I taught 6291 MOC class the other day and my students posed some good questions to me I couldn't easily provide an authoritative answer on. --Can you do an inplace upgrade of a XP pro sku to a sku that is deemed "lower"? I don't know why you would.. I.E. - Xp Pro to Win 7 home? -- Is the USMT 3.0 the only way to upgrade the OS or refresh the OS around the user's data without copying it off first? -- If you purchase a Win7 home edition and then decide to upgrade the edition to pro or ultimate. Do you have to run the setup? or can you just enter the new key and it will "unlock" the new features?Chad Solarz Sr. Tech Instructor Directions Training MCSA / MCSE / MCDST / MCT MCTS: Vista / exch 2k7 / server 2k8 / forefront MCITP: Vista / server 2k8

Chad - Let's see if I can clear up some of the confusion...1.) I suppose you might consider going from XP Pro to Win 7 Home Premium if you realized you didn't need advanced networking and such and were going through the economic pinch we're all feeling. As such... If I understand the licensing correctly, then no, it's Home to Home Premium or Pro to Pro... 2.) USMT 3.0.1 can be used to migrate the user state, however, the documentation on the download page doesn't mention Windows 7 as yet. YMMV... There IS the Windows Easy Transfer (WET) utility that comes on the Win 7 DVD that does pretty much the same sort of thing as USMT and is, obviously, compatible with XP, Vista and Windows 7.Also, with Windows 7 - you can do an OS refresh also known as an "in place upgrade" directly on top of your system - as is - without having to move your files. It's handy if you've got an issue with not being able to boot for some reason. Though - a backup is, as always, a good idea.3.) If you buy Home Premium now and want to upgrade to Pro or Ultimate later on, you will be doing an Anytime Upgrade. You launch the Anytime Upgrade, tell it what version you want, give it your credit card number and you get a new product key. You then insert your DVD, type in the key when prompted and do an "in place upgrade" on top of your Home Premium and reboot. You now have Pro or Ultimate. So yes, you have to run the Setup on the DVD you got.

3.) If you buy Home Premium now and want to upgrade to Pro or Ultimate later on, you will be doing an Anytime Upgrade. You launch the Anytime Upgrade, tell it what version you want, give it your credit card number and you get a new product key. You then insert your DVD, type in the key when prompted and do an "in place upgrade" on top of your Home Premium and reboot. You now have Pro or Ultimate. So yes, you have to run the Setup on the DVD you got. Is that Anytime Upgrade program anything like the one I'm familiar with inVista? egads - Yes and no. This is more like Anytime Upgrade 2.0 whereas the one in Vista was version 1.0.Ed Bott has the scoop on it here... Things have been simplified greatly with the way each edition of Windows 7 has all of the features from the previous editions below it.

egads - Indeed. The Anytime Upgrade for Vista was a bit of a pain in the keester - especially going from Home Premium to Business, tho much less of a PITA going from Home Premium to Ultimate.Personally, I never did the Anytime Upgrade - it's kinda hard to do one on top of Ultimate. No where really to go from there.

Thanks for all the input guys. That is just what I was looking for. God I love these forums. Chad Solarz Sr. Tech Instructor Directions Training MCSA / MCSE / MCDST / MCT MCTS: Vista / exch 2k7 / server 2k8 / forefront MCITP: Vista / server 2k8