I went out and bought a replacement windows machine on Saturday. Its an HP Pavilion m8000 series machine with a Quad Core processor, 3gb of Ram, etc. etc. etc. Many of you know me as a rabid mac fanatic, but the reality is that I am a multi-platform type of guy. I prefer Mac, but I like to use whatever gets my work done quickly. I like to have a windows desktop at home because it integrates well with my work network which I access via VPN when I am working from home. Yes, I know all the bootcamp, fusion, parallels tricks...this is just better. Its a security blanket...I know it will always work.

A problem with the cheaper hardware these days is that it typically comes with a "home" edition of Vista. In my case, "Home Premium". Home premium lacks some of the backup software and the ability to join the computer to a domain, so I took the leap and purchased an "anytime upgrade" from Microsoft for $200 to get Vista Ultimate edition.

Its supposed to work like this:

• Buy the upgrade, download a special license file.
• Click the license file, then load up any Vista DVD that has the "anytime upgrade" logo on it.
• Let it upgrade.

What happened for me is that it did just that, but right at the end it crapped out with no indication of the problem. It very thoughtfully rolled back to my previous version of windows, and told me to run the "upgrade advisor". REMEMBER... This was a Vista to Vista upgrade, folks!

So, I mess around a bit. Swap out the video card, unplug the built in WiFi card (usb), disable HD audio from Realtek...anything I can imagine might trip up the Vista upgrade. Nothing works. Four upgrade tries, same outcome. I sent an email to the customer support link I got in the email from Microsoft...no answer so far. They are good at taking my $ on a Saturday, but certainly not at helping me use the product.

So now I am doing a fresh install after having created my HP recovery disks just in case. In a few moments, I'll know if that worked.

Drumroll please...

It seems to have worked when I did a fresh install. The important thing, I think, with doing this with an "anytime upgrade" is to start the upgrade from the license file on your starting platform as opposed to booting from the install DVD. You may be able to use the serial number found in the license file you receive after purchase, but I didn't want to tempt fate on that one.