Vista DVD upgrade restrictions ‘bypassed’

Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Thursday, 01 February 2007 19:42

Your IT - Entertainment

Microsoft’s plan to stop users from buying a Vista upgrade DVD and installing it by popping in an XP disc for verification, requiring XP or 2000 to be installed first before proceeding with an upgrade or ‘clean’ install hits a snag, potentially allowing users to buy the cheaper upgrade version instead of the full retail package – but there’s a catch.

In an article from Windows and technology guru Paul Thurrott, since verified by DailyTech, the suggestion was made that it’s possible to install the Windows Vista Upgrade DVD without needing to have Windows XP or 2000 installed first.

Not only would this save the time of installing Windows 2000 or XP, which take much longer to install than Windows Vista itself, it could theoretically allow someone to purchase a Windows Vista upgrade DVD without needing a legal copy of XP or 2000 to upgrade from first, meaning you could get Vista at a cheaper price.

The workaround works as it is possible to install Windows Vista from the upgrade DVD as a ’30 day trial’ – with no license key entered at all. Then, once the Vista installation is complete, Vista can be re-installed again, but this time with the proper license key on the box.

Questions have been asked as to whether or not the proper license key can be entered into the online activation after the initial 30 day trial version has been installed, but the word online is ‘no’, it doesn’t let you do that. If that were possible, the second installation of Vista wouldn’t be needed.

Others have asked whether or not Microsoft will want to do an additional check in the future, requiring the entry of a valid XP license key after both installations are complete before full activation of Vista will be granted – although this is not the case at the moment.

As it stands, if not corrected, it is a way to buy Vista at a cheaper price, and this surely isn’t a loophole Microsoft intended to have available to the general public, especially with this kind of news being able to travel very fast thanks to the Internet.

So, unless Microsoft intends to turn a blind eye, some kind of additional verification is likely to emerge, or future discs modified, so this loophole cannot be exploited to the financial advantage of consumers and the financial disadvantage to Microsoft.

Given that Microsoft are much quicker to react to issues that affect the bottom line, such as happened when the Windows Media Player DRM was breached, than it does when it comes to patching security holes, at least when it came to Windows XP, we’re likely to find out sooner rather than later if Microsoft intends to do anything about it.

Until then, at least one commenter to the Daily Tech story said he would be racing out to buy the Vista Home Premium Upgrade DVD to take advantage of the cheaper price before Microsoft took any action.

Hmm… until this loophole is closed or other action taken to stop this from happening, upgrade sales of Vista could become a lot more popular than expected! Could this have been the secret plan all along? We may never know, unlikely though it would seem, for all the trouble Microsoft wanted to put consumers through to upgrade...