It's odd that I can't seem to find clarification on what I thought was a simple question about Vista upgrade edition details. (All versions)
It appears - according to this KB article - that any "upgrade" edition of Vista must be installed from within the previous OS, you cannot do a clean install. It also appears that in this case, since the previous OS must also be activated and verified before you can upgrade to Vista, that the previous operating systems registration key is consumed and may never be re-used again.
This seems somewhat reasonable considering the terms of the upgrade editions EULA until one imagines the scenario of having the re-install that Vista upgrade onto the same exact hardware after a disaster. According to what I can find, the user would have to re-install the OLD operating system, activate it, validate it, then upgrade again to Vista. But . . . since the old PID is deactivated during the original upgrade to Vista, they won't be able to validate the old OS.
A quandary if true.
Is Microsoft really thinking that users will never ever have to wipe and re-install like we do with XP every couple of years or so? Are they thinking a system root hard drive will never fail?
The only answer I can find so far from MS is: "Buy the full retail package, not the update edition, if you ever intend or want to do a clean install or a re-install.
So, any of you have direct links to public knowledge from Microsoft that contradicts this line of reasoning? Perhaps someone perhaps would point me to the right KB article or Microsoft publication? I need to know!
Thanks.
