Upgrade to Viasta Ultimte - Fine - Reinstall requires XP reinstall

I purchased Windows Vista Ultimate Upgrade yesterday in loaded it just fine
on my machine that was running a validated version of XP Pro using a clean
install. Everything went fine as I poked and tweaked with some of my other
software installs. After loading all of my stuff, even that I did not want
just for testing purposes I decided to do another clean install of the OS to
wipe out any of the junk I did not want.

I installed the DVD, fired up the machine and booted from the DVD. Went
through the installation process, a clean install, entered the key and
formated my drive. THats all the farther you can go, I get the "To use the
product key you entered, start the installation on a computer that is running
a genuine version of Windows".

So no I need to reinstall XP Pro, do the updates to get the WGA installed
and then re-install Vista.

If this is right this is total garbage, everytime I want to do a clean
install I need to install the previous OS first? As someone who works in the
tech industry I iften need to install other 3rd party software for testing
and review. In the past when it bunged up my machine I would just do a clean
install, insert my previous verison of windows and go on my way.

 

Once you have it installed, create a backup and restore from backup. I use
a program called acronis v10 and it works great with vista.

Jeff

 

And a gvery good reason why anyone using an upgrade should image his
old partition first. A couple of clicks and 20 minutes or less later
you'll have your old partition back exactly as it was.

 

This is how the upgrade version for Vista works. What I recommend is to use
the Complete PC Backup included with Vista Ultimate to create an image of
your install once you have it done and activated. This will allow you to
quickly restore that image, saving the steps of need to install and validate
XP first before installing the Vista upgrade.

See
http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/en-US/Help/ca11e84f-fce6-4e3e-82ef-467870bb6baf1033.mspx
for more information on Complete PC Backup.

 

You cannot use an upgrade edition to flatten the system and start all over.
You need XP to be installed and activated before running Vista Setup. You
do not need updates after SP2. Only a full edition of Vista can install
Vista the way you are trying to do. Vista does not verigy XP via a shiny
media chedk. Sorry.

 

Colin, have you seen this -
http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=5932

 

Thanks for the suggestions.

The thing is, I don't want it back the way it was. In every previous MS OS
you could upgrade with the previous version CD. I understand why they are
doing this and reguiring a validated version, but there needs to be another
way. Once you wipe out the "validated" install you can't "upgrade"

Well, I'm on my way to re-instrall XP Pro, validate and then reinstall Vista.

 

Yes. But another poster commented on an activation issue and I will not
have an upgrade edition pk until tommorow to test against. I have a some
virtual machines set up for all sorts of upgrade edition scenarios.

 

Great, it will be interesting to see how well, if at all, this procedure
works.

 

Collin,

Con you please let us know the results of your test.

It will be some time before I have an upgrade version. I do mostly new
systems now.

--


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!

 

And you're just another fucking idiot who didn't read anything that's
been posted in the last few months about this. IT IS NOTHING NEW. IT
HAS BEEN ADVERTISED AS WORKING LIKE THIS FOR A LONG TIME.

If you're working in the IT industry as a tester, no wonder so much is
being outsourced to India.