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General discussion

Vista upgrade

Sep 4, 2007 12:40AM PDT

Does it cost the same to upgrade from Vista Home Premium to Ultimate as it does from XP to Ultimate ?

Discussion is locked

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No...
Sep 4, 2007 2:04AM PDT

Current Vista users receive a discount. The full Vista Ultimate upgrade license costs $259, which is what XP users must purchase, while you can get a Windows Anytime Upgrade from Home Premium to Ultimate for $159 direct from Microsoft. There's also OEM licenses running around $189 (regardless of ownership of any version of Windows) if you don't mind it being a clean install only (no upgrading) and never being permitted to change the motherboard.

Hope this helps,
John

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OEM
Sep 4, 2007 5:39AM PDT

Since this is a Gateway laptop,would I better off upgrading through Gateway ? Also would there be any benefits(Dreamscene etc)being that it's a laptop with integrated graphics.It does have 2GB of ram.

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They usually don't handle it...
Sep 4, 2007 8:37AM PDT

Usually the manufacturer doesn't take any part in future upgrades unless the laptop was purchased just prior to Vista's release. In fact they rarely provide Vista drivers unless the model was a newer one slated to run Vista during its life cycle. Thus, direct from Microsoft and through third-party retailers are the two options.

As to Vista Ultimate, you can click here for a short list of benefits. Dreamscene would run, but it may not be very fluid considering the graphical capabilities of the machine.

John

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Drivers
Sep 4, 2007 9:11AM PDT

Thanks for the quick response.Shouldn't the vista drivers that I have on Home Premium work for Ultimate ?

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Premium drivers
Sep 4, 2007 9:39AM PDT

will work the same on Ultimate.
My question would be, is the extra cost worth it, for Dreamscene, a couple of games, image backup and fax. If these are important go for it. Acronis True Image 10 for backup is about $50 and better.