Can I repair Vista Premium with upgrade to Ultimate?

Vista Premium is reporting an error upon starting that Vista Repair cannot
resolve. My critical files are backed-up to Carbonite and I performed an
XCOPY of the entire C: drive--so I should have all files in a safe place, but
I don't want to start from scratch with a fresh install--not yet anyway.

Can I use an upgrade to Ultimate to perform what would effectively be an
in-place install to fix Vista? I intend to upgrade my hard drive and install
a fresh Vista Ultimate upgrade--but I want my system back first to do this
upgrade in a more orderly fashion. I wasn't anticipating this recent failure.

No. You would need to perform a recovery using
Windows Vista Home Premium. You cannot upgrade
over an existing problematic installation. The upgrade
process must begin while at the desktop of the existing
Windows Home Premium desktop.

What are the system recovery options in Windows Vista?
http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Win...4be5e1033.mspx


--
Carey Frisch
Microsoft MVP
Windows Desktop Experience -
Windows System & Performance

---------------------------------------------------------------

"Mark Greiner" wrote:

Vista Premium is reporting an error upon starting that Vista Repair cannot
resolve. My critical files are backed-up to Carbonite and I performed an
XCOPY of the entire C: drive--so I should have all files in a safe place, but
I don't want to start from scratch with a fresh install--not yet anyway.

Can I use an upgrade to Ultimate to perform what would effectively be an
in-place install to fix Vista? I intend to upgrade my hard drive and install
a fresh Vista Ultimate upgrade--but I want my system back first to do this
upgrade in a more orderly fashion. I wasn't anticipating this recent failure.

Rats! Okay, if I still can't get Repair to resolve my startup problem (and
for some reason, my System Recoveries that I create never last more than a
few day--so I do not have an available recovery--another problem for another
time) my plan B is to install Premium (full version) to a new hard drive and
then upgrade to Ultimate. Then I'll hook up the old drive again, which will
at least give my access to the full stucture of what I have now. Will that
old "image" be of any value to me with respect to applications such as
Outlook?

"Carey Frisch [MVP]" wrote:

> No. You would need to perform a recovery using
> Windows Vista Home Premium. You cannot upgrade
> over an existing problematic installation. The upgrade
> process must begin while at the desktop of the existing
> Windows Home Premium desktop.
>
> What are the system recovery options in Windows Vista?
> http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Win...4be5e1033.mspx
>
>
> --
> Carey Frisch
> Microsoft MVP
> Windows Desktop Experience -
> Windows System & Performance
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------
>
> "Mark Greiner" wrote:
>
> Vista Premium is reporting an error upon starting that Vista Repair cannot
> resolve. My critical files are backed-up to Carbonite and I performed an
> XCOPY of the entire C: drive--so I should have all files in a safe place, but
> I don't want to start from scratch with a fresh install--not yet anyway.
>
> Can I use an upgrade to Ultimate to perform what would effectively be an
> in-place install to fix Vista? I intend to upgrade my hard drive and install
> a fresh Vista Ultimate upgrade--but I want my system back first to do this
> upgrade in a more orderly fashion. I wasn't anticipating this recent failure.
>