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Windows Anytime Upgrade question

Raduque

Lifer
When you purchase a new license through Anytime Upgrade (say from Home Premium to Ultimate), does it invalidate your previous key? And if so, how does it do it if you installed without a key with the intention to trial the original version you purchased and instead decided to upgrade?


Basically what I'm asking (and I can't seem to find the answer on Google), if I use WAU, would I then have two licenses (the one I originally purchased, and the one from WAU), or would I only end up with one license?
 
no, an upgrade license needs your old key to install as well, i believe. at least i dont think they want you to use the old key anymore, maybe they just convert your existing key as said...

do you have a retail home premium? and if so, how much are they charging to upgrade to ultimate? and, why are you doing it?
 
Originally posted by: zig3695
no, an upgrade license needs your old key to install as well, i believe. at least i dont think they want you to use the old key anymore, maybe they just convert your existing key as said...

do you have a retail home premium? and if so, how much are they charging to upgrade to ultimate? and, why are you doing it?

I've got OEM Home Premium, I think it was $159 to upgrade. I don't have any plans to upgrade, I was just curious about it after reading about it.
 
i guess that still cheaper then an oem ultimate disk, but if you went with the oem, you could keep your home premium key to use as well.
 
How do you extract the new product key out of the download from using Windows Anytime Upgrade? I would hate to pay for an upgrade, and then later not be able to use it if the original download got lost or corrupted, and the system needed to be reformatted. If MS simply sent you a product key, things would be much easier.
 
Microsoft's licensing agreement is that you won't use the old OS elsewhere when you apply an upgrade to it. The old license plus the new upgrade license = upgrade.

If you decide you want to remove the Vista upgrade, you still "legally" own the original Vista license and you can continue to use it within the limitations of your original Vista license agreement. If you want to move the "Upgrade" license to another PC, that other PC has to have an eligible OS license already attached to it.

An "Upgrade" license by itself, with no previous license attached to the PC, is not allowed under Microsoft's licensing agreements.

An extreme example is a PC that originally had DOS 6.0 installed and then had a Windows 95 Upgrade, a Windows 98 Upgrade, a Windows 98SE Upgrade, an XP Upgrade, and then a Vista Upgrade installed. You only have a "legal" Vista license if you own licenses for all the previous OSes and upgrades and if you aren't using any of those licenses on a different PC.
 
Originally posted by: RebateMonger
Microsoft's licensing agreement is that you won't use the old OS elsewhere when you apply an upgrade to it. The old license plus the new upgrade license = upgrade.

If you decide you want to remove the Vista upgrade, you still "legally" own the original Vista license and you can continue to use it within the limitations of your original Vista license agreement. If you want to move the "Upgrade" license to another PC, that other PC has to have an eligible OS license already attached to it.

An "Upgrade" license by itself, with no previous license attached to the PC, is not allowed under Microsoft's licensing agreements.

An extreme example is a PC that originally had DOS 6.0 installed and then had a Windows 95 Upgrade, a Windows 98 Upgrade, a Windows 98SE Upgrade, an XP Upgrade, and then a Vista Upgrade installed. You only have a "legal" Vista license if you own licenses for all the previous OSes and upgrades and if you aren't using any of those licenses on a different PC.

I'm not sure, but I think the Anytime Upgrade upgrade license is only applicable to an existing Vista license, right?
 
Originally posted by: Raduque
I'm not sure, but I think the Anytime Upgrade upgrade license is only applicable to an existing Vista license, right?
Questions about Windows Anytime Upgrade

"You can use Windows Anytime Upgrade only on a computer that's already running Windows Vista. You can?t use Windows Anytime Upgrade to upgrade a computer that's running an earlier version of Windows."
 
I think Microsoft missed out on an opportunity here. Perhaps Joe User purchases Vista Home Basic, thinking he wants to upgrade from XP Pro to Vista. But MS won't allow that (stupid in and of itself). But they will allow him to upgrade to Vista Business. So Joe User needs to get from Vista Home Basic to Vista Business. In comes Windows Anytime Upgrade to the rescue... in theory, at least. MS should allow this, they could have an additional revenue stream.

 
Originally posted by: VirtualLarry
I think Microsoft missed out on an opportunity here. Perhaps Joe User purchases Vista Home Basic, thinking he wants to upgrade from XP Pro to Vista. But MS won't allow that (stupid in and of itself). But they will allow him to upgrade to Vista Business. So Joe User needs to get from Vista Home Basic to Vista Business. In comes Windows Anytime Upgrade to the rescue... in theory, at least. MS should allow this, they could have an additional revenue stream.

He can't upgrade from a version of XP to a version of Vista with less features (thats to avoid user confusion, so it's not stupid in and of itself). Since the user can't upgrade, he should just get Vista Home Premium (or Vista Home Business as you listed for some reason) and not go thru some confusing double upgrade as your suggesting.
 
Well, it would be simple enough for MS to pop up a dialog early on in the installer, informing the user that if they proceeded with the install, that certain features from their current OS would be disabled (RPD, etc.), if upgrading to a "lesser" version of the new OS.
But MS just has to prop up their monopoly, so they disallow upgrading from an "expensive grade" OS to a "cheaper grade" OS.
 
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