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Vista upgrade without disc

M

michaels

Banned
Ok I have a machine that was running a copy of XP pro I checked out from my college library. I bought a copy of Home Premium upgrade and installed it. I am wanting to upgrade my mobo/cpu and I do not have access to the XP disc any more. Wasn't there a trick to installing Vista HP upgrade on a fresh install?
 
I don't know if it'll work anymore, but you first install Vista HP without putting in the key.
After installation is done, you "upgrade" Vista from that installation by running the process again, this time putting in your key.
 
What you do is install Vista as normally without the product key. Make certain you select the version of Vista you have a key for when you do this. When the first install is done just launch the Vista DVD inside your newly installed copy and select to upgrade it using the DVD. During the upgrade enter in your product key. When this is finished you will have a fresh installation of Vista from the upgrade DVD.
 
Originally posted by: michaels
But this can be done on a formatted drive without an OS?
Click to expand...

Yes it can as long as you follow the instructions and do the first installation the normal way. The Vista DVD has a partitioning and formating section under advanced where you can take care of all of that during the first install.
 
I read something about Vista's activation scheme being modified to refuse activation to systems that were installed this way. I don't know if that's true or not, I haven't tested it out yet. Would be a shame if they closed that useful loophole. Even though I have prior copies of XP, and upgrade copies of Vista, I would prefer to install the Vista copies "clean", if you know what I mean.
 
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