Windows Vista Feature Focus: Windows Anytime Upgrade

While I've been harshly critical of Microsoft's decision to split Windows Vista into far more product editions than is absolutely necessary, we can at least give the software giant credit for making Windows Vista easier to purchase than any previous Windows version. In addition to the typical retail and PC bundle versions, Vista can be had in a variety of other ways, including electronic distribution via Windows Marketplace, semi-legal OEM versions via online retailers, and in bulk via the Family Discount program. (For a sarcastic look at these and other Vista purchasing options, check out my showcase, Having Fun Purchasing Windows Vista.)

One of the nicest additions to this panoply of choices is Windows Anytime Upgrade, an online service built into Windows Vista Home Basic, Home Premium, and Business editions, which allows you to electronically upgrade from one of those versions to a higher-end Vista version. The versions you can upgrade to, and the cost of that upgrade, will depend on the version you're starting from. Here's a chart explaining what's available, and the pricing (in the US):

Pricing, as you can see, is heavily discounted over the traditional retail Upgrading packaging. If you're running Windows Vista Home Basic, Home Premium, or Business, upgrading in this fashion is probably the way to go: The retail upgrade price for Vista Home Premium is $159, while the retail upgrade price for Vista Ultimate is $259.

How it works

You can access the Windows Anytime Upgrade application from the Control Panel (it's hidden in System and Maintenance) or by typing "anytime" (no quotes) in the Windows Start Menu search pane. (It's also available from Welcome Center.) The application, shown below, offers two choices. The first presents a table explaining the differences between the currently installed Vista version and the version(s) to which you can upgrade. The second brings you to the actual purchase process, which occurs via one of several available online services.

Once you choose the upgrade, you're presented with a different view which describes two steps: Purchase the Windows Vista upgrade online and then upgrade Windows Vista.

Purchasing is straightforward: You select a retailer from a country-specific list of choices (in the US, Microsoft is just one of 18 retailers listed) and then proceed to check-out. Here, you have a choice to make: If you don't have a Windows Anytime Upgrade disc, you can add one to your purchase for $7 in shipping and handling. Here's the thing: A compatible disc may very well have been included with your PC, so you might not need it. And of course, if you do need it, you can't just upgrade to the new Vista version immediately, which sort of obviates the benefits of an instant, electronic purchase like the one you just made. In testing this process, I did order a disc, believing of course that one of the many Vista install discs I had handy would render that purchase moot. But that wasn't the case: None of my on-hand Vista install discs worked. So ordering a Windows Anytime Upgrade disc could well be a required step for most people. Note that you can order it later if you choose to not do so immediately.

At this point, checkout proceeds as it would at any online retailer: You enter your address, shipping, and billing information and then confirm the purchase. Your order is processed, your credit card is charged, and then you can launch the upgrade process.

A Windows Anytime Upgrade window appears, allowing you to click next to immediately upgrade, or, you can click a link titled Upgrade Windows on another computer (advanced). This choice triggers the downloading of a small Software License Commerce Client file (*.slupkg-ms) that you can save to your desktop (or wherever) to trigger the upgrade on a different computer or, as is likely more often the case, on this very computer but at a later time.

If you choose to keep going, Windows Anytime Upgrade will prompt you to insert your Windows disc. This is where the confusion kicks in. According to the Windows Anytime Upgrade window, you should "insert your Windows Anytime Upgrade disc to begin the upgrade process. In the window that appears, click 'Install Now,'" it says. There's just one problem: The window that appears when you insert this disc (or any Vista install media, for that matter) is the standard Run Once dialog. And "Install Now" is not an option.

Now, I consider myself fairly fluent in Windows, as you might expect. But I have to be honest here: This threw me for a loop. What I was expecting was for the Windows Anytime Upgrade program to trigger a special Upgrade install of Vista, but without me having to do anything. And, yes, that's sort of what happens. But contrary to what the Windows Anytime Upgrade program says, you must actually first click "Run setup.exe" on the Run Once dialog. Only then will you see the standard Vista Setup window appear. And yes, from there, you do click "Install Now" and proceed with Setup. (To be fair, the Web-based instructions do mention this step. However, if you just run the Software License Commerce Client file locally, you won't see this.)

Aside from this small linguistic hurdle, I was rather amazed to see that Microsoft didn't do anything to make Setup all that much friendlier: You have to literally step through Setup as you would normally in an upgrade situation (choosing, for example, "Upgrade" and not "Advanced" at the proper point). The only difference is that you don't have to type in a Product Key: Presumably, that's handled by the special Software License Commerce Client file you download (or allow to sit resident in the background if you run the Upgrade immediately from the Web page).

Anyway, from this point, Setup does proceed normally, which is to say slowly. Very slowly. Unlike a clean install, which can take as little as 20 minutes, a Vista upgrade install is quite slow and requires multiple reboots. It's surprisingly time-consuming. On the Lenovo notebook on which I tested this, it took almost an hour and a half. That's ridiculous. It also seemed to work correctly, which makes sense since going from one version of Vista to another should be fairly undisruptive.

Final thoughts

Windows Anytime Upgrade is a great idea, but Microsoft should allow customers to at least optionally download the required installation disc required for this feature to run to completion. Many PC users just won't have the required disc, especially if their PC makers use custom restore discs (as does Lenovo, incidentally). There's nothing worse that ordering something electronically and then discovering you can't install it because you have to wait for a disc to arrive in the mail. Aside from this issue--and a bit of ambiguity in the language of the Windows Anytime Upgrade application, this process, while slow, works pretty well. And it's certainly preferable to the alternative of paying full price for a retail version of Vista.

--Paul Thurrott
May 2, 2007