G
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.
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.