BleepingComputer.com: UPGRADE TO VISTA ULTIMATE

hi all,, i got third prize in the 1 mil draw (thanks bc),,, now,, i have vista home prem sp1 installed,,, my pc is a HP with a recovery partition on the hdd,,,,
do i have to format and install the ultimate
or will it install over the top of home prem
will i still have the recovery partition and will it be now ultimate
or do i have to create a partition and clean install ultimate and make a recovery partition on the hdd,,,
i have all my stuff backed up to my external hdd, i have reinstalled the vista and xp os on pc's many times but never upgraded one,,, its always been the same os going back into the pc,,, im stumped,,,lol
i would be very greatfull for any help,,, thank you all.
Ian.

hi,,,me again,,, it seems that you can do it,,, an in place upgrade from home prem to ultimate,,, will this also change the recovery partition to ultimate or will this still be home prem, and you have to do an in place upgrade again after a recovery i wonder.
here's a link to a forum i found,,, intresting bit by Orev about all vista discs being the same,,, its the product key that decides which version to install,,, never knew that.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=113123
another intresting link here by the same fella,,,
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=120228
i would be glad of any help or info about the recovery partition as mentioned above,,,,,, thanks all.
Ian.

The recovery partition will not be touched by the upgrade. It will still be the same version of Vista that it was prior to the upgrade. If you have the disks, you don't really need the recovery partition anymore.

I believe what I am saying to be true but there may be others who know and can offer better advice.

The recovery partition is designed to restore your PC to factory settings. As such, it is not terribly great since there will be any number of OS patches and updates to drivers etc that you would have to add after any recovery. In addition, the recovery partition is in a particularly vulnerable location to have a recovery location. Many serious failures in your system could easily render the recovery partition useless.

Ideally, you should have a separate source (such as DVD disk(s)) that contain a bootable version of your system that is very nearly current. When you install the Ultimate version, the install disk will (at that point in time) represent your current system (less any applications and data). You will then update this version with all the latest patches and drivers. Another copy of the basic, but updated, OS would be very handy for recovery. As time passes, you should make additional bootable copies so you always have a fairly recent copy to recover from. Beyond the OS and its associated drivers etc., you should make regular backup copies of your data. I don't know if backup copies of updated and installed applications could be made in a manner that they could be recovered to a new and possibly different sized disk so you may have to reinstall applications then recover backup data to them.

One commercial program I know of that will do all this is Acronis True Image. It can also create a complete image of your drive for a complete recovery but that is only appropriate if you are willing to maintain a storage location that is the size of the storage in your system. A NAS drive is a good option for this.

BTW, congrats on your win. I was hoping for the graphics card but I just don't have that kind of luck.

hi,,, thanks for the reply's both of you,, looking on internet i was getting the same opinion,,, thanks for the confirmation,, i have the vista home prem discs as well, just in case i lost my hdd,,
i know what you mean about that gfx card,,, i have an 512mb 8800gt, but would have liked to give that one a run,,,lol
cant wait to install ultimate though, and my wife is looking forward to office 2007 in her pc,,, still cant believe how lucky i was,,, there must be over 250 thousand members on here,,, thanks all and good luck.