Windows Anytime Upgrade: frequently asked questions

To upgrade to another edition of Windows Vista, you must buy the upgrade online. Windows Anytime Upgrade automatically takes you to the website where you can buy the upgrade kit. After buying it, you will receive the kit by mail.

You'll see pricing information for each edition during the Windows Anytime Upgrade process.

This table shows the upgrade paths for the editions of Windows Vista.

Yes. You can begin Windows Anytime Upgrade online by going to the Windows Anytime Upgrade website.

You can use Windows Anytime Upgrade only on a computer that's already running Windows Vista. You can’t use Windows Anytime Upgrade to upgrade a computer that's running an earlier version of Windows.

When you buy an upgrade for a different computer, you must indicate the edition of Windows Vista that you're currently running on the computer that you want to upgrade, and you must also indicate the edition of Windows Vista that you want to upgrade to.

You must purchase a new upgrade for each computer on which you want to install a different edition of Windows Vista. You can purchase only one upgrade at a time.

Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor is a program that you can download and run on your computer to find out if you have the necessary hardware to use specific features of a particular edition of Windows Vista. To run Upgrade Advisor, your computer must be running Windows XP or Windows Vista. To download Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor, go to the Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor page on the Microsoft Download Center website. This download is approximately 5 megabytes.

To see solutions to some common error messages that you might encounter during Windows Anytime Upgrade, go to A list of Microsoft Knowledge Base articles to help you troubleshoot error messages you might receive when you use Windows Anytime Upgrade on the Microsoft website.

For solutions to some common problems related to activation and Windows Anytime Upgrade, go to these articles on the Microsoft website: