Upgrade option to Windows Vista Ultimate

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I am based in the UK, and I see that most of the laptops on sale in the
retail market are still at best Windows XP Professional version, if not
Windows XP Home Edition.

Can I ask, for a non-commercial, retail laptop
- what is the upgrade/licensing option to go from Windows XP Home
Edition(OEM) to Windows Vista Ultimate?
- what is the upgrade/licensing option to go from Windows XP Professional
Edition(OEM) to Windows Vista Ultimate?
- what is the upgrade/licensing option to go from Windows Vista Home
Edition(OEM) to Windows Vista Ultimate?
- what is the upgrade/licensing option to go from Windows Vista Home Premium
Edition(OEM) to Windows Vista Ultimate?
 
You can simply purchase a Vista Ultimate upgrade edition or full edition to
do any of the upgrades you list. I should think that the least expensive is
to purchase a laptop with XP Home and then buy Vista Ultimate Upgrade. Some
upper end laptops in the US are available with Vista Ultimate preinstalled
and most laptops are shipping with Vista Business or Vista Home Premium.
 
So it costs me the upgrade licensing costs are the same for
-from XP Home Edition to Vista Ultimate
-from Vista Home Premium to Vista Ultimate

Actually when I come over to the states in a few weeks time, I am thinking
of getting Visa Ultimate there, as I think it is cheaper than over the UK.
The Licensing key won't "expire" after a few months, right? i.e., I can wait
a few months to install it on a new laptop....
 
When you purchase a retail upgrade edition you simply pay the price for the
item. An Ultimate upgrade kit will allow you to perform and upgrade (as in
upgrade the bits) or do a custom installation (which a clean install of the
OS) as long as you have any edition of XP 32bit or Vista 32bit already
installed. Pricing is for the kit and is not based on what you are
upgrading.

There is another alternative and pricing does vary according to what you
already have installed. It is called Anytime Upgrade and it is all done
over the internet. The UK Anytime Upgrade page is at
http://www.microsoft.com/uk/windows...yorupgrade/windowsanytimeupgrade/default.mspx

Personally I don't like the Anytime Upgrade option because I prefer to have
a retail copy of Vista Ultimate handy for reinstallation if needed. The AU
method of doing that intimidates me somewhat because it involves storing and
having to access a digital locker online and I worry about such things going
wrong. I like to be in complete control and have everthing on hand locally
when doing installations. But that is just my personal comfort zone. In
fact, I don't buy upgrade editions at all. I always buy full editions of
Windows. That way I never have to worry about tying the legacy license to
the Vista upgrade license and I can move the OS to a new computer without
any licensing concerns at all. Full editions are far and away the most
flexible and simplest to deal with. I realize, however, that the price in
the UK is fearsome. Again, that is just my own comfort zone.

To return to the subject of upgrading, an matter to consider is what Vista
drivers are available from the laptop manufacturer. You need to be sure
that the model you buy with XP preinstalled has Vista drivers for all of the
proprietary devices so that you can download the drivers and burn them to a
cd before you start the upgrade process. You check availability on the
laptop manufacturer's website.

You have not said whether or not you want to wind up with Vista Ultimate
32bit or 64bit. Migrating from the preinstalled 32bit Windows to 64bit
Vista works differently and must be researched carefully before starting.
 
I bought an HP laptop a week ago, with Vista Home Premium. I then upgraded
it to Ultimate with no problems. Then, problems appeared...in the form of
all that crapware that HP ships with new laptops. I thought I removed it
all, but some had their roots too deep to be yanked out.

So I completely nuked the hard drive, installed Vista again, installed all
the hardware drivers, then finally my apps. It took almost exactly 24 hours
(counting sleep and work time), but its much more stable and faster than the
original with crapware...

Dana Cline - MCE MVP
 
since laptops use a lot of special hardware, you would be better to buy the laptop with vista pre-installed to gives you a better chance of trouble free system.

if there is such a thing.

that way the manufacturer is responsible for the working/not working condition of the computer.



(e-mail address removed)



I am based in the UK, and I see that most of the laptops on sale in the
retail market are still at best Windows XP Professional version, if not
Windows XP Home Edition.

Can I ask, for a non-commercial, retail laptop
- what is the upgrade/licensing option to go from Windows XP Home
Edition(OEM) to Windows Vista Ultimate?
- what is the upgrade/licensing option to go from Windows XP Professional
Edition(OEM) to Windows Vista Ultimate?
- what is the upgrade/licensing option to go from Windows Vista Home
Edition(OEM) to Windows Vista Ultimate?
- what is the upgrade/licensing option to go from Windows Vista Home Premium
Edition(OEM) to Windows Vista Ultimate?
 
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