Purchase The
Windows Vista “Upgrade” Version, Never Pay For The Full Version
By Brian Livingston, Author
of “Windows Vista Secrets”
Many
people are upset by the fact that the economical "upgrade" version of
Vista won't accept a Windows XP or Windows 2000 CD-ROM as proof of
ownership.
Vista Upgrade is said to install only to a hard disk that already has
XP or
2000 already on it.
But
I've tested a method that allows you to clean-install the Vista upgrade
version
on any hard drive, with no prior XP or W2K installation — or even a CD
—
required.
SAVE MONEY BY AVOIDING
THE “FULL” VERSION OF WINDOWS VISTA
Windows
Vista, in my opinion, is a big improvement over Windows XP in many
ways. But
the new operating system is distinctly overpriced.
The
list price of the "full" (not "upgrade") version of the
most expensive edition, Vista Ultimate, is $399.95 USD, with a street
price
around $380. That gold-plated retail figure is only possible because
Microsoft
long ago achieved monopoly pricing power in the PC operating system
market.
Most
computer users would prefer to keep using an older version of Windows,
such as
XP, rather than paying the inflated prices for the "full" version of
Vista. To encourage switching to a new OS, Microsoft has historically
offered a
lower, "upgrade" price to people who can prove that they've
previously purchased an older copy of Windows. The difference between
Vista's
full and upgrade prices can be substantial. Based on the asking prices
shown at
Shopping.com on Jan. 31 — the day after the consumer version of Vista
became
available — the four most popular Vista versions will set you back
approximately as follows:
Version Upgrade Pricing
Vista
Home Basic $192 $100 ($92 less)
Vista
Home Premium $228 $156 ($72 less)
Vista
Business $285 $192 ($93 less)
Vista
Ultimate $380 $225 ($155 less)
The
upgrade versions of Vista have street prices that are 32% to 48%
cheaper than
the full versions. If you're truly installing Vista over an old
instance of XP
or W2K, the upgrade version of Vista will find the older OS on your
hard drive
and install without question. The problem is that Vista, unlike every
version
of Windows in the past, doesn't let you insert a physical disc from an
older
operating system as evidence of your previous purchase. Vista has an
undocumented feature, however, that actually allows you to "clean
install" Vista to a hard disk that has no prior copy of XP or W2K.
Use Vista's 'upgrade' version to
clean-install
The
secret is that the setup program in Vista's upgrade version will accept
an
installed copy of XP, W2K, or an unactivated copy of Vista itself as
evidence
of a previous installation.
This
enables you to "clean install" an upgrade version of Vista to any
formatted or unformatted hard drive, which is usually the preferred
method when
installing any new operating system. You must, in essence, install
Vista twice
to take advantage of this trick. But Vista installs much faster than
XP, so
it's quicker than installing XP followed by Vista to get the upgrade
price.
Before
you install Vista on a machine that you don't know is 100% compatible,
you
should run Microsoft's free Upgrade Advisor. This program — which
operates only
on 32-bit versions of XP and Vista (plus Vista Enterprise) — reports to
you on
any hardware or software it finds that may be incompatible with Vista.
See
Microsoft's Upgrade Advisor page.
Also,
to see which flavors of XP Home, XP Pro, and 2000 officially support
in-place
installs and clean installs of the different Vista editions, see
Microsoft's
upgrade paths page. Here's a simplified overview of the steps that are
required
to clean-install the upgrade version of Vista:
Step 1. Boot the PC from the Vista DVD.
Step 2. Select "Install Now,"
but do not enter the Product Key from the Vista packaging. Leave the
input box
blank. Also, turn off the option Automatically activate Windows when
I'm
online. In the next dialog box that appears, confirm that you really do
want to
install Vista without entering a Product Key.
Step 3. Correctly indicate the version of
Vista that you're installing: Home Basic, Home Premium, Business, or
Ultimate.
Step 4. Select the "Custom
(Advanced)" install, not the "Upgrade" install.
Step 5. Vista copies files at length and
reboots itself one or more times. Wait for the install to complete. At
this
point, you might think that you could "activate" Vista, but you
can't. That's because you haven't installed the Vista upgrade yet. To
do that,
run the DVD's setup.exe program again, but
this
time from the Vista desktop. The easiest way to start setup again is to
eject
and then reinsert the DVD.
Step 6. Click "Install Now."
Select Do not get the latest updates for installation. (You can check
for these
updates later.)
Step 7. This time, do enter the Product
Key from the Vista packaging. Once
again, turn off the option Automatically
activate Windows when I'm online.
Step 8. On this second install, make sure
to select "Upgrade," not "Custom (Advanced)." You're not
doing a clean install now, you're upgrading to Vista.
Step 9. Wait while Vista copies files and
reboots itself. No user interaction is required. Do not boot from the
DVD when
asked if you'd like to do so. Instead, wait a few seconds and the setup
process
will continue on its way. Some DOS-like, character-mode menus will
appear, but
don't interact with them. After a few seconds, the correct choice will
run for
you automatically.
Step 10. After you click a button labeled
Start in the Thank You dialog box, Vista's login screen will eventually
appear.
Enter the username and password that you selected during the first
install.
You're done upgrading to Vista.
Step 11. Within 30 days, you must
"activate" your copy of Vista or it'll lose functionality. To
activate Vista, click Show more details in the Welcome Center that
automatically displays upon each boot-up, then click Activate Windows
now. If
you've dismissed the Welcome Center, access the correct dialog box by
clicking
Start, Control Panel, System & Maintenance, System. If you
purchased a legitimate
copy of Vista, it should quickly activate over the Internet. (You can
instead
activate by calling Microsoft on the phone, which avoids your PC
exchanging
information with Microsoft's server.)
I'm
not going into detail today on the merits of buying Vista at retail
instead of
buying a cheaper OEM copy. (The OEM offerings don't entitle you to call
Microsoft for support, while the retail packages do.) Also, I'm not
touching
here on the least-expensive way to buy Vista, which is to take
advantage of
Microsoft's "educational" rate. I'll describe both of these topics in
next week's newsletter.
Why does Vista's
secret setup exist?
It's
reasonable for us to ask ourselves whether buying an upgrade version of
Vista,
and then installing it to an empty hard disk that contains no previous
version
of Windows, is ethical. I believe it is. Microsoft itself created the
upgrade
process. The company designed Vista to support upgrading it over a
previously
installed copy of XP, W2K Pro, or Vista itself. This isn't a black-hat
hacker
exploit. It's something that's been deliberately programmed into the
approved
setup routine.
Microsoft
spent years developing and testing Vista. This upgrade trick must have
been
known to many, many people within the development team. Either
Microsoft
planned this upgrade path all along, knowing that computer magazines
and
newsletters (like this one) would widely publicize a way to "save money
buying Vista." Or else some highly placed coders within the Vista
development team decided that Vista's "full" price was too high and
that no one should ever have to pay it. In either case, Vista's
setup.exe is
Microsoft's official install routine, and I see no problem with using
it
exactly as it was designed.
We
should also think about whether instances of Vista that were installed
using
the clean-install method will continue to operate. I believe that this
method
will continue to be present in Vista DVDs at least until Microsoft
begins
distributing the Service Pack 1 edition of Vista around fall 2007.
Changing the
routine in the millions of DVDs that are now in circulation would
simply be too
wrenching. And trying to remotely disable instances of Vista that were
clean-installed — even if it were technically possible to distinguish
them —
would generate too many tech-support calls and too much ill will to
make it
worthwhile.
Installing
the upgrade version of Vista, but not installing over an existing
instance of
XP or W2K, probably violates the Vista EULA (end-user license
agreement). If
you're a business executive, I wouldn't recommend that you flout any
Windows
license provisions just to save money.
If
you're strictly a home user, contributing editor Susan Bradley points
out that
Microsoft's so-called Vista Family Discount (VFD) is an economical
package that
avoids any license issues. If you buy a retail copy of Vista Ultimate,
MS lets
you upgrade up to two additional PCs to Vista Home Premium for $50
each. For
example, if you buy the upgrade version of Ultimate for $225, the grand
total
after you add two Home Premiums is $335. That's about $133 less than
buying
three upgrade versions of Home Premium. Details are at Microsoft's VFD
page.
Microsoft
did revise a Knowledge Base article, number 930985, on Jan. 31 that
obliquely
refers to the upgrade situation. It simply states that an upgrade
version of
Vista can't perform a clean install when a PC is booted from the Vista
DVD. A
clean install will only work, the document says, when the Vista setup
is run
from within an older version of Windows (or if a full version of Vista
is being
used).
This
article doesn't at all deal with the fact that the Vista upgrade
version will
in fact clean-install using the steps described above. It'll be
interesting to
see whether MS ever explains why these steps were programmed in.
Personally, I
consider Vista's ability to upgrade over itself to be Digital Rights
Management
that actually benefits consumers. It's almost cosmic justice.
I
invite my readers to test Vista's undocumented clean-install method for
themselves. There certainly must be aspects of this setup routine that
I
haven't yet discovered. I'll print the best findings from those sent in
via our
contact page. You'll receive a gift certificate for a book, CD, or DVD
of your
choice if you're the first to send in a tip that I print.
I'd like to thank my co-author
of Windows
Vista Secrets, Paul Thurrott, for his research help in bringing the
clean-install method to light.