MSDN-licensed operating systems (OS) can be used as the primary OS as long
as the computer is used only for development and testing purposes, and as
long as every individual using that computer for development or testing
purposes has a separate MSDN license: MSDN is licensed on a per user model,
unlike normal OS licensing which is based on a per device model.

If a computer using an MSDN-licensed OS is used for any purpose other than
development and testing (for example, a developer's primary computer which
is also used for corporate email), then a production-use OS license for the
computer is required.
</quote>

On the purely technical front, I'm pretty sure you could upgrade a Home
edition to Ultimate, by using the MSDN DVD and an Ultimate Product Key. Note
that MSDN media will only accept MSDN-supplied product keys - you can't use
a retail key with an MSDN DVD, it just gives an error message and quits
setup.

Hope it helps,