Anytime Upgrade from Vista Home Premier to Ultimate Fails because

I was running Vista Ultimate on my Dell XPS 710 (Core Dual, 4GB RAM), which
was a successful Windows Anytime Upgrade from the factory installed Vista
Home Premier. As part of a XPS upgrade path, Dell offered to swap out my
motherboard with a XPS 720 and an Intel Core quad processor. I accepted the
upgrade and a Dell tech came to my home and installed the XPS 720 motherboard
and new Intel Quad processor. The upgrade went well and the system fired up
on the first try. Dell recommended that the OS be wiped and reinstalled, so
I did that and reinstalled Vista Home Premium from the factory disk. Again,
all went well and Vista sees the quad CPU and the system works great. I take
the next step and do the Windows Anytime Upgrade to get the Vista Home
Premier to Vista Ultimate as before and that is where I hit problems.



During the installation at what I would guess is close to the end of the
install I will get a pop up error that says:


"Windows vista cannot continue the upgrade because it cannot configure a
system component. Resolve this issue and reinstall windows vista."

It then reboots and rolls back to my Vista Home Premier install. I have
tried this install several times and no luck. Someone recommend I try it
will only 1GB of RAM install and I got the same error. I also have pulled
all external equipment off the system except for my USB keyboard, USB mouse,
and DVI monitor. I have contacted Dell, and their response is to get support
from Microsoft because the system works with the factory installed Windows
Vista. I am at a loss on what to do next. I really only need Ultimate
because I need to Remote Desktop into other systems, but I am dying without
that functionality.


Any suggestions on how I can get this upgrade to work correctly?




Thanks,



Rich

 

Hi,

If you are just using it as a client to remote into other systems, and not
as a host for a remote desktop session, then there is no need to upgrade.
Home Premium contains the necessary files to run an RD session. It just
cannot act as a host for other machines to connect to.

 

Dick,

Thanks for the information. I am remoting into other systems that has
Ultimate and
WinxXP Pro. They are acting as the host systems I am trying to manage and I
was using the Remote Client on Vista Ultimate to remote into those systems.
I was not able to locate the Remote Desktop Client in Vista Home Premium.
Where is the best place to find it on the system? I may have completely
missed the Remote Desktop Client because i thought you had to have Ultimate.

Thanks,
Rich

 

Hi,

Type it into the search prompt is the easiest way. Also, start/all
programs/accessories

 

Just a quick update on this issue:

I was finally able to get Ultimate installed after many many attempts. Here
is what finally worked for me. I am not sure if this had any impact, but I
did change this setting in the BIOS first: I disabled the multicore CPU. I
really don't think that is what allowed it to install, but it was one of the
first steps in the process for a successful install.



I got the Anytime Update to work by installing the license and when Vista
brought up the choice of update with the latest patches at the end of your
install or do it later on your own, I choice do it later on my own. The next
step was when the choice of Upgrade Vista or Install a fresh copy came up, I
now chose install a fresh copy. This wipes out your Windows directory and
all your files, but a copy of everthing is put in a folder called
Windows.Old. The system installed correctly this time.



The only other issue I had was a 2 blue screen right after I brough the
system back up and was trying things out. The system had no updates on it
nor did it have a video driver that would go beyond 1024x768. After I
installed all MS updates for Vista and the latest Nvidia driver, the system
has been working like a dream. No blue screens and everything is working
great.



Installing it this way had another benefit when it came time to restore my
user data. Because Vista make copy of the User folder and puts it in the
Windows.Old folder, I was very easy able to copy over my files to the new
User folder. It was quicker and easier than restoring from back up over my
network.

I hope this helps someone else.

Thanks to Rick for offering me some suggestions related to getting Remote
Desktop Client to work.

Rich