Microsoft Windows Vista Anytime Upgrade Pack Home Premium to Ultimate

WAU HomePrem to Ultimate English UPG Not to Latam DVD WAU Retail Tech

User Ratings and Reviews

4 Stars Installed smoothly, only one minor glitch.
I too was concerned about some of the reviews indicating serious problems with this upgrade, but I needed some of the Business options, so I ordered this upgrade, and obtained an Anytime Upgrade disc from Microsoft. The Amazon license key purchase was nearly instant, and I made sure that all applications were turned off/shut down (esp. the "quiet" ones in the toolbar), and I was NOT running antivirus, as those programs are known to interfere with system-level activities.

Also, I had a clean install of HomePremium that was only about a month old, so I suppose the system was still pretty "clean". I also allowed the installation program to search for updates before beginning, and it downloaded a large file, then started installation over again. These are NOT Windows Updates — after it was all done, Windows Update installed 37 additional Recommended updates, and I chose another five or so of the Optional ones.

The only glitch I ran across was during the first restart - Windows was not able to shut down, and I couldn't shut it down from menus either. I finally powered the system off, and when I powered back on, it went back into Setup and continued the process. Subsequent restarts occurred without incident.

It does take a few hours, as advertised, and I did back up my personal folders and settings just in case. Ultimately (no pun intended), all my programs and settings were preserved, and I'm back up and running Vista Ultimate, which is the version I should have bought in the first place.

5 Stars Dunno what I did wrong, but the upgrade went through very smoothly!
I had read all the reviews and decided "What the heck". After all, i use a laptop and want bitlocker and the other security enhancements.

I ordered from Microsoft (I wish I had from amazon as I've a $25 certificate) and installed it according to their directions and recommendations.

Keep in mind I had a 3rd party antivirus security product installed.

When I started the upgrade process, I got a prompt asking if I wanted to get product updates online (recommended) - I said 'yes' to this. Maybe that was why my upgrade was successful.

Note, I own a Gateway MX8739 and it came with its own Anytime Upgrade disc.

The actual upgrade took almost 2 hours and was mostly automatic. Once it got back to the login screen, I entered my name and password as usual. My desktop reappeared normally. I started MS Word 2007 and it re-initialized and had to reboot. I said "no" to that prompt because Windows Update was downloading and installing 30 updates at the same time.

I did have to re-activate, but that went through without a hitch. Vista Ultimate is now the installed version, it's activated, antivirus program's definitions downloaded without fail, Office did its update and my settings remained unchanged, I am very happy.

I'm sorry some people had problems. I almost did not buy because of what has been said. However I did buy, and am glad I did. Hopefully my two cents will help address the balance.

1 Star This is dumb
The inplace upgrade is more expensive than simply buying ultimate upgrade and be done with it — home premium ed. costs 150, this upgrade is 150 — all the while Ultimate upgrade is 250 flat. You are wasting 50$ for no apparent reason.

4 Stars worked like it should
I installed with no issues. This is the 32 bit version only. Make sure this is what you want.

1 Star Don't try this at home!
I purchased this to upgrade from Windows Vista Home Premium to Windows Vista Ultimate so that I could run Virtual PC 2007. The first time I tried the upgrade it failed (after about 3hours) with a non-specific error: Windows was unable to upgrade a component or components. I tried it again with the help of Microsoft phone support. The second time it also failed but it also took out my hard disk so that I had to restore it from my latest backup. This product is still in the alpha stage. Don't buy it unless you have at least 8 hours to play around with it. It is not a stable product.

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