If you have a new (or newly wiped) hard drive in your PC, and your Windows Vista DVD is an ‘Upgrade’ version you are faced with a bothersome scenario. The official procedure recommended by Microsoft is to first install your previous Windows version, run it, and then pop the Vista Upgrade DVD in the drive to run the Vista setup. A widely published workaround is to install Vista first, without entering the product key, to get a time-limited trial installation, and then run the Vista install again, entering the product key this time, to get a fully functional installation which you can activate.
That’s a rather clumsy way to do things, of course. It’s also a time consuming method.
This guide explains how to clean-install Vista, using your Vista Upgrade product key, with only a single Windows install. That ‘trial’ installation of Vista can be turned into a fully functional installation with a few rather simple tweaks……
Install Vista as a time-limited trial
Begin by booting the PC from your Vista DVD. You’ll need to make sure that ‘Boot from CD’ is enabled in your PC’s BIOS Setup configuration, of course. Choose ‘Install now’ when prompted to begin the Vista installation, but be sure to click ‘Next’ without entering the product key to install Vista as a trail Evaluation installation.
Ensure you select the Vista version which matches the one you’ve purchased. Follow the prompts until you complete the installation and arrive at the Vista desktop. At this stage you have a functioning Vista installation, which will allow you to work until the 30-day evaluation period expires before entering the ‘reduced function’ mode which only allows you to perform activation. Online activation isn’t yet possible, because you haven’t entered the product key yet.
Before making changes which will allow you to activate the installation it is best to do all the device driver installation, software installation and testing which is needed to have Vista configured and operating the way you want it to. Activate now and then later find that your Vista install has problems and you’d need to start over again. That’s why Microsoft always allows a ‘grace’ period before you need to activate. Get everything working correctly first!
The following simple tweaks will allow you to turn the trial installation into a valid and activated one. Once you have completed the process of getting everything installed, configured and tested continue on with these instructions.
Disable User Account Control
Begin by disabling User Account Control (UAC). There are numerous methods for doing this, but the quickest and simplest is a registry edit.
- Hold down the Windows key and tap ‘R’ to get the ‘Run’ box.
- Type regedit and press the Enter key to launch the registry editor.
- On the left pane, locate and select the key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\
- CurrentVersion\Policies\System
- Locate the entry EnableLUA in the right pane, double-click it and alter the value to ‘0’ to disable UAC. (You can repeat the procedure later, changing the value to ‘1’, to turn it back on.)
- Exit the registry editor and reboot the PC, and UAC will be inactive when you arrive at the desktop again.
Activate from the command line
With UAC disabled you can now issue a couple of commands which will fully activate your Vista installation using the Product key which accompanied your Vista Upgrade purchase.
Hold down the Windows key and tap ‘R’ to get the Run dialogue box.
To assign your product key to the installation issue the command:
cscript C:\windows\system32\slmgr.vbs -ipk
(Don’t type
You can now activate your installation online by firing up the ‘Run dialogue again and issuing the command:
cscript C:\windows\system32\slmgr.vbs –ato
Verify that Vista is activated by issuing the command:
cscript c:\windows\system32\slmgr.vbs –dlv
There you go! A fully functioning and activated Vista installation on your new hard drive, using your Vista Upgrade purchase, without needing to install Windows XP first! Re-enable User Account Control if you want to use the feature.
You can re-use a hard drive using this method also. If the drive you have isn’t a new one, and already has an existing Windows installation on it, download the drive management utilities available on your hard drive manufacturer’s website. Be sure to get the boot floppy or boot CD download. Boot your PC from that first, use the available tools to ‘wipe’ the drive, and then reboot from the Vista DVD to perform the Vista installation.
