Travel Technology - Can I upgrade to MS7 "Professional" from Vista Premium Home?

I have a friend who gave me a birthday gift of a MS7 upgrade.

I kept saying that I have Vista Premium Home but he didn't listen and just gave me the "professional" version.

Can I upgrade my computer?

I think I found the answer on MS website...... yes....but it would require a "clean" install....more than I am capable of.

Pro is a higher version than Home Premium and I think you can upgrade to it from Vista without a clean install. Try it, it will tell you if it requires a clean install.

Pro is a higher version than Home Premium and I think you can upgrade to it from Vista without a clean install. Try it, it will tell you if it requires a clean install.

Correct.

Reference this handy chart - http://i.zdnet.com/blogs/windows-upgrade-chart-eb-remake-final3.png?tag=col1;post-1246

and this handy explanation - http://www.hanselman.com/blog/Windows7EasyUpgradePathTruthTableChart.aspx

Here is MS website that says I must do a clean install from Vista Home Premium to MS7 Professional


http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/get/upgrade-considerations.aspx

A call to MS customer service confirmed this.....

MS is correct. To go directly to Professional, you need to do a clean install. To easily move from Premium to Professional, as in the linked references, you would need to buy a Premium Upgrade and then do an Anytime Upgrade from 7 Premium to 7 Professional - two different transactions. Since you already have the Professional upgrade DVD, this is not an option.

Unless you need the capabilities of professional (http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows7/products/compare, you might just want to exchange the gift for a copy of Premium and some $$$ back.

You'll save a lot of time (my in-place upgrade took 90 minutes, I can see days for a full re-install) and not lose much that an average home user would need.

Here is MS website that says I must do a clean install from Vista Home Premium to MS7 Professional


http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/get/upgrade-considerations.aspx

A call to MS customer service confirmed this.....

That was also my understanding, but I took a look at Ed Bott's article again, since he seems to have updated his chart again.

Here's the article with the charts, which includes data from uSoft and his own simplified version which is what bdesmond referenced in his reply:

http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=1246&tag=content;col1

He keeps updating that chart as he discovers new things, I suppose.

What he's saying with the "in-place + anytime upgrade" text is that you can do an in-place upgrade from vista home premium to win7 home, and then do an anytime upgrade in win7 home to win7 pro. (check the total pricing on that option, it might be fairly expensive as the anytime upgrades are fairly expensive.)

There's also various entries in his chart that show you can move up in certain categories with the in-place upgrade. For example, it looks like in-place upgrade to win7 ultimate works with any version of vista as long as you stay with the same bit width. That data seems to come from uSoft also as it's in their own chart.

So it seems like you could just do an in-place upgrade from vhp to win7 ultimate and get what you want since they cleaned up the feature mess in win7 ... higher versions now include everything in the lower version unlike vista ... but you can't do it in a single step from vhp to win7 pro.

I have a friend who gave me a birthday gift of a MS7 upgrade.

I kept saying that I have Vista Premium Home but he didn't listen and just gave me the "professional" version.

Can I upgrade my computer?

Remember that the word "upgrade" has two meanings here.

1. Can I use cheaper upgrade media (am I legally entitled to use upgrade media when doing an upgrade)?

2. Can I do an in-place upgrade, or do I need to do a clean install?

So, the answer to #1 is yes, because you have a legally licensed copy of xp anything or vista anything, you can use that media to legally upgrade your computer, but you can't do it with an in-place upgrade. You will need to do a clean install using that media/license key, which is what you discovered and posted in post #2.

The clean install is a fresh install of the OS, but all your data files, etc, will be saved in c:\Windows.old. After the clean install, you will need to reinstall all your applications and migrate your data files over from the windows.old folder.

Or, you can sell that on ebay or somewhere and just buy the win7 home upgrade or the family pack if you are upgrading more than one home computer. The family pack lets you upgrade 3 computers for $150, but it's only win7 home.



uSoft has created a bit of a confusing mess here and I'm sure these types of questions are going to come up again and again. Seems like a good candidate for a mac vs pc ad.

-David