Vista - How do i upgrade an eval Home Premium to a Retail Ultimate?

I've been evaluating Vista as a Home Premium version for the full 120 days,
and have now bought a retail copy of Ultimate. My HP eval has expired, but I
can't enter my Ultimate product key, as Vista won't accept it. How can I
upgrade without having to do a clean install? Surely this is doable? I
don't wan't to lose all my TV programs and scheduled recordings from Media
Center...

What options do you get when you boot from the DVD?

"JuzDownUnder" <JuzDownUnder@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:FA553EDD-E6D5-450D-85F9-D7D40A77108B@microsoft.com...
> I've been evaluating Vista as a Home Premium version for the full 120
> days,
> and have now bought a retail copy of Ultimate. My HP eval has expired,
> but I
> can't enter my Ultimate product key, as Vista won't accept it. How can I
> upgrade without having to do a clean install? Surely this is doable? I
> don't wan't to lose all my TV programs and scheduled recordings from Media
> Center...

Regarding "...I've been evaluating Vista as a Home Premium version for the
full 120 days, and have now bought a retail copy of Ultimate. My HP eval
has expired...". This is "unusual" - if the HP came with Vista installed it
would have been "activated' (OEM).

"JuzDownUnder" <JuzDownUnder@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:FA553EDD-E6D5-450D-85F9-D7D40A77108B@microsoft.com...
> I've been evaluating Vista as a Home Premium version for the full 120
> days,
> and have now bought a retail copy of Ultimate. My HP eval has expired,
> but I
> can't enter my Ultimate product key, as Vista won't accept it. How can I
> upgrade without having to do a clean install? Surely this is doable? I
> don't wan't to lose all my TV programs and scheduled recordings from Media
> Center...

HP furnished an evaluation of Windows Vista Home Premium?
Are you sure?
I doubt it is Windows Vista that is an eval from HP.

Is the eval possibly an Office 2007?
That is more likely coming from the OEM.

Have you tried booting to the Vista Ultimate DVD?

--
Jupiter Jones [MVP]
http://www3.telus.net/dandemar
http://www.dts-l.org


"JuzDownUnder" <JuzDownUnder@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in
message news:FA553EDD-E6D5-450D-85F9-D7D40A77108B@microsoft.com...
> I've been evaluating Vista as a Home Premium version for the full
> 120 days,
> and have now bought a retail copy of Ultimate. My HP eval has
> expired, but I
> can't enter my Ultimate product key, as Vista won't accept it. How
> can I
> upgrade without having to do a clean install? Surely this is
> doable? I
> don't wan't to lose all my TV programs and scheduled recordings from
> Media
> Center...

Ack, I knew saying HP could be an issue...HP = Home Premium, not Hewlett
Packard!!! This is a Vista forum! :-)

Sorry 'bout that. What i'm trying to say is, I installed Vista onto my
media centre PC, and put it into "evaluation mode" as a Home Premium
installation (as is perfectly legal). However, after doing the rearm thing
for 120 days, i'm now out of eval period. So i've bought a copy of Vista
Ultimate, however, it's not allowing me to "upgrade" my Home Premium
evaluation to Vista Ultimate. MS help seems to talk about a "Windows Anytime
Upgrade" program that you get when you pay for an upgrade from one version to
another...but I can't see any way to get that to upgrade an evaluation of
home prem to ultimate.

"JuzDownUnder" wrote:

> I've been evaluating Vista as a Home Premium version for the full 120 days,
> and have now bought a retail copy of Ultimate. My HP eval has expired, but I
> can't enter my Ultimate product key, as Vista won't accept it. How can I
> upgrade without having to do a clean install? Surely this is doable? I
> don't wan't to lose all my TV programs and scheduled recordings from Media
> Center...

Unfortunately I only get the "Install Clean" option, "Upgrade" is disabled
because it can't find a copy of XP! Stupid, stupid system....

"Mac" wrote:

> What options do you get when you boot from the DVD?
>
> "JuzDownUnder" <JuzDownUnder@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
> news:FA553EDD-E6D5-450D-85F9-D7D40A77108B@microsoft.com...
> > I've been evaluating Vista as a Home Premium version for the full 120
> > days,
> > and have now bought a retail copy of Ultimate. My HP eval has expired,
> > but I
> > can't enter my Ultimate product key, as Vista won't accept it. How can I
> > upgrade without having to do a clean install? Surely this is doable? I
> > don't wan't to lose all my TV programs and scheduled recordings from Media
> > Center...
>
>

How did you get the eval version? on DVD?

"JuzDownUnder" <JuzDownUnder@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:E76E0D06-7B1B-46F6-844A-44DB535BBD65@microsoft.com...
> Ack, I knew saying HP could be an issue...HP = Home Premium, not Hewlett
> Packard!!! This is a Vista forum! :-)
>
> Sorry 'bout that. What i'm trying to say is, I installed Vista onto my
> media centre PC, and put it into "evaluation mode" as a Home Premium
> installation (as is perfectly legal). However, after doing the rearm
> thing
> for 120 days, i'm now out of eval period. So i've bought a copy of Vista
> Ultimate, however, it's not allowing me to "upgrade" my Home Premium
> evaluation to Vista Ultimate. MS help seems to talk about a "Windows
> Anytime
> Upgrade" program that you get when you pay for an upgrade from one version
> to
> another...but I can't see any way to get that to upgrade an evaluation of
> home prem to ultimate.
>
> "JuzDownUnder" wrote:
>
>> I've been evaluating Vista as a Home Premium version for the full 120
>> days,
>> and have now bought a retail copy of Ultimate. My HP eval has expired,
>> but I
>> can't enter my Ultimate product key, as Vista won't accept it. How can I
>> upgrade without having to do a clean install? Surely this is doable? I
>> don't wan't to lose all my TV programs and scheduled recordings from
>> Media
>> Center...

Any version of Vista can be an "eval". When you install Vista, if you don't
enter a license key, it goes into eval mode, and asks you what version you
wish to evaluate. You can choose anything, from Home Basic to Ultimate.

You can then evaluate Vista for 30 days. After 30 days you can use the
"rearm" method to extend it for another 30 days. You can keep doing that for
120 days, before it won't let you go any further. It's a completely legal
way of checking out Vista before buying it.

But be warned, as i've just found out, if you choose to evaluate a
particular version, you can't then buy and use a license key for a different
version to activate Vista. You'll have to re-install from scratch. Which is
COMPLETELY FRIGGIN ridiculous...but that pretty much sums up Microsoft's
strategy no?

I bit the bullet and rebuilt my Home Premium with Ultimate. What a waste of
my time.

"Mac" wrote:

> How did you get the eval version? on DVD?
>
> "JuzDownUnder" <JuzDownUnder@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
> news:E76E0D06-7B1B-46F6-844A-44DB535BBD65@microsoft.com...
> > Ack, I knew saying HP could be an issue...HP = Home Premium, not Hewlett
> > Packard!!! This is a Vista forum! :-)
> >
> > Sorry 'bout that. What i'm trying to say is, I installed Vista onto my
> > media centre PC, and put it into "evaluation mode" as a Home Premium
> > installation (as is perfectly legal). However, after doing the rearm
> > thing
> > for 120 days, i'm now out of eval period. So i've bought a copy of Vista
> > Ultimate, however, it's not allowing me to "upgrade" my Home Premium
> > evaluation to Vista Ultimate. MS help seems to talk about a "Windows
> > Anytime
> > Upgrade" program that you get when you pay for an upgrade from one version
> > to
> > another...but I can't see any way to get that to upgrade an evaluation of
> > home prem to ultimate.
> >
> > "JuzDownUnder" wrote:
> >
> >> I've been evaluating Vista as a Home Premium version for the full 120
> >> days,
> >> and have now bought a retail copy of Ultimate. My HP eval has expired,
> >> but I
> >> can't enter my Ultimate product key, as Vista won't accept it. How can I
> >> upgrade without having to do a clean install? Surely this is doable? I
> >> don't wan't to lose all my TV programs and scheduled recordings from
> >> Media
> >> Center...
>