Upgrade Pre-Install Vista Home Premium to Ultimate from Retail Disk

I know that for pre-installed version of Vista you can do the anytime upgrade. However, my question is can you do the upgrade from a regular Vista Ultimate disk? I called Microsoft about this question and they said that you just put the disk in and run the upgrade portion of the installation and it should upgrade you to Ultimate. I had a friend try this who had just gotten a new Gateway machine and it almost finished the who installation but then it got an error at the end and had to totally back through the whole upgrade to Ultimate. So, my question is has anyone tried upgrading their pre-installed version of Vista through a retail Ultimate disk? I am wondering this because I can get a great deal on Ultimate version through work but I don't want to do a clean install, I want to keep all the stuff that HP included with the pre-installed version of vista.

 

You should be able to do an in-place upgrade as Microsoft said. Of course you'll need an Ultimate key, but in most cases it works without error. I have seen errors pop up occaisonally... mainly on x64 versions of Vista. If you get that error, google for the exact wording of the error (sorry I forget what it is), and you should find some guidance from those who've determined the offending application that causes it.

 

I figured I should be able to do an in-place upgrade. Has anyone help actually tried it on a HP machine with Vista Pre-Installed?

 

I did an in-place upgrade from pre-installed Home Basic to Ultimate but the thing was so full of random bloatware and stuff that my computer slowed to a crawl. It took 10 sec to pull up the security options when pressing ctrl-alt-del. Anyway, I learned my lesson and did a clean install and everything is now chugging along just peachy

Edit: the "thing" is the factory-installed OS/software

 

I, too, had the same experience with errors near the end of the upgrade to ultimate and am considering a clean install if I can't get around it. Thanks for the warning about not doing a clean install.

carl

 

I had no error during the installation. It's Home premium OEM to Ultimate full.
However, after the installation, I noted the HP's logo from system properties gone, and the eject touch button does not work (maybe becayse I replaced the original drive with BD-RE drive, but maybe not, since when I revert it back, it worked again). The button sound gone. Bluetooth got a driver issues (can't find driver)

 

Don't you have to pay for the upgrade? You mean that upgrade disk you can go from vista basic to ultimate for free?

 

Of course not!
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ALL* of the Vista discs are the same. There are no differences for "Ultimate", "Anytime Upgrade", "Retail", "OEM", etc... The only difference is the key you type in during the installation process which determines the version that's installed. You can also use any disk to upgrade to a different version, as long as you have a valid license for it.

If you want to switch between 32bit and 64bit, you will have to do a full reinstall -- you cannot upgrade between them.

* Actually, there are 2 discs, 32bit and 64bit. The disc for 32bit has all 32bit versions, and the same for the 64bit disc.

 

A question for Orev.

I have a hp 32 bit Vista business disk and a valid hp vista ultimate key, are you saying I can load the business dvd and at some point I will be promted for a product key and then I can load my vista ultimate key? Would I then really get vista ultimate off the hp disk labled vista business operating system dvd?

I ask because I'd rather not load my hp ultimate dvd with all its attendent bloat ware. I havea 8510p and the hp business software comes without the junk the consumer models all have. FYI the "ultimate machine is now running xp so I have a an open licsense.

I really do not want to mess with doing a pure clean install.

OR
I thought I could just use the anytime upgrade disk I purchased but it wants me to purchase the upgrade. Is there a way to skip to where you would be prompted to enter the product key and then proceed with the install?

Thanks

 

What I'm saying is that you don't have a "business" disc, you have a Vista disc that has a label on it that says "business". If you were to collect all of the 32bit Vista discs in the world, you would find they are all identical*. The only thing that differentiates them is when you run through the install process it asks you what version you have, and that's based on the product key you type in.

As stated above, your Anytime Upgrade disc and your "business" disc are identical. Whatever works with one works with the other.

Please see the "Disc Definitions" section of my clean install guide, link in my sig.


* It has come to my attention that Dell may be customizing their discs, and including an unattended file which skips the version selection and has a key already built-in to it. If you don't have a Dell, this isn't a problem.

 

Thanks.

Got it. I'll load the disc tonight and when prompted, input my Ultimate key. I'll report back.

 

No go as to upgrading from my HP Vista Business disc.

HP business vista disc comes with the Vista upgrade option blocked. The message mentioned some "unattended" HP function or something similar as blocking the upgrade. The clean install did not prompt me for a product key, it just installed Vista Business.

Any ideas.

 

Interesting. I was not aware HP was also doing this for their discs. It might be worth it to try vLite, which can customize and edit the normal vista disc and burn a new one. It allows you to add unattended features, and I bet it can remove them too.

Please let me know if you try it and it works.

 

Very interesing progam and website but well above my pay grade. Thanks Orev.

 

Can I upgrade my TX2120 from Vista Home Premium 64 bit to Vista Business? Or would I be better off to go to Vista Ultimate?

I need to join this to a domain. It's not an option with Vista Home Premium.

I have valid licenses for either business or ultimage.

 

Please open a new thread. This one is 7 months old.

If you have a license, you can install whatever version you want.

 

My network admin just taught me a quick hack which is to connect to our MS VPN server while on the network, and then I'm "in the domain". It's not perfect. I still have to provide credentials for outlook, but all my shares and web sites work for IWA.

 

Similar question to this topic. I have a HP Elitebook that came with Vista Business 32b. I have disks labeled as "Operating System DVD: Vista Business SP1", also mentions that "Contains software and drivers already installed. For software reinstallation and repair only" and "This disk contains 32-bit software". I can also get 64bit version of the same disk from friend. Can I use it to ugrade or clean install the 64-bit version to my laptop? Or do I need to have retail installation DVDs? How about my recovery partition, have I understood correctly that it's basicaly same thing as my recovery disks? Does it only contain stuff for 32-bit version?

 

Anyone know about this or have tried upgrading from 32bit to 64bit with OEM licence and disks?

 

It is hard to say exactly what is on that disc. Traditionally HP has not shipped pure OS install discs, though it's been a while now since I bought an HP, so they may have changed the situation. What you describe sounds similar to how Dell ships OS reinstall discs, and those can be used to perform the OS install without installing the remaining crapware.

What I suggest you do, since you have the Business version, is to perform a complete PC backup, then try to install with the other disc and see what happens. You will be able to restore the image if it doesn't do what you want.

 

Actually I believe that I didn't recieve those disks with my laptop, but asked support to send me OS installation disks and they send that one. Friend got the same with 64-bit version. Still, don't know exactly what's on them.

 

An OS installation disc sounds like what you'd need. All you can do now is give it a try.

 

I'll get the disk tomorrow, gonna try it out. Made complete system backup to external drive. Lets hope it works.

 

I got the 64bit versions of the disks from HP. Worked like a charm.