Microsoft upgrade pricing has no discount for Ultimate
Microsoft’s complex Windows 7 upgrade pricing structure burns owners of Vista Ultimate. They currently offer no discount for an upgrade to Windows 7 Ultimate.
The published retail price for the upgrade is $219.99. Microsoft is running a limited offer (see the picture to the left), until July 11, 2009, to upgrade to Windows 7 Home Premium from Vista Home Premium for $49.99 and to upgrade to Windows 7 Professional from Vista Business for $99.99.
According to Microsoft you cannot upgrade Vista Ultimate to any version of Windows 7 except Ultimate.
What’s an owner of Vista Ultimate to do?
You can wait and hope that Microsoft relents and offers a better upgrade price for Ultimate.
Or, buy a copy of a Vista System Builder version today, which comes with a free upgrade coupon to the comparable Windows 7 version when it is released to the public on October 22, 2009.
Newegg.com sells Vista Ultimate SP1 for System Builders, 32-bit and 64-bit versions, for $189.99 with free shipping. Searching Google, Yahoo or Bing may yield even better offers.
Another choice is to buy the edition of Vista you really needed, since almost no one needs the Ultimate version. Vista Home Premium SP1 System Builder version costs $109.99 and Vista Business SP1 System Builder version costs $149.99.
All the Vista System Builder editions with the free Windows 7 upgrade are cheaper than purchasing the Windows 7 Ultimate upgrade.
I do not think you have to actually install the Vista System Builder Edition. I believe all you need do is replace the 25 character Vista product key on your computer with the one that comes with the System Builder version.
Update: Ed Bott who I trust knows, says that changing the key probably won’t work and that a full reinstall is required. Way to go Microsoft! Let’s make it even harder for Ultimate customers to be ultimately screwed!
Changing Vista’s Product Key
Here is how to change the Vista Product Key:
- Open Control Panel.
- Click on the System and Maintenance link.
- Click on the System link.
- The status of Vista’s activation and the Product ID number (not the product key) appears in the Windows activation panel of the View basic information about your computer.
- Click on the Change product key link.
- Type your System Builder edition product key in the Product Key: area that appears in the Windows Activation window.
- Click the Next button.
- The Activating Windows… dialog opens indicating the progress for the re-activation. When the activation was successful message appears you are done.
- Click the Close button.
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Richard, I hate to tell you, but it’s not that easy. You can’t just enter a license key to downgrade. License keys are tied to specific editions and the only way to downgrade is to reinstall.
Ed:
Thanks for the info. I will post an update.
Your sad news confirms my view that Microsoft has made the SKUs much too complex to no benefit.
Richard