Text 27788, 216 rader
Skriven 2007-02-01 06:42:02 av Jeff Guerdat
     Kommentar till en text av JAY EMRIE
Ärende: Re: Vista Install Invalidates
=====================================
JAY EMRIE wrote:
> Just one more reason NOT to go to Vista (upgrade anyhow).

 From Brian Livingston's Windows Secrets (long!):

Get Vista upgrade, never pay full price

By Brian Livingston

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 by avoiding the 'full' version

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:

Edition  Full version  Upgrade version
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.
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