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General Vista Help and Support The general Windows Vista discussion forum, for topics not covered elsewhere. (microsoft.public.windows.vista.general) |
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Vista Anytime Upgrade
I have been running XP forever. Too old of a machine to run much newer OS'es such as 10, or 8/8.1... So I decided to check out Vista.
I purchased an Anytime upgrade disk (Supposed to be new) on E-Bay. It didn't come with a COA...Shouldn't it have? or Did I get hosed by the seller? I didn't want to do a "Clean install" and loose a bunch of stuff I collected, and from what I read you are supposed to be able to use the anytime upgrade disc on the latest (SP3)versions of XP.... |
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Vista Anytime Upgrade
wrote:
I have been running XP forever. Too old of a machine to run much newer OS'es such as 10, or 8/8.1... So I decided to check out Vista. I purchased an Anytime upgrade disk (Supposed to be new) on E-Bay. It didn't come with a COA...Shouldn't it have? or Did I get hosed by the seller? I didn't want to do a "Clean install" and loose a bunch of stuff I collected, and from what I read you are supposed to be able to use the anytime upgrade disc on the latest (SP3)versions of XP.... Hosed. I could find one of those listed, consisting of a DVD, with *no* license key. It's like buying a shoe shine... without the shoe. Media is useless, without a license key (unless you plan to use a loader to force activation). Anytime Upgrades are for specific situations (more than one version). For example, you probably don't need media for this, as the process takes around ten minutes, and consists of linking already-installed files from WinSXS, into System32 folder. Anytime Upgrade Key Vista_Home -------------------- Vista_Ultimate But that doesn't solve the problem Media+Key Retail WinXP Sp3 -------------------- Vista_Home Anytime Upgrade kits generally disappear from retail a couple years after they start shipping. There really shouldn't be any left. For example, Win7 AU disappeared several years ago. Nothing left. Lots of people asking "where'd they go?". ******* At this point in time, there's practically no upgrade strategy left. It's a waste-land. To preserve programs and data, you could go WinXP SP3 --- Vista ---- Windows 7 as you cannot go direct from WinXP to Windows 7. Windows 7 has practically the same overhead as Vista. Windows 8 switches to Metro, and uses more graphics operations for the desktop. On Windows 7 you can disable Aero, which reduces latency on things like screen recorders, and makes screen shots more legible by not having transparency turned on. If you need media, for test installs, try the Heidoc URL generator. Use the "copy to clipboard" button in the tool, then paste the URL into your favorite browser. The actual download URL uses a Microsoft address. Note the software requirements on this page well - the "legacy" version of Heidoc is discontinued, and now there is a gootstrapping problem for a WinXP user. You can go WinXP to VirtualBox, but around 3GB or RAM minimum is recommended. https://www.virtualbox.org/ In virtualbox, you can load one of these appliances. Then visit the Heidoc web site with a browser while running an OS in VirtualBox. You do this, if you need to use some software that runs .NET 4.6 or 4.7. Right now, I can run Windows 10 inside VirtualBox, on my WinXP machine that has 4GB of memory. It's slow, but only so when Win10 is doing maintenance. https://developer.microsoft.com/en-u...vms/#downloads Once you download an OS to load into VirtualBox, you can use the Heidoc URL generator. Notice that it no longer has an option for Vista media, because Microsoft TechBench would have removed those (as Vista is now out of support, there's "no need for DVDs"). https://www.heidoc.net/joomla/techno...-download-tool That's how I'd bootstrap some later OS solution, if say, I bought a license key on Ebay. If you have a teeny tiny WinXP machine (1GB), it's going to be a challenge in any case to upgrade the platform. ******* Microsoft has the cross-hairs all lined up on you, for a computer + Win10 upgrade. The Win10 OS is wasteful enough, it only runs decently while using an SSD boot drive. (Win10 likes to do AV scans, do file indexing, and make a general nuisance of itself. At least, compared to the quiet simplicity of WinXP.) As for computer, you want a quad core minimum. The latest "competition" between Intel and AMD, is helping see to it, that quad core low-end is now more of a norm than an exception. When AMD gets their Raven Ridge out the door, you can have a nice quad core with built-in video card, and it might be a few bucks less than an Intel solution. Raven Ridge might be out early next year some time. As for RAM memory, the chips are getting large enough now, there aren't a lot of options to "go cheap". If they use DDR3, I think there might be some smaller chip options there, to save a few bucks. There are both RAM shortages and Flash memory shortages. Other worrying trends are motherboard prices, where inflation is becoming a real problem (no value for money on some of them). I saw a $600 motherboard, where the I/O plate was only half full. And the chipset has like 20 USB ports, if they would only fill the back plate with USB. They could have filled that plate right up with useful stuff. You're less likely to find a $65 motherboard now. ******* My "daily driver" is WinXP SP3. I have plenty of other OSes (zero Vista, one Win7, two Win8.1, three Win10), but when surfing, I'm still using WinXP. As long as I practice Safe Hex, and do all the program download experiments in the others, I'm OK. My OS probably has quite a few holes in it now. They've made the last Firefox for it, so there cannot be much more life left in it. Some day the wheels will fall off. The last Chrome was ages ago. Paul |