Vista licencsing question

[Freakitchen]

Looking to do myself a bit of a hardware upgrade in the next couple of weeks, and I'm wanting to run Vista on the new machine. As as student, I can get hold of Vista business Upgrade edition for £42 (possible competitor? Won't mention the website). Got a few questions about the licensing/installation of it though - I need to decide whether the money saved would be worth it over a standard OEM Home Premium disc.

1) Am I right in thinking Vista upgrade requires a full install of XP, and that you cannot do a fresh install of an upgrade version? I'm a big fan of *clean* OS installs, the idea of an upgrade in this sense makes me sort of wary. Anyone had any issues with upgrading in this way?

2) Ideally, I want the x64 version, the disc supplied is only 32bit. Am I right in thinking you can order the x64 CD from Microsoft, if so, how much does it cost and is it a new licence, or is the key that I'll get valid for both.

3) In relation to the above, my housemate got a free copy of Vista Business x64 through MSDNAA, as such, he has a retail ISO. Not expecting to be able to use that disc + key for a fresh install, but could I at least use it to perform the upgrade, so I don't have to buy the new disc? What I'm essentially asking is, how many different install disc types are there?

Cheers,

 

[dave-lew99]

Are you also not eligible for MSDNAA? if you're at the same uni/course then you should be.

You are given (if you buy what you are suggesting) an upgrade key for x86 vista buisness - it won't work with any other variation. You used to be able to install from the upgrade cd (XP) and just put in the Win98 disc half way through the install so it can check to see that you are actually doing an upgrade, not sure if this still applies with XP > Vista upgrades though.

 

[Freakitchen]

Are you also not eligible for MSDNAA? if you're at the same uni/course then you should be.

MSDNAA is only applicable for a couple of courses here - computer science and electronics. Not doing either of them! Cheers for the reply though, I'm under the impression that officially, a full install of XP has to be done first - which isn't a problem, I'm just trying to decide if that, plus the other stuff, makes it worth the saving.

 

[dave-lew99]

well at £42 it's not bad really, personally i'd just get a Technet Online subscription - most of the MS software for free, allows multiple activations across different machines/simultaenous installs.

Down side is that its only legally valid if you keep renewing your sub - around £200/yr

 

[Freakitchen]

Technet is interesting but certainly wouldn't be value-for-money for me. Only interested in Vista, and only for one machine, I'm happy to leave everything else on XP. That's partly why I'm leaning towards paying £62 ish for an OEM copy of Home Premium x64 and have no messing about to contend with, although I thought I'd check how easy it was to save the 20 notes on the upgrade Business version first!

 

[dave-lew99]

Best make sure of the differences between Buisness and Home Prem then - AFAIK buisness does domain logons while HomePrem has mediacentre included instead, but i'm sure theres other differences.