Upgrading to Vista Ultimate... Do I specifically need a upgrade disk???

My friend just gave me his Vista Ultimate upgrade disk key to upgrade my vista home premium to ultimate version. Now, I have the key, but no upgrade disk. What I have however is a x86 Vista Ultimate disk, that I downloaded from microsoft MSDN website. From what I know, this disk is for a brand new and clean install of vista ultimate. Can I use this disk to upgrade my home premium to ultimate. I certainly dont want to loose my programs/files on my current laptop, so I absolutely dont want a clean install, and am afraid to mess things up if I accidentally use wrong disk. So can I use the MSDN downloaded vista ultimate disk to perform the upgrade or should I buy a upgrade disk from somewhere???
Thanks for help folks...

Hey Taylormah,

The setup file located on every Vista DVD can upgrade the current version of windows only by running it from within the current windows version, it doesnt matter what version dvd you have if you start the install while your using windows so your safe to use the setup dvd you have.

dmex

hmmmmmmmmm.... Thanks dmex for clearing it up... Just wondering then why is microsoft selling an upgrade version of vista in stores.... strange....

Hey Taylormah,

Microsoft sell the upgrade edition for anyone who doesn't want a full copy and already owns Windows XP or earlier and doesn't want to pay full price for the full copy.

dmex

Hey dmex,
What's different in full copy??? Does it have anything more compared to upgrade version??

The full copy allows you to install vista without owning or having another operating system installed, while the upgrade version only allows you to install Vista if you allready own or running xp/2k.


Full editions are good because you dont need to install XP first while the upgrade editions are bad because they waste lots of time IMHO.

Thanks dmex, that clears lot of confusion in my head... thanks...