Today at Ed Bott’s Microsoft Report on ZDNet, I listed some of the upgrade scenarios that will be possible when Windows Vista ships. All three consumer versions – Home Basic, Home Premium, and Ultimate – will be included on the same CD or DVD. You don’t need to go to the store and purchase a new shrink-wrapped box to upgrade; all you have to do is go to Control Panel and run the Windows Anytime Upgrade program.
I’ve just installed Windows Home Basic on a test computer here and snapped some screen shots to show what the process looks like.
Here’s the opening screen:
When you click past this introduction, you get to the step-by-step upgrade path shown here:
Note the text in step 1, which makes it very clear that you’re about to go to “one of our partner’s websites to purchase a license….” Microsoft clearly has no desire to upset its retail and OEM partners by trying to sell licenses directly to Windows customers. I suspect that in the final release big OEMs like Dell, HP, and Sony will have a custom version of this upgrade utility to send customers back to their website to purchase the upgrade license.
If you try to upgrade using one of the current beta test versions, of course, you get sent to a placeholder page, which contains no pricing or other details.
A very interesting approach, to be sure.
Ed Bott 
It’s a good idea, since the differences between versions appear to be a few additional apps and the removal of limitations. The amount of software you need to download for an upgrade is probably less than the size of a typical payload on Patch Tuesday.
Hmmm, I wonder if they’ll put shortcuts to the missing functionality in the Start Menu and elsewhere, then treat upgrades kind of like a “install on first use” scenario.
Let’s hope that the initial pricing isn’t so insane that we have to consider buying Home only to take out a small loan to upgrade to Home Premium or Ultimate.
Wonder when they will release an easy to use side by side feature comparison chart…
Free upgrade online! Note to all investors and tech mavens. I would like to start a betting pool on how long it will take for the l337 among us to Haxxor this to hell and back. Because really, isn’t this just needing a few good key generators and a leak inside the Beast that is MS to lead to a good hack that will allow you to buy your licensce from God directly? I’m just asking this question as one who is on the lowdown with the l337 and a refular digg.com reader. I think that the key thing is, be careful! I can see this going well for most of the population of the U.S.A. say, but here in Canada, I predict much lower sales. Please, correct me if I am wrong, but I see this move by MS as a very double edged sword!
This is funny, I’m pretty sure someone will crack the CD/DVD and you can install what you already have.
The downside of this approach is that it will only curb piracy. Imagine having all three editions on one DVD. Now all you have to do is wait for some patch to get released which lets you use the other more enhanced versions.
And yeah, there is no full proof solution. These things always get cracked. Even Valve said Steam cud not be beaten and we had no_steam patched versions of Half Life 2 within a few days of release.
The other day I came across a link to a patch that converts your Windows Vista beta 3508 into no trial version that never expires. Microsoft’s got to do better than this
Not bad but I agree, someone will surely crack the cd/dvd
“The downside of this approach is that it will only curb piracy.”
I think you mean “encourage piracy”. CURB is definately the wrong word to use and means the exact opposite.. sheez!
I think many commentors are missing the point a little. Stopping the hackers is not the purpose here. We and I’m sure MS already know that people who want to steal software will do it regardless, they’ll make it awkward, but it won’t stop it.
What it does make easy is enabling legit users to upgrade, and I’d assume allow people to become legit – I could imagine this layered up with “windows genuine program” for example.
(PS. Militant, XP SP2 was 272Mb)
I like the idea. The more I hear about Vista, the better I’m feeling. Call me the eternal optimist, I guess.
No need to buy another box of software. Another box actually capable of running the new bloat-ware, now that may be a different story! 🙂
Zeke: “Wonder when they will release an easy to use side by side feature comparison chart”
The tables near the bottom of this page may not be completely accurate but they do have a typical MS-think pattern:
http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase/winvista_editions.asp
The most interesting is “Processor and Memory Support” near the bottom. Notice that none of the Home editions support dual processors, although they do support hyperthreading. There are a few other artificial limits like 5 network connections for the low-end Home SKUs.
Most of the other differences are just software, which they can easily install from the DVD, apply relevant patches from the Internet, and you’re good to go.
MS is everybodys favorite thing to hate. It’s the “cool thing to do”. If it wasn’t MS it would be all the different falvors of Linux, or apple, SCO gets what it deserves. As long as we have dorks out there that don’t have anything better to do with their time than to create problems for other people, it won’t matter what you run on your sys. MS will continue to improve their product. They will continue to charge too much for it and we can probably thank the mental masterbaters, you know the ones that every one seems so in awe of because they crack,hack, and write viruses that cause all of us that are just trying to make a living problems, for the increase in cost. Not just MS products, everything we use to create a secure enviroment. Now I know that every one thinks “this guy must be Bill’s butt buddy”. No, I’m not. I just have to deal with patch Tuesday, and all the great wads of patches that come down for most of the linux versions as well, because some ass monkey has nothing better to do. Why don’t people get as upset about that as they do about MS. How odd human nature can be.
In response to Buwana: what we are seeing is an evolutionary process. It may be a hassle, but the code is being strengthened with every patch. Over the course of years, all these attempts at hacking will bring us into greater levels of code competency, and reliability. I’m curious how our code would look now if we hadn’t been fighting hackers all along.
I doubt it will be that easy to crack, it will most likely require activation online within so many days else it will lock up, so simply a key generator wont do. And okay so someone will probably figure how to hack it but at the end of the day the effort of that is only similar to the effort of pirating a current version.
Also a lot of people buy PCs with the OS preinstalled, and Microsoft sell a lot of versions of their OS in this way.
So you’ll be able to “instant” upgrade, fine, but then you’ll have to wait for all the service packs etc to download and install for the upgraded version. I just find it interesting that all-on-one-dvd is being stressed, when in reality online OS updates will continue to come at us faster and faster, there is no way around it.
Brad, can you point to any Critical Updates or Service Packs that were different for different XP versions? The code is identical in those two instances.
Yes, for some advanced features there might be optional updates that you’ll need, but that’s a pretty minot burden.
Ed, interesting news and thanks for a great blog. I agree with you, Home or Pro same updates normally. But in the October bulletin; the MS05-046 Client Services for Netware (899589) update said: “Windows XP Home Edition is not vulnerable to this issue. Windows XP Home Edition does not contain the vulnerable component.” But I know, even on the other versions this component is not installed by default.
This all-in-one DVD thing started people to speculate about cracking tools; maybe possible, but I agree with “goeshere”, and today we have updates of the WGA tool. My question is instead: what will happen if you, a year after an upgrade, decide to do a clean install? Somehow you have to export your license, or have your new key written down etc. so that you install the upgraded version.
So who will crack it first. I am not even going to bother to pay for pirated cd will download it from net. WHAT !!!!!!!! updates you can always download them from other websites… big deal
I am 99.9999% certain that there will be a very easy way to export your key. It might be as simple as printing out the 25-character product ID. An OEM might even mail a new Certificate of Authenticity with Product key included.
And of course, since the license is purchased via the Web and is locked to the machine it was first installed on (by activation) there’s no reason you couldn’t go to the site you purchased it from and request a duplicate copy.
So I really don’t see this as a problem.
Next question. Will MS then be actually be selling different versions of Vista at retail in different boxes? Theoretically, they could just offer the one box “Home Basic” and do all system upgrades online. That said, I’d still like the ability to buy the entire version i want at retail….
There could be a terrific side benefit to this upgrade system: it’ll force OEMs to include a Windows CD/DVD with each new system.
Who cares is another version of Microshit….if you guys ware not so crazy to get the “Latest and the Gretest” will not be a Microshit to charge you a arm and a leg for a POS half broken OS that need like several SP to be fix…..ikkkkkkk
what difference Vista Home Basic, Home Premium, and Ultimate.
Thanks
Do you suppose this will mean that there will be Vista Cds floating around like the millions of AOL CDs? (;-)
Who are the online partners that Microsoft is using to buy the license key from? Does it work?
PW, read the next-to-last paragraph above.
I have a problem in Activating Windows Vista BEta Build 5308 Please Help Me How to activate it and give me One Trick to do it or give me activation code because i havent the Original version
I have a problem with activating Vista. Can you please give me some way of doing it or the code. Thank You.
Hmm I am wondering the same. How can I activate Vista 5381. I have been looking. Or do I activate after the 14 days?
Thanks
If you have a legal copy of Vista, it came with a product ID. If you got a bootleg copy, you’re going to be out of luck after the 14 days are up.
A Windows Vista Premium Ready PC includes at least:
• 1 GHz 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor1.
• 1 GB of system memory.
• A graphics processor that runs Windows Aero2.
• 128 MB of graphics memory.
• 40 GB of hard drive capacity with 15 GB free space.
• DVD-ROM Drive3.
• Audio output capability.
• Internet access capability.
Windows Vista Capable and Premium Ready footnotes
1. Processor speed is specified as the nominal operational processor frequency for the device. Some processors have power management which allows the processor to run at lower rate to save power.
2. Windows Aero requires:
a. DirectX 9 class graphics processor that:
i. Supports a WDDM Driver.
ii. Supports Pixel Shader 2.0 in hardware.
iii. Supports 32 bits per pixel.
b. Adequate graphics memory.
i. 64 MB of graphics memory to support a single monitor less than 1,310,720 pixels
ii. 128 MB of graphics memory to support a single monitor at resolutions from 1,310,720 to 2,304,000 pixels
iii. 256 MB of graphics memory to support a single monitor at resolutions higher than 2,304,000 pixels
iv. Meets graphics memory bandwidth requirements, as assessed by Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor running on Windows XP
3. A DVD-ROM may be external (not integral, not built into the system).
Can I just burn the iso vista file on a reguler cd-r disc? And another thing do i have to punch in the product key before i can get in to windows? I’m still unsure.
…] Windows Vista will have a new feature called “Windows Anytime Upgrade.” Basically, Home Basic, Premium and Ultimate will all be on the same CD/DVD. You just need to buy a license to install it. By using the wizard, you can get specially discounted upgrades and then do it by using your Windows Vista CD/DVD. I can just imagine someone, somewhere, planning to crack this so then the upgrades are free. […]
Hi Ed, et al,
My concern, at this point, really ISN’T about whether I’ll want to upgrade from one version of Vista to another after I upgrade to Vista, but IF I’ll even be able to Upgrade to Vista without buying a new computer.
I’ve run both Microsoft AND ATI’s Vista Upgrade Advisors on my HP Media Center m376n (3 years old this coming November), and EXCEPT for my Radeon 9200 Video card, the more comprehensive ATI Advisor says my system actually EXCEEDS even the OPTIMUM requirements for Vista (I’ve upgraded the RAM in this Machine to 3 GB… otherwise, everything else is STOCK)…
Therein lies the sole problem — the STOCK power supply is 200 watts, and most of the new high-powered video cards require something like 350 watts, or more. While I’d LOVE to have a 512 MB SUPERCARD, I’d settle for something a little less flashy that would still meet Vista requirements AND run on a system with a 200-watt power supply… However, it’s next-to-IMPOSSIBLE to do searches for compatible cards based on their wattage requirements.
Do ANY OF YOU know of a resource, or a forum, or ANYWHERE I can find such information, or if it even exists? If I’ll have to replace BOTH the video card AND the Power supply AND pay $300 for Vista, that’s just enough to likely push me into sticking with XP until the time comes this system just no longer suits my needs or will run software I need and I HAVE TO upgrade to a new machine.
All help is appreciated!
Jeff Hayes
Im testing windows vista ultimate rc1 build 5600 atm. This is the final candidate build before the official release of vista apparantly and i havnt had any problems at all with it. Jeff Hayes – I find it quite funny how ur running 3GB ram system with a 200W psu, 200W will ultimitly effect ur computers speed full stop. my graphics card requires atleast a minimal of 350w to run and even then u ive got 2 hard drives, 3 fans and a dvd rom drive to power. psu’s are cheap to buy anyway and if u did manage to find a 200W compatible graphics card then it wuld be a piece of shit and a rip off
Aziz, you need to wait until Microsoft reopens access to its Customer Preview Program for new registrations.
Also, you made a mistake by extracting files from the ISO. Burn the ISO image directly to a DVD so that it’s bootable.
you are all wondering who will crack vista. i also know that someone will and when they do, ohhhhhh!!!!
bless the heavens…. im sorted, im gona be enjoying my vista and playing halo 2
by the way if ur wondering am i gone use crack to instal halo 2? the answer is no, because i really like it and will wont to have the real thing with manuals and stuff……
i think that when u got to the halo2 vista lobby u aint gona find a lot of people i dont even know how many people il find. also no hard feelings about what i said that would have made u a little angry just saying what i was gona do and im only 16 no one in my school , london, knows what vista is or halo.
how come only people with newly bought pc’s with windows xp can get a vista trial download? what if i was i v.i.p to microsoft doesnt that matter?. how roooooooooooooooode! 😦
THATS JUST HOW IT IS. THATS HOW THE WORLD IS
I just want to send a nice warm Thank You to my university’s Computer Science department for being a member of MSDNAA. Thanks to them, I am able to send this message thru a fresh install of Windows Vista Business Premium… for free. Of course, I’m just testing it right now. I’m running it on a 20 gig partition next to XP Pro (also free thru my university.) So far I haven’t had too many troubles, but I’m not getting rid of XP until I know that vista is solid.
hello, i have the same prblem as #46, jeff hayes, which video card is safe to buy without buying a new power supply? please keep in mind i can only use PCI and AGP
I’ve just gone through the anytime upgrade process and found that if you choose different vendors from the list you’ll pay a different price. I am upgrading from Vista Business to Vista Ultimate. Here is what i found.
Acer £141.85 €214.00
Toshiba £118.65 €179.00
Maxdata £117.53 €177.31
Comet £94.99 €143.30
Sony £78.88 €119.99
Medion £118.65 €179.00
Fujitsu Siemen Service Unavailable
PC World £109.99 €164.45
Hewlett Packars Service Unavailable
FNAC £118.00 €178.00
Microsoft Service Unavailable
And to cap it all off, It states that it takes 1 – 2 minutes to download
but in reality after you have given them your credit card details, and completed your order, you get an email stating it will take upto 5 days to process your order and send you your digital key.
What’s going on Microsoft!
everytime i start my computer up and incompatibilty window comes up after i have installed my vista saying ati control panel has compatibilty issues. how do i fix this? i have a radeon express 200 on my computer.
is this free? is vista all that good? waht is so good about it?
Want to have fun with someone. Fake them out with this Vista Upgrade prank: http://www.rjlsoftware.com/software/entertainment/vista/
I am very satisfied with my purchase of Windows Vista Home Premium addition. It runs very smoothly on a decent computer with a decent an affordable graphics card, (I am running a P4 3.0, with a gig of ram, and a $70 128 mg graphics card). The Interface is extremely delightful, user friendly, and the appearance is second to none. The 32 bit version is also very fast compared to Linux SUSE 9.0.
The feel of this OS is in my opinion somewhat of a modern Linux based system without having to use a Shell for anything. I only wish it came with the freeware a Linux based OS comes with. This is probably contributed to the side bar and User Account Controls built in at initial start up.
The upside is the quantity of hardware drivers that come preinstalled, and the availability of easy to find compatible software. So far I did not have to install any drivers for my mother board, printer, graphics card, wireless card, sound cards, or for that matter any hardware device.
Overall this OS is in my opinion a better product than XP, if you have a computer built to handle the new technology. Web searches are very fast compared to Windows 2000 Pro and in my opinion faster than that of XP. Explorer 7 seems to have increased my browsing speed. I would definitional if you are not running XP pro. If you are running XP pro go with the Ultimate version.
I was in thailand on january 28th and they had a version of Vista already with serial and time crack. The DVD came with every version of vista as well, and only three dollars for the thing. Gotta give credit to the pirates for working so quickly.
why cant i burn more then 29 song on my burn?
that on a m.p.3
I think because Microsoft did put in some special protection against copying and burning cd’s. which software are you using for burning. I did use Nero for about 1 month but in Vista beta version and I didn’t had any problem. Maybe this software will help you.
Microsoft did not put in any “special protection against copying and burning CDs.” You can rip any standard audio CD and burn any standard MP3 or unprotected WMA file and the only restriction is from the hardware and media size.
same problem. just installed on my hp.
michael says:
everytime i start my computer up and incompatibilty window comes up after i have installed my vista saying ati control panel has compatibilty issues. how do i fix this? i have a radeon express 200 on my computer.
Microsoft did not put in any “special protection against copying and burning CDs.” You can rip any standard audio CD and burn any standard MP3 or unprotected WMA file and the only restriction is from the hardware and media size.