Windows Anytime Upgrade - Caution

For anyone considering a Windows Anytime Upgrade, like from Home Premium to Ultimate.

I did this exact upgrade myself. The upgrade took approximately 2 hours, and there were no warning messages. The promo for the upgrade says it will upgrade your OS but leave your files and settings intact. Not entirely true.

Once the upgrade was completed, my login screen came up. The first thing that I noticed was wrong was my "true" administrator account was not an option (I had previously made it active, and was an option with Home Premium). No problem, my personal log in was an administrator level access, so I clicked to log in, it accepted my password, then went to a screen which took several minutes saying "preparing desktop". When it was done, I got a message that my original profile was not available and that I had been given a default or temp profile. My entire desktop was missing.

Then one of my central tools for system protection took a dump. Windows Live OneCare. In particular, the firewall was non-functioning. It took numerous trouble shooting steps and some downloaded software from Microsoft to get Live OneCare working properly again. Ok, I had made a limited backup from before the upgrade (thank you know who), I went to restore the files from the backup, which it did. But my c:\users\name (where my backed up files went to) was not where my "new" profile was being stored. My new profile was being stored in c:\users\name.machine name. So I had to manually copy the files folder to folder from where the backup put everything to where my new profile was being stored.

Recovering my desktop was interesting. Many of the icons where copyable from the start menu, which had most of the programs intact. Others, I had to dig into the location of the program and make a shortcut to put on the desktop. A few programs did need to be reinstalled and there was a minor loss of data. One other thing, with my original Home Premium set up, when I clicked into one of my programs, it would run fine. With my new desktop, now many of my programs are complaining that they need administrator access. So I right clicked the shortcuts and under compatibility, selected run as administrator.

My system is now back around 85-90%. It required several hours to restore most of my operating desktop.

But I shouldn't have to do that. The anytime upgrade should have done what it was advertised to do. Upgrade your OS, leaving your settings alone.

If you are thinking about doing an anytime upgrade, consider what I had to do. 2+ hours for the upgrade itself. 3+ hours to make everything work properly again. Plus the price of the upgrade itself. Had I known I'd have to jump through all the hoops just to get some extra features, I probably wouldn't have done it. My Home Premium was stable and working fine. It was the interest in having all the bells and whistles that got me into trouble.

My .02

Always I think make a fresh installation is the best choice.

I have just bought a brand new Lappy with Vista Home Premium on it, and I was seriously considering doing the "Anytime Upgrade" thing.

I have two questions beforehand though:

1) What happens if your system falls over and requires a full reinstall? Does the original disc really have all of the versions on it as is rumored? Or do you have to go through the whole process again? (hopefully it wouldn't ask you to pay again.)

and,

2) What ARE the bells and whistles that you get in Ultimate that you don't get in Home Premium?

Cheers,...Jon.

I agree with Ahmed, clean install every time, upgrades are notorious for snags.

Full system backup, then format HDD,

Compare Editions

Have a look.

Thanks for the link. I took a look and I don't really see much in that list that is worth the upgrade for me - is that really all of the differences?

I mean, I can ghost my HDD after initial setup to get the most important apps and settings, I use a third party scanning app anyway, plus I have a fax machine, I use VNC for remote access when required (i.e. very rarely), and I don't have any particularly critical private information on any of my PC's - I keep it all on multiple remote storage devices.

I understand that some people might see these things as important, but I'm not sure they're enough for me to do the upgrade.

I find it interesting, too, that the first sentence of the Microsoft spiel on BitLocker states:

"Data security on lost or stolen PC devices is a growing concern among security experts and corporate executives....."

Yet it is not included in Windows Vista Business - you have to go to the Ultimate edition to get it.

I'm not just having a go at Microsoft here - even despite the issues I've had with this latest build I still think Vista is their best OS yet.

I see Ultimate as an upgraded Business OS, for the man in the street I really can't see the point of Ultimate, for home use, Premium does all thats required.

Typically I would agree - but how do you go about that if you've upgraded online? Where do the additional files come from?

That's the impression that I'm rapidly getting, too. I think I may start selling more Home Premiums instead of Ultimates. In the past I've always been shy of the 'Home' label because of the limitations in XP (networking, in particular), but they don't appear to be there with Vista.