[seco7]

I should know this, but I don't and I'm wondering if anyone knows what the MS policy for upgrading to Vista is. The hard drive on our kids pc at home died, and since starting fresh, I was considering upgrading to Vista. Do I still need to re-install XP (OEM version) first? I would love to do a completely "clean" install without buying the full version of Vista.

Thanks in advance ...

[sidenimjay]

if you are thinkng of buying an upgrade version, i can speak to past experience

for all upgrades since win95, i have been able to use that disk when prompted for the previously owned copy while doing a fresh install

windows never needed to be on the system itself, i just needed a cd to verify that i owned at least one copy of windows.

i havent tried with vista, but all previous version win95, win2k and XP
so far have played very nice

i doubt that any of that would change, considering they would like to sell at
least one copy

hope this helps

[ajlynn]

My question would be, why Vista? It seems very not-ready-for-prime-time, and has very high hardware requirements and overhead, while XP runs all the software, works great, is mature and doesn't have any clear drawbacks relative to Vista. And you already paid for it.

[b-kandor]

The vista upgrade has changed, I read about it somewhere and forgot all the details but it will screw you over if you don't find out about it! I'll look for the article and try to post a link.

[seco7]

Thanks for the input, I was afraid Vista has changed. I also remember people having problems with OEM versions of windows disks during the upgrade install.

I was thinking Vista because it is on the kids machine (in the kitchen) which is basically a e-mail and picture machine. Seems perfect for Vista.

[LesliePere]

Well, then you can save yourself the hustle and just get the basic OEM. Only $95 bucks for a clean install.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6832116195