syntax01010 Posted February 1, 2005 Report Share Posted February 1, 2005 Welcome to the wonderful scam M$ has pulled over on people for years now. Ever since the first "upgrade" OS CD hit retail sale for their products, this has been the case. The entire OS is actually on the "upgrade only" CD's that get sold for often times half the cost or less of the "full version only" CD's. If you have no upgradable version of Windows on your computer or on CD then yes, that is right to the extent that you will require a "full version only" CD to install Windows. However, in any other situation, the cheaper upgrade CD works fine. Even if you have a totally blank hard drive. I've done this trick from Windows 95 all the way up to XP and it still works. When the installer for the "upgrade only" CD asks to find a previous version of Windows to verify being able to upgrade, just put the CD of the upgradable OS into the drive and tell it to look there. A few seconds will pass, it will scan the CD, verify you can upgrade, and then let you put the "upgrade only" CD back in the drive and install the entire OS. It amazes me how few people actually know about that "trick" to this day. I can understand in a business setting, that might be a bad idea, since M$ has people who actively hunt for commerical violators of their licensing rules, and they can fine you quite a bit of money if they catch you violating their licensing agreements. However, for a home user, just save your money if you can. I'm not 100% with XP because I haven't tried it yet, but I know from personal experience you can upgrade Windows 95a to Windows 2000 with that trick. I'm guessing you should be able to do the same with XP as well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
doug Posted February 1, 2005 Report Share Posted February 1, 2005 I had removed this post while it's legality was considered. As upgrades are M$'s method for giving the full version at a discount for people owning an earlier version it is legal. Sorry for the hickup Syntax. Some further info is as follows:- MicrosoftDown at the bottom of the page it says. What about Upgrade CDs?For those folks that purchased Windows XP upgrade CDs or have OEM CDs—yes, you can install a clean copy of Windows XP using them.Follow the instructions that I've outlined in this column. The setup program will ask you to provide the qualifying product's CD.After it verifies that you have the CD of the product you're upgrading, the process continues normally.If you're stuck with the OEM's recovery CD or don't have a CD that qualifies, you must install the recovery CD first, and then upgrade to Windows XP. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
madboy33 Posted February 2, 2005 Report Share Posted February 2, 2005 syntax01010Whilst we realise that you can do this, you could say borrow a previous "version disc" and then "upgrade".If you do not have a previous disc or an "unformatted drive" with no operating system, then what you are "advising" is unethical, if not illegal.If you bought a HI-FI system from say HITACHI (and i am being hypothetical here) 2 years ago you would not expect them to upgrade the system for a fraction of the cost just because you paid for one 2 years ago.Therefore why do you feel it is right and proper that you can install an "upgrade" when you do not have a previous version?In my opinion Microsoft should have not given an upgrade disc but just sold the full version and not created this conundrum on themselves.Well thats my bit said on this matter. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tony Posted February 2, 2005 Report Share Posted February 2, 2005 HiMaybe i am reading it wrong but i can't see anywhere, where syntax01010 has suggested doing something illegal.This is the way i have always upgraded my OS, i have never installed over the top of the old one, i have always performed a format and new install, and yes it does ask me to insert the qualifying O/S CD, from what i understand from his post he is just giving the tip so people don't think they have to have the old OS installed, this is particular for when you decide that you need do a reformat later on, you don't have to install the old OS first.CheersTony Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
doug Posted February 2, 2005 Report Share Posted February 2, 2005 Good point Tony. It was just the possibility that concerned me and no way will WF condone any illegality. Madboy33 has put things in a very precise nutshell. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cpt James T. Kirk Posted February 7, 2005 Report Share Posted February 7, 2005 why not just go to newegg.com spend 1.69 on a power splitter and get a full oem home xp ver. os for 91 bucks. thats less than the upgrade and you then have a legit full os disk. i did. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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