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I am running Vista Home Premium. I have a full license of Vista Ultimate in a new box (in other words, it is a full ready-to-install copy, not an Upgrade edition). How do I upgrade from my existing system from Home to Ultimate inline (as if I had an Upgrade edition) without losing my data?

It is not clear to me what will happen if I let it rip. In other words, how "smart" will the install be, like will it notice that there's a perfectly good install of Vista Basic already and ask me if I simply wish to upgrade to Ultimate - or will it pave over my existing installation.

Thanks!

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4 Answers

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The upgrade is supposed to work. It seems like this is the problem you're hitting. Do you have a Vista service pack installed (SP1 or SP2)? How new is the installation media that you're trying to upgrade to?

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It will do an upgrade.

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This does not work for me. It fails, seemingly because Vista=>Vista upgrades don't count as upgrades, at least as far as the full-install package is concerned. Maybe it would have worked if I had XP installed. Here is the error message: codingoutloud.files.wordpress.com/2009/09/… – codingoutloud Sep 9 '09 at 3:27
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I'm fairly sure you need their "anytime upgrade" versions to upgrade from one version to another.

More information here.

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Do a backup of important stuff and just install a fresh copy, upgrading is a joke, especially on Windows platforms.

I install fresh, I don't upgrade.

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