Migrating from Vista Home Premium to Windows 7 Ultimate | The Coffeehouse

RodAtWork

I'm working on replacing my failed PC at home. Since this is my dime, I
cannot afford as nice a machine as I have at work. Therefore, whatever I
buy now will likely have Windows Vista Home Premium on it. Can I upgrade it
to Windows 7 Ultimate or Win7 Enterprise? Or is one forced to upgrade to
the equivalent version of Windows 7 that corresponds to Vista?

ManipUni
Proving QQ for 5 years!

I don't believe you can upgrade to a better version. However you could upgrade to the same version and use Microsoft's "instant upgrade" to turn it into 7 Ultimate?

Or better wait like two months, get Windows 7 Home Premium and turn that into Pro' using instant upgrade.

dahat

I've not tried it, but the following table says you can upgrade from one of the Home versions to Ultimate:

Note that Win 7 Enterprise is something that will only be avalible to companies under the enterprise/volume license and will only support upgrading from previous Enterprise versions (I think).

spivonious

I don't see why you couldn't upgrade to a better version. I would see problems with allowing upgrades from Ultimate to Home though, since you lose a lot of features.

RodAtWork

In reply to ManipUni

#Sep 18th @ 7:45 AM

Thank you for this feedback, everyone. Quick question: What is "Instant Upgrade"?

dahat

In reply to RodAtWork

#Sep 18th @ 12:37 PM

Also known as Windows Anytime Upgrade, it's a mechanism where you can do an inplace upgrade from one SKU of Vista (and soon 7) to a higher one without having to buy a whole nother copy of Windows.

RodAtWork

In reply to dahat

#Sep 18th @ 1:08 PM

"SKU"?

dahat

In reply to RodAtWork

#Sep 18th @ 2:57 PM

You know you've been on the inside when such meaningless words start creeping into your vocabulary... SKU (aka stock-keeping unit) is just a shorter way of saying Edition really... but tends to be more focused in a Version(Vista) + Edition(Ultimate) sort of way.

RodAtWork

In reply to dahat

#Sep 18th @ 4:20 PM

Thank you, dahat, for the explanation of what "SKU" is.

fknight

In reply to RodAtWork

#Oct 2nd @ 12:57 PM

Speaking of Windows Anytime Upgrade:

When Vista first came out, everything that I read about Windows Anytime Upgrade and Vista made it clear that all of the media (Home Basic, Home Premium, Ultimate) was exactly the same and that only the installation product key determined which edition was actually installed. Further, we were told that doing the Anytime Upgrade would supply us with a new product key and whatever edition we had installed would "unlock features" of the edition I was upgrading to.

Did I hear/read this wrong when Vista came out? I could have sworn this was the exact information that was described when Vista was released. Yet, when I used Anytime Upgrade to upgrade from Vista Home Premium to Vista Ultimate (and if I did so today), I had to wait a week for media, then run the installer off the new media with the new product key (as an aside, I upgraded from Vista Home Premium 64 Bit to Ultimate 64 bit, yet the Anytime Upgrade site didn't have an option to select 32 or 64, so I had to wait until the media arrived to realize that I had to call Microsoft on the phone to have them send me 64 bit media).

LeoDavidson

In reply to fknight

#Oct 2nd @ 5:52 PM

I thought Anytime Upgrade was electronic. Didn't realise it involved waiting for media to ship.

I hope the pricing of the upgrades are less of a rip-off in Windows 7. With Vista I think it was comparable pricing to buy an OEM copy of Ultimate rather than upgrade, which makes zero sense if you think about what you're paying for in each case and is why my laptop still has Vista Home Premium despite me wanting some of the removed features occasionally.

AndyC

In reply to fknight

#Oct 2nd @ 5:52 PM

It depended upon the media your PC shipped with, as not all media was "Anytime Upgrade" enabled. OEMs often shipped a customised build, which only supported a single edition.