Solved Uninstalling Vista Ultimate Upgrade

I have a computer that originally had Vista Home Premium, until I installed a Vista Ultimate upgrade over it. I just got another computer, also pre-installed with Home Premium, but I would like to move my Ultimate upgrade to this new computer. Since I won't need the VU on the old machine anymore, I am thinking of taking it off the old machine and installing my original upgrade disc onto the new one.

Is it possible to uninstall the Vista Ultimate upgrade from the old machine, so it will be returned to Home Premium, without completely wiping the computer?

Hi Pizzor2000, and welcome to Vista Forums.

If you still have the C:\Windows.old folder from the Vista Home Premium on your Vista Ultimate computer, then you may be able to restore Home Premium. This MS article will show you how to. I would strongly recommend backing up anything that you do not want to lose in case something goes wrong while doing this.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/933168

Hope this helps,
Shawn

Thanks, Brink, for the response. This is actually the third forum I have posted this exact question to, and I got no replies on the other two, plus I had no luck Googling for an answer. I was beginning to think this would not be possible.

Anyway, I will try this out. I think I do have a Windows.old folder on that hard drive.

Make sure you pay attention to these notes -

Important If the Windows.OLD folder does not exist, you cannot follow the steps in this article to restore the previous Windows installation to this computer.

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Note If the Windows.OLD folder is two times as large as the free space that is available for the Local Disk (C: ) entry, you may be unable to restore the previous Windows installation.

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I just checked the hard drive of my old computer, and I was not able to find a Windows.OLD. I was, however, able to find a $WINDOWS.~Q folder, which I think was created when I did the upgrade. Is this the same thing?

Pizzor2000 said:

I just checked the hard drive of my old computer, and I was not able to find a Windows.OLD. I was, however, able to find a $WINDOWS.~Q folder, which I think was created when I did the upgrade. Is this the same thing?

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I'm going to say no, it not the samething. Windows.old is going to be in your "C" directory. Remember, the guide specifically tells you to look for windows.old.

Pizzor2000 said:

I just checked the hard drive of my old computer, and I was not able to find a Windows.OLD. I was, however, able to find a $WINDOWS.~Q folder, which I think was created when I did the upgrade. Is this the same thing?

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Sorry, but no it's not the same. It must be the C:\Windows.old folder.

Your only option in this case will be a clean install of Home Premium to replace Ultimate.

http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/68767-clean-install-upgrade-vista.html

or

http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/117366-clean-install-full-version-vista.html

Hi Pizzor2000, welcome to the board.
As an option aside from what has been suggested, you may go ahead and upgrade or clean install VU on your new computer with the VU product key. Then, clean install Home Premium on the old computer using the product key on the old computer. Hope this will also answer your question.

Thanks for the help, everyone.

I guess that limits my options to doing a clean install of the old computer or buying a new Ultimate upgrade. I would like to keep my old computer intact at this point, so I have been thinking about just buying a new license.

Besides, my upgrade DVD is pre-SP1. Would I need to slipstream Service Pack 1 before I could install it on my new SP1 machine?

Just so I know, does the upgrade process usually create the Windows.OLD folder automatically, or do I have to do something myself to make it do this? If so, I will make sure I tell the setup to create the backup folder when I upgrade the new computer.

Pizzor2000 said:

Thanks for the help, everyone.

I guess that limits my options to doing a clean install of the old computer or buying a new Ultimate upgrade. I would like to keep my old computer intact at this point, so I have been thinking about just buying a new license.

Besides, my upgrade DVD is pre-SP1. Would I need to slipstream Service Pack 1 before I could install it on my new SP1 machine?

Just so I know, does the upgrade process usually create the Windows.OLD folder automatically, or do I have to do something myself to make it do this? If so, I will make sure I tell the setup to create the backup folder when I upgrade the new computer.

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Hi, a clean installation is not taking your computer apart. Do you have a network set upped between your two computer? Well, if you do, all you need is move everything you like to keep into the share folder in the new computer, folders and subfolders and all. Then, you can move all them back later after the old computer is installed.

You don't need to slipstream Service Pack 1 before you could install. Window update will update it for you.

Don't worry anything about the Windows.OLD folder. Just install the computer like the way normally do and it will be fine.

Keep us inform,

Bruce

Hi, a clean installation is not taking your computer apart. Do you have a network set upped between your two computer? Well, if you do, all you need is move everything you like to keep into the share folder in the new computer, folders and subfolders and all. Then, you can move all them back later after the old computer is installed.

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I have wiped my computers before, so I know what I've got ahead of me. I have already transferred most of the files I need on the new computer, and I would back up the rest of the data before I do this. I'm already setting up the new computer from scratch, so doing that twice is a hassle I would not mind being able to avoid.

You don't need to slipstream Service Pack 1 before you could install. Window update will update it for you.

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That's a relief! This would have been another time consuming task that would have made shelling out a couple-hundred extra bucks for a new disc more justified.

Don't worry anything about the Windows.OLD folder. Just install the computer like the way normally do and it will be fine.

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I was just thinking about this so I don't run into this issue again if I decide in a few years to replace my new laptop.

Thanks for the advice, Bruce. I will think this over and decide what I want to do.

Well, I did install Vista Ultimate onto my new system from my original DVD, but the "Upgrade" option was grayed-out in the setup, so I "Custom" installed it onto the same partition as the preloaded OS. Unfortunately, this did a clean install instead of an upgrade, so all the adjustments I made to my settings in the last week are gone, and Windows doesn't recognize much of the hardware. The original contents of the hard drive appear to be intact, though, so the drivers may still be somewhere.

This time, setup did create a Windows.old. Maybe now I can try the link from Brink's original post to restore the original Home Basic on the new computer.

Pizzor,

Using this Windows.old will only restore the previous OS. In this case it would still be Ultimate since that was the one you installed over.

Yeah. I did just try that, and I'm still booting to Ultimate, pre-SP1, but it looks like I did reload my user settings from before my upgrade attempt. I was able to find the drivers in the Windows.old, so Windows recognizes my hardware again. I can't access Windows Aero, however, and it looks like I will have to reinstall most of my programs.

At this point, I can either try to get everything back in working order on the new OS, or restore my computer to factory settings and try this again.

Since you have to reinstall your programs anyway, it may be best to restore to factory defaults for a clean slate.

I have just restored my computer to factory. It's a good thing I burned the recovery DVDs before I tried upgrading.

Anyway, if I slipstream SP1 onto my upgrade or purchase a new upgrade disc, I should be able to upgrade on top of this installation and retain my programs and settings for the most part, correct?

Pizzor,

Not always. Since you will be getting new Windows Updates for your current installation, it may still be considered a newer version than the slipstream DVD. In that example case, you would not be able to upgrade the current OS with the sliptream DVD since the current OS would be consider a newer version that what is on the DVD.

Since you have Vista Ultimate, I would use the Complete PC Backup feature to create yourself a clone of your hard drive that can be used to restore everything on your hard drive the day the backup was created.

Update: I went ahead and purchased a new upgrade disc for Vista Ultimate for the new computer. I had no troubles installing with the "Upgrade" option, and the machine appears to be running normally.

Since it's a new license, I can keep Vista Ultimate on my old machine, so I don't have to worry about wiping it at this point.

Thanks, everyone, for your advice. I truly appreciate.

You're welcome Pizzor. I'm happy to hear that you found a solution that worked for you.

Shawn