Archive for April, 2008

John from Staten Island wrote in to us asking if he had to purchase the full version of Vista for the new PC he just built or could he Hack “Finese” the upgrade version into installing?

Obviously money is the deciding factor in what OS the machine will ultimately hold so John was VERY happy when we showed him this “Work-A-Round”. This one is for you John! :)

If any of you went out and copped the newest version of Windows, the oh so loved, Windows Vista – you might have very well over paid.

But for anyone who is contemplating grabbing Vista Not From Pirates Bay!! from a legit retail source, It seems that this little trick of the trade can help you save over $100 on a legal purchase of the full version of Vista. I can think of LOTS of things I would rather spend my money on!
Can’t you?

So if you are not upgrading an older version of Windows like XP or 2000 pro you would Technically have to purchase a FULL version of Vista instead of an UPGRADE version and as you can see below there are big differences in the prices:

Everyone thought this was just crappy programing a bug and figured it would have been fixed Phased out in SP1. But SURPRISE SURPRISE! It’s still there and this leads AtA to believe that the boys in Redmond want it to be there.

Use Vista’s ‘upgrade’ version to clean-install

The secret is that the setup program in Vista’s upgrade version will accept an installed copy of XP, W2K, or an unactivated copy of Vista itself as evidence of a previous installation.

This enables you to “clean install” an upgrade version of Vista to any formatted or unformatted hard drive, which is usually the preferred method when installing any new operating system. You must, in essence, install Vista twice to take advantage of this trick. But Vista installs much faster than XP, so it’s quicker than installing XP followed by Vista to get the upgrade price.

Before you install Vista on a machine that you don’t know is 100% compatible, you should run Microsoft’s free Upgrade Advisor. This program — which operates only on 32-bit versions of XP and Vista (plus Vista Enterprise) — reports to you on any hardware or software it finds that may be incompatible with Vista. See Microsoft’s Upgrade Advisor page.

Also, to see which flavors of XP Home, XP Pro, and 2000 officially support in-place installs and clean installs of the different Vista editions, see Microsoft’s upgrade paths page.

Here’s a simplified overview of the steps that are required to clean-install the upgrade version of Vista:

Step 1. Boot the PC from the Vista DVD.

Step 2. Select “Install Now,” but do not enter the Product Key from the Vista packaging. Leave the input box blank. Also, turn off the option Automatically activate Windows when I’m online. In the next dialog box that appears, confirm that you really do want to install Vista without entering a Product Key.

Step 3. Correctly indicate the version of Vista that you’re installing: Home Basic, Home Premium, Business, or Ultimate.

Step 4. Select the “Custom (Advanced)” install, not the “Upgrade” install.

Step 5. Vista copies files at length and reboots itself one or more times. Wait for the install to complete. At this point, you might think that you could “activate” Vista, but you can’t. That’s because you haven’t installed the Vista upgrade yet. To do that, run the DVD’s setup.exe program again, but this time from the Vista desktop. The easiest way to start setup again is to eject and then reinsert the DVD.

Step 6. Click “Install Now.” Select Do not get the latest updates for installation. (You can check for these updates later.)

Step 7. This time, do enter the Product Key from the Vista packaging. Once again, turn off the option Automatically activate Windows when I’m online.

Step 8. On this second install, make sure to select “Upgrade,” not “Custom (Advanced).” You’re not doing a clean install now, you’re upgrading to Vista.

Step 9. Wait while Vista copies files and reboots itself. No user interaction is required. Do not boot from the DVD when asked if you’d like to do so. Instead, wait a few seconds and the setup process will continue on its way. Some DOS-like, character-mode menus will appear, but don’t interact with them. After a few seconds, the correct choice will run for you automatically.

Step 10. After you click a button labeled Start in the Thank You dialog box, Vista’s login screen will eventually appear. Enter the username and password that you selected during the first install. You’re done upgrading to Vista.

Step 11. Within 30 days, you must “activate” your copy of Vista or it’ll lose functionality. To activate Vista, click Show more details in the Welcome Center that automatically displays upon each boot-up, then click Activate Windows now. If you’ve dismissed the Welcome Center, access the correct dialog box by clicking Start, Control Panel, System & Maintenance, System. If you purchased a legitimate copy of Vista, it should quickly activate over the Internet. (You can instead activate by calling Microsoft on the phone, which avoids your PC exchanging information with Microsoft’s server.)

I’m not going into detail today on the merits of buying Vista at retail instead of buying a cheaper OEM copy. (The OEM offerings don’t entitle you to call Microsoft for support, while the retail packages do.) Also, I’m not touching here on the least-expensive way to buy Vista, which is to take advantage of Microsoft’s “educational” rate. I’ll describe both of these topics in next week’s newsletter.

I think this is just a marketing ploy by good old M$ – giving the guys with a little technical know how a discount (these are the guys that favor Linux and pretty much anything besides Windows). So this might just be a great idea from the board table that is M$. Either which way it saves you dough so… Thanks WindowsSecrets!

Did you know about this?

_TheItsNotStealingAdmiN_

You went out and copped yourself a brand spanking new machine?

Nervous about moving all your stuff from one machine to another?

Fear not end user…

If you want to skip to the how to and pass on the intro to profiles 101 just skip down to the ** below and start your migrating!

From all the machines I have recovered from the brink of data destruction and all the profiles I have saved over the years, Your friendly neighborhood admin has picked up a few tricks of the trade for dealing with those tricky windows profiles.

Through trial and error I learned that if you create a new user via the control panel before you copy the profile over the folder created in documents and settings it will work. You can not be logged in as that user or you will not be able to over write all the files (as they will be in use). You will need administrator rights to overwrite them as well.

But if you copy the users profile folder to the documents and settings folder hoping that you will log in as the user for the first time and it will use this profile - It won’t. It will just create a new profile the first time the user logs on and it will append a number to it like user.1 or something like that.

**
I went at it like that during the early xp days but soon I succumbed to the beast that is Microsoft and tried their settings and migration wizard and strangely…. It Worked great. Surprised?

I was!

As long as you install your applications like MS Office before running this all your standard preferences will be right where you want them.

It is as simple as opening the application on the old computer by navigating to Start – Programs – Accessories – system tools and finally choosing the Files and Settings Transfer Wizard.

You will then see the following window. Choose I will use the wizard from the Windows XP CD as your option.

Choose what you would like to copy and where you want to copy it to (network share, usb drive or other media)

Now your data is out of the profile in a prepped data folder ready to import your settings. Then fire up the same tool on the new machine and choose the last option that you have already exported your data,

It will ask you for the path to the files you saved from the old computer and after you log off and log back on your desktop should be identical to the old one down to the wallpaper. Your office settings have been migrated down to your favorite fonts and all your favorites are in place.

Sweet!

This works as long as the new machine is Windows XP or better. The original machine can be Windows 98 or better!

How do you migrate or upgrade your users?

_TheMigratingAdmiN_