Vista - Upgrading - what disc qualifies for upgrade version?

Hi Carey:
I have 3 MCE2005 computers that I am thinking of buying the Vista
Ultimate Upgrade O.S. with option of 2 Vista Home Premium licenses for $50
ea. The MCE2005 O.S. on my computers were installed from 3 purchased OEM
cds. Do these computers qualify to purchase the Vista Ultimate Upgrade with
2 Home Premium additional licenses @ $50.00 ea. ?

xiowan..........in tucson

"Carey Frisch [MVP]" wrote:

> In order to upgrade from Windows 2000 or Windows XP,
> one of those qualifying operating systems must already be
> installed. You begin the upgrade process at the desktop by
> inserting the Windows Vista upgrade DVD in the DVD player,
> then select upgrade.
>
> --
> Carey Frisch
> Microsoft MVP
> Windows Shell/User
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> "Test Man" wrote:
>
> Quick question(s).
>
> I already know that the only editions of Windows that qualifies for the
> upgrade version is Windows 2000 and XP. What I want to know is do you need
> the original Windows discs, or can "Recovery CDs" be used? Also if Windows
> is already installed on machine, will this qualify (so no need for an
> original CD)?
>
>
>

"xiowan" wrote

> Hi Carey:
> I have 3 MCE2005 computers that I am thinking of buying the Vista
> Ultimate Upgrade O.S. with option of 2 Vista Home Premium licenses for $50
> ea. The MCE2005 O.S. on my computers were installed from 3 purchased OEM
> cds. Do these computers qualify to purchase the Vista Ultimate Upgrade
> with
> 2 Home Premium additional licenses @ $50.00 ea. ?
>
> xiowan..........in tucson

Sure, it doesn't matter if the qualifying OS is OEM or retail. And for all
three you can do either an in place upgrade or a custom install.
--
Rock [MVP - User/Shell]

Hi "Rock":
Thanks for the answer. I guess Vista Ultimate and 2 Vista Home Premium
operating systems for $359 isn't TOO bad......that works out to
$120/ea.....only $11 more than the MCE2005 was at $109. Wonder if I can use
upgrade licenses and still dual boot with the current MCE2005 licenses in
case the DRM issue turns out to be too much of a problem and I want to go
back to MCE2005?

xiowan...........in tucson

"Rock" wrote:

> "xiowan" wrote
>
> > Hi Carey:
> > I have 3 MCE2005 computers that I am thinking of buying the Vista
> > Ultimate Upgrade O.S. with option of 2 Vista Home Premium licenses for $50
> > ea. The MCE2005 O.S. on my computers were installed from 3 purchased OEM
> > cds. Do these computers qualify to purchase the Vista Ultimate Upgrade
> > with
> > 2 Home Premium additional licenses @ $50.00 ea. ?
> >
> > xiowan..........in tucson
>
> Sure, it doesn't matter if the qualifying OS is OEM or retail. And for all
> three you can do either an in place upgrade or a custom install.
> --
> Rock [MVP - User/Shell]
>
>

"xiowan" wrote

> Hi "Rock":
> Thanks for the answer. I guess Vista Ultimate and 2 Vista Home
> Premium
> operating systems for $359 isn't TOO bad......that works out to
> $120/ea.....only $11 more than the MCE2005 was at $109. Wonder if I can
> use
> upgrade licenses and still dual boot with the current MCE2005 licenses in
> case the DRM issue turns out to be too much of a problem and I want to go
> back to MCE2005?

No you can't. The license for the qualifying product is subsumed into the
Vista license when using an upgrade - they become one The basic rule is
this - there can only be one install per license, so it's one XP or one
Vista but not both.

Now if you remove one of the Vista installations you can go back to MCE.
That Vista Home Premium upgrade copy can then be sold or used to upgrade a
different qualifying OS.

--
Rock [MVP - User/Shell]

Or Windows 2000 installed on the hard drive.

"Richard Urban" <richardurbanREMOVETHIS@hotmail.com> wrote in message news:OzrcQpkPHHA.4172@TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl...
Neither can be used.

You must have a legal and validated Windows XP operating system installed on
your computer. You then start the Vista upgrade install from within Windows
XP.

The install checks to make certain that your Windows XP O/S has been
validated (legal). If it isn't, the upgrade install will likely not
continue.

--


Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User
(For email, remove the obvious from my address)

Quote from George Ankner:
If you knew as much as you think you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!



"Test Man" <testman@test.org> wrote in message
news:uKfVWKkPHHA.4992@TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl...
> Quick question(s).
>
> I already know that the only editions of Windows that qualifies for the
> upgrade version is Windows 2000 and XP. What I want to know is do you
> need the original Windows discs, or can "Recovery CDs" be used? Also if
> Windows is already installed on machine, will this qualify (so no need for
> an original CD)?
>

Hi "Rock":
Thanks for clearing up my question. I'm trying to figure out how to
preserve 5 hard drives with recorded video & music and 2 hard drives in RAID
0 with the O.S. and software on them when I change over to Vista. I had
hoped to use a separate primary partition I saved on the RAID 0 array for
Vista and preserve the MCE2005 on another "primary" partition on the same
array........just in case Vista proved to have too many undesireable
problems. I like to record over the air tv programs on one of the RAID 0
volumes and then transfer them to a storage drive if I want to keep them.
This eliminates any need to defragment the storage drive and requires very
infrequent defragmenting of the RAID volumes since they seldom accumulate
large amounts of fragmented files from TV recordings. The RAID 0 set-up with
large stripes allows very fast video transfers(2-3 mins for 3 hr recordings).
Overall, I am very happy with MCE2005 but do really want to upgrade to the
better security protection and future-proofing that Vista offers. If I
understand it right, I can dual boot only if I buy one of the full version
of Vista and not an upgrade version.......or is that allowed or possible?

xiowan........in tucson

"Rock" wrote:

> "xiowan" wrote
>
> > Hi "Rock":
> > Thanks for the answer. I guess Vista Ultimate and 2 Vista Home
> > Premium
> > operating systems for $359 isn't TOO bad......that works out to
> > $120/ea.....only $11 more than the MCE2005 was at $109. Wonder if I can
> > use
> > upgrade licenses and still dual boot with the current MCE2005 licenses in
> > case the DRM issue turns out to be too much of a problem and I want to go
> > back to MCE2005?
>
> No you can't. The license for the qualifying product is subsumed into the
> Vista license when using an upgrade - they become one The basic rule is
> this - there can only be one install per license, so it's one XP or one
> Vista but not both.
>
> Now if you remove one of the Vista installations you can go back to MCE.
> That Vista Home Premium upgrade copy can then be sold or used to upgrade a
> different qualifying OS.
>
> --
> Rock [MVP - User/Shell]
>
>

If you purchase an upgrade edition then the upgrade will be to the system
volume and there will be no more MCE to dual boot with. If you want to dual
boot you need a full edition license of Vista and perform a clean install of
Vista to another volume.

"xiowan" <xiowan@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:5FFC862E-2F9F-4720-B74F-C0E3B4FCF0DA@microsoft.com...
> Hi "Rock":
> Thanks for the answer. I guess Vista Ultimate and 2 Vista Home
> Premium
> operating systems for $359 isn't TOO bad......that works out to
> $120/ea.....only $11 more than the MCE2005 was at $109. Wonder if I can
> use
> upgrade licenses and still dual boot with the current MCE2005 licenses in
> case the DRM issue turns out to be too much of a problem and I want to go
> back to MCE2005?
>
> xiowan...........in tucson
>
> "Rock" wrote:
>
>> "xiowan" wrote
>>
>> > Hi Carey:
>> > I have 3 MCE2005 computers that I am thinking of buying the Vista
>> > Ultimate Upgrade O.S. with option of 2 Vista Home Premium licenses for
>> > $50
>> > ea. The MCE2005 O.S. on my computers were installed from 3 purchased
>> > OEM
>> > cds. Do these computers qualify to purchase the Vista Ultimate Upgrade
>> > with
>> > 2 Home Premium additional licenses @ $50.00 ea. ?
>> >
>> > xiowan..........in tucson
>>
>> Sure, it doesn't matter if the qualifying OS is OEM or retail. And for
>> all
>> three you can do either an in place upgrade or a custom install.
>> --
>> Rock [MVP - User/Shell]
>>
>>

"xiowan" wrote

> Hi "Rock":
> Thanks for clearing up my question. I'm trying to figure out how to
> preserve 5 hard drives with recorded video & music and 2 hard drives in
> RAID
> 0 with the O.S. and software on them when I change over to Vista. I had
> hoped to use a separate primary partition I saved on the RAID 0 array for
> Vista and preserve the MCE2005 on another "primary" partition on the same
> array........just in case Vista proved to have too many undesireable
> problems. I like to record over the air tv programs on one of the RAID
> 0
> volumes and then transfer them to a storage drive if I want to keep them.
> This eliminates any need to defragment the storage drive and requires very
> infrequent defragmenting of the RAID volumes since they seldom accumulate
> large amounts of fragmented files from TV recordings. The RAID 0 set-up
> with
> large stripes allows very fast video transfers(2-3 mins for 3 hr
> recordings).
> Overall, I am very happy with MCE2005 but do really want to upgrade to
> the
> better security protection and future-proofing that Vista offers. If I
> understand it right, I can dual boot only if I buy one of the full
> version
> of Vista and not an upgrade version.......or is that allowed or possible?

Yes, dual booting with XP is ok, but you will need the full version of Vista
for it. As I said before, using the upgrade the XP license is subsumed into
the Vista license, and as long as Vista from the upgrade is installed, the
XP version cannot be installed.

There are some downsides to dual booting with XP (unless you take certain
steps). In the dual boot whenever the XP OS is booted, all system restore
points, shadow copies of files and backups made in Vista that are stored on
drives visible to the XP system when it boots are automatically deleted.
There is nothing you can do about this and it won't be changed. To preserve
the system restore points, shadow copies of files and backups, you have to
hide the Vista installation from XP. Using bitlocker on Vista can do this,
or use a 3rd party boot manager to hide the Vista partition. This issue has
been discussed extensively in here before. If you want more info search for
the posts on this by Colin.

--
Rock [MVP - User/Shell]

Hi again "Rock":
Can a Vista Home Premium OEM O.S. be used on the same pc with a MCE2005
OEM O.S. for dual-booting? I know you said "full version, not upgrade" but I
am not sure if OEM is considered a full version. I understand I would not be
able to use the Vista Home Premium OEM on any other computer like I could
with the full retail version, but didn't know if the Vista OEM could be
installed to a different partitition or would have to be installed on the
same partitition as MCE2005 and thus wipe it out.

xiowan..........in tucson

"Rock" wrote:

> "xiowan" wrote
>
> > Hi "Rock":
> > Thanks for clearing up my question. I'm trying to figure out how to
> > preserve 5 hard drives with recorded video & music and 2 hard drives in
> > RAID
> > 0 with the O.S. and software on them when I change over to Vista. I had
> > hoped to use a separate primary partition I saved on the RAID 0 array for
> > Vista and preserve the MCE2005 on another "primary" partition on the same
> > array........just in case Vista proved to have too many undesireable
> > problems. I like to record over the air tv programs on one of the RAID
> > 0
> > volumes and then transfer them to a storage drive if I want to keep them.
> > This eliminates any need to defragment the storage drive and requires very
> > infrequent defragmenting of the RAID volumes since they seldom accumulate
> > large amounts of fragmented files from TV recordings. The RAID 0 set-up
> > with
> > large stripes allows very fast video transfers(2-3 mins for 3 hr
> > recordings).
> > Overall, I am very happy with MCE2005 but do really want to upgrade to
> > the
> > better security protection and future-proofing that Vista offers. If I
> > understand it right, I can dual boot only if I buy one of the full
> > version
> > of Vista and not an upgrade version.......or is that allowed or possible?
>
> Yes, dual booting with XP is ok, but you will need the full version of Vista
> for it. As I said before, using the upgrade the XP license is subsumed into
> the Vista license, and as long as Vista from the upgrade is installed, the
> XP version cannot be installed.
>
> There are some downsides to dual booting with XP (unless you take certain
> steps). In the dual boot whenever the XP OS is booted, all system restore
> points, shadow copies of files and backups made in Vista that are stored on
> drives visible to the XP system when it boots are automatically deleted.
> There is nothing you can do about this and it won't be changed. To preserve
> the system restore points, shadow copies of files and backups, you have to
> hide the Vista installation from XP. Using bitlocker on Vista can do this,
> or use a 3rd party boot manager to hide the Vista partition. This issue has
> been discussed extensively in here before. If you want more info search for
> the posts on this by Colin.
>
> --
> Rock [MVP - User/Shell]
>
>

"xiowan" wrote

> Hi again "Rock":
> Can a Vista Home Premium OEM O.S. be used on the same pc with a MCE2005
> OEM O.S. for dual-booting? I know you said "full version, not upgrade"
> but I
> am not sure if OEM is considered a full version. I understand I would not
> be
> able to use the Vista Home Premium OEM on any other computer like I could
> with the full retail version, but didn't know if the Vista OEM could be
> installed to a different partitition or would have to be installed on the
> same partitition as MCE2005 and thus wipe it out.

OEM versions of Vista are only for use on a computer than has never had an
OS installed. An OEM version cannot do an upgrade. So if this is a new
computer on which an OS has never been installed, then there is no reason
why you can't do a dual boot of MCE OEM and Vista OEM.

--
Rock [MVP - User/Shell]