Oh crap, wrong vista installation

frosty03 · 16 Aug 2007 at 21:51

Ok, i'll fess up. I borrowed a friends vista CD, installed it without the cdkey under the 30 day trial function as microsoft intended. I whacked in the ultimate installation since wanted to see if it was worth buying.

I'm coming to the end of the 30 days, and it's time to buy. I've decided on home premium, since i found that i dont use much of the ultimate functions.

My system is up and running, and i dont fancy a whole re-install, and i dont want to buy ultimate at twice the cost.

If i buy home premium, will I be able to activate it and vista can uninstall/disable the ultimate functions, or am i forced to decide if i should pay another 60pounds to avoid a re-install.

Any ideas?

Butters · 16 Aug 2007 at 22:25

From what I am aware, all versions come on the DVD it's just the CD Key that dictates what version you get to use.

Having said that, I've used Vista once and went back to XP so i'm sure someone will be along in a minute to clarify

marc2003 · 16 Aug 2007 at 22:30

i must admit i can't answer this question for sure, but i think what you're asking isn't possible. re-install time i'm afraid......

allllec · 16 Aug 2007 at 22:59

marc2003 said:
i must admit i can't answer this question for sure, but i think what you're asking isn't possible. re-install time i'm afraid......

im 99.99% sure your correct in this case. reinstall time im afraid bud, either that or buy vista ultimate

bledd · 17 Aug 2007 at 08:46

have to reinstall

doesn't take long to do it mind

before you do it..

copy your vista dvd to c:\vista, then use this program http://vlite.net/ to remove things (only remove things you're sure about), to get a faster install and a slightly faster vista

Burnsy2023 · 17 Aug 2007 at 13:13

frosty03 said:
Ok, i'll fess up. I borrowed a friends vista CD, installed it without the cdkey under the 30 day trial function as microsoft intended.

Gah, the grace period is NOT a trial, never has been.

Burnsy

frosty03 · 17 Aug 2007 at 13:26

Oh, whoopsie. But anyway, microsoft is going to get my money, which wouldnt have happened if i never tested it, since without actually using it i was starting to believe all the hype that it was buggy and needed nuked from orbit. After all, my leaglly purchased XP was working flawlessly and i had no real need for vista (apart from curiosity).

From the replies above, i'll probably buy a home premium. I'll try to enter/activate using the home premium's cdkey and see what happens. If that fails, I will leave the original system as it is, and install over it using the home premium disk and pray that it doesnt totally mess up my system. I will have prepared backups etc as for a re-format if everything goes t**s up.