The other day I decided that it was time to reformat my hard drive and reinstall a fresh copy of Windows Vista on my laptop.  My laptop was using the upgrade edition of Vista Ultimate and was using Windows XP Pro before that.  For anyone not familiar with reinstalling the operating system and why anyone would do that, I do it because after a while, Windows gathers a lot of "junk" that slows it down over time.  Programs you may have used in the past, then uninstalled, a lot of times never really get fully deleted; traces of them stay in the registry and sometimes on your file system.  Programs you've forgotten you've installed may be starting up automatically when you start Windows and sometimes spyware and viruses get on PCs and aren't detected or fully cleaned by your antivirus application.  Think of it like spring cleaning.  It obviously shouldn't be used as a troubleshooting step (which some "techs" use) but when all else fails, or when the OS is so badly damaged that it would take many hours to properly fix, doing a clean install is a great time-saver and fixes certain issues completely. 

In the past, reinstalling Windows XP from a full version was straightforward.  Stick in the CD, repartition and reformat your hard drive, and install.  With Windows XP upgrade, it was nearly as easy; just start out the same way and when the install process detects the upgrade version of XP, it asks you to pop in an older version of a Windows CD to verify you have one that you're upgrading from.  After a quick scan of Windows 95/98/2000/ME you can pop back in the XP disk and start your clean reinstall (without installing the old operating system first, then upgrading to XP). 

With Vista however, Microsoft has decided that this process was too easy to manipulate and gave software pirates an easy way to beat the system.  They made the process much more difficult to undertake, which makes maintaining a clean, healthy system a huge headache. 

I first heard rumors of this immediately after Windows Vista was released (actually in the beta stage), and now I had a chance to try it out myself.  PLEASE NOTE: I am using the "Anytime Upgrade CD" that Microsoft has put out as one way to upgrade from XP or a lower version of Vista.  I didn't use a retail upgrade version (this may make a difference).  I first tried the common XP way of completing a Windows reinstall: Reformatting the hard drive, and letting the upgrade cd check for a previous copy of Windows (where at this point it would ask you to pop in the older disk). 

The upgrade cd of Vista starts out the same way, letting you repartition and reformat your hard drive.  Then it asks you to put in the product key for Vista.  This is where it gets frustrating.  You can either put in the key, and when Vista realizes it's an upgrade key, it will not let you install OR you can skip putting in the key until the install is complete.  Then when you go to authenticate your key, it will tell you that it's an upgrade key and that you can't complete Windows validation.  You then have the choice to buy a full version key online or you can start over with a clean install of WINDOWS XP, validate that, then upgrade XP to Vista.  It will then usually validate properly (unless you've done a clean install a few times, where you'll have to call Microsoft so they can do the manual validation).

I next tried to do the "workaround" clean install that was rumored to be the new Vista way to complete this without fully installing the old operating system, then upgrading.  This workaround said to install Vista like I tried before, then do NOT try to validate it.  At this point try to update this copy of Vista to Vista Ultimate.  I started the process again, installing Vista, then trying to update it, but this failed.  Now I admit that because it wasn't clear, I installed Vista Ultimate, then tried to update to Ultimate.  This may have been why it failed.  I guess I could've tried to install Vista Basic with the "anytime upgrade cd," then do an upgrade to Ultimate but I have a feeling that wouldn't have worked either.  The reason I think that is because Microsoft doesn't allow you to upgrade on a system that has not been validated properly. 

I ended up having to put on Windows XP, validate XP, then upgrade to Vista and validate.  That was the only way it worked.  For anyone that has done a clean install, you can appreciate the amount of time it took to do this 3 times in a day.  Hopefully this will save you some time trying to do what I've already tried, only to end up having to do it the way Microsoft wants you to.

If anyone has found a way to do a real clean install using an upgrade disk or anytime upgrade cd, please post it here.

PLEASE NOTE AGAIN: I am using the "Anytime Upgrade CD" that Microsoft has put out as one way to upgrade from XP or a lower version of Vista.  I didn't use a retail upgrade version (this may make a difference).