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Lately the web has been buzzing about the loophole that allows a user to purchase an upgrade version of Vista, and still be able to install it, even if they don’t have an older operating system to upgrade from. This can save a person near 35% of the cost of the full equivalent version of Vista. Microsoft has now stated that they don’t have any plans to try and stop this. That doesn’t sound like the Microsoft I know!
Microsoft was quick to jump on the ‘Frankenbuild‘ method of hacking Vista, but they don’t seem so interested in this loophole. When asked by vnunet.com, a Microsoft spokesman said:
“People without a licensed copy of XP that use this workaround are violating the terms of use agreed to when they purchased the upgrade version of Windows Vista, as such, we believe only a very small percentage of people will take the time to implement this workaround, and we encourage all customers to follow our official guidelines for upgrading to Windows Vista.”
What’s the difference? One difference is that people have paid something for the upgrade, even if it isn’t as much as they should have. With Frankenbuild, hackers were getting Vista for free. This could be Microsoft saying “something’s better than nothing”. Another reason could be that their bean-counters have determined that it would cost more to fix this problem than they would get back in additional licensing fees.
In the end, I’m sure that Microsoft would prosecute someone caught with the upgrade version if they didn’t own a previous version, but they’re not going to make any efforts to track these people down or to stop others from doing it. I’m sure many people will see this as a sign that Microsoft thinks it’s OK, which in itself might encourage more people to do it.
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Comments
Jerry
Apr 29, 2007 at 10:53 am
Hi,
This appears to be the only site so far that has any useful, geekoid information on how to keep Vista from staggering around and falling down continually, and like all things Vista, it’s going to take a while to get people to latch on to it. Since I up/downgraded to Vista, I have felt very lonely out here, fooling around daily with unecessary and aggravating problems, mostly due to the fact that very few software and hardware suppliers have bothered themselves to supply vista updates and drivers, and this site has been the only one that has been able to give me any aid and comfort.
Still, it’s not so bad and I have learned a huge amount about Vista in the three months since it was released, but the obstruction lies in finding time to do all this figuring out and working around (in between the horrific Vista system crashes and rebuilds of course).
As more people being to get into it and begin to unravel the fearsome knots, I think this site shows signs of being the nexus of help for victims of the Vista vacuum, and it clearly has potential for being the ultimate source of knowledge.
Thanks so much for such a resource, and as time permits I intend to study every article on the site.
Steve
May 24, 2007 at 7:32 pm
I noticed this loophole also. I got a new HP computer with Vista Premium installed, and it came with an upgrade disc, and I have another computer, an HP Pavilion Laptop which I bought last year summer with Windows XP Home SP2 installed on it. I then reformatted my Hard Drive and popped in the Vista Premium upgrade disc, and to my suprise it installed Windows Vista! So there’s no use buying a new-install disk for so much money when you can buy an upgrade disk that is way more cheaper! I then erased Vista and re-installed XP due to the incompatibility of my programs with Vista.
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