Installing Vista home Premium over Vista Business

Hello everyone,
I recently bought a Refurbished Dell 1525 from Dell outlet. The online
specifications for this particular machine said was loaded with
Windows Vista Business. However, when I got the machine it was in fact
loaded with Vista Business but did not include an operating system
install disc of any kind. Also, the build sheet that came with this
laptop states it should be loaded with Vista Home Premium but again,
there was no OS install disk of any kind.

I called Dell and after speaking with five different people and being
disconnected once I finally found a representative who told me this
machine should have come with Vista Home Premium and said she would be
sending the install discs for home premium. However, today in the mail
I received the DVD but it states it's for reinstalling the OS that's
already installed on the laptop. I'm assuming since Vista Business is
the OS already installed on the laptop, trying to install Vista Home
Premium with this DVD would not be possible? Or, does the Home Premium
install disc treat this like an upgrade from Vista Business to Home
Premium?

I figured I would ask around before spending several hours on the
phone with Dell! Thanks in advance for any information.

My Dell came with reinstall disks but apparently you have to ask for them
now. They can be used for installing the system from scratch, which is
necessary if you have to replace the hard disk for example. The message
about reinstalling the OS that is already on the laptop is for the retail
consumer, so that they don't think they have to do anything with the disks
when they take them out of the box. Normally, you would just store them in
a safe place.

Did you get a drivers disk? That is a good thing to have too, although
current drivers should be on the support.dell.com web site.

Does the computer have a Windows Vista Certificate of Authenticity and
Product ID on it somewhere? If so, that determines which version of Vista
you actually have the rights to use. If so, it will say Home Premium or
Business on the sticker. OEM copies of Windows distributed installed on a
computer are supposed to come with a Certifcate of Authority, usually stuck
to the computer case. Make sure you have a Vista Home Premium Product ID
before attempting to install Vista Home Premium.

Look under Computer for a System Recovery Partition, about ten Gigabytes in
size. New Dells come with this in place. You can use the reinstall disk to
make this a bootable partition. Once you do that you will find a program
called (I think) PCRestore that can be used to restore the system to factory
defaults. Since this is a refurbished machine with Vista Business installed
I am not sure what you will have.

I don't think you can upgrade from Business to Home Premium. You may have
to do a replacement or repair install. That is why you want to make sure
you have the proper Product ID on your computer.

Earle

"Daniel G." wrote in message

> Hello everyone,
> I recently bought a Refurbished Dell 1525 from Dell outlet. The online
> specifications for this particular machine said was loaded with
> Windows Vista Business. However, when I got the machine it was in fact
> loaded with Vista Business but did not include an operating system
> install disc of any kind. Also, the build sheet that came with this
> laptop states it should be loaded with Vista Home Premium but again,
> there was no OS install disk of any kind.
>
> I called Dell and after speaking with five different people and being
> disconnected once I finally found a representative who told me this
> machine should have come with Vista Home Premium and said she would be
> sending the install discs for home premium. However, today in the mail
> I received the DVD but it states it's for reinstalling the OS that's
> already installed on the laptop. I'm assuming since Vista Business is
> the OS already installed on the laptop, trying to install Vista Home
> Premium with this DVD would not be possible? Or, does the Home Premium
> install disc treat this like an upgrade from Vista Business to Home
> Premium?
>
> I figured I would ask around before spending several hours on the
> phone with Dell! Thanks in advance for any information.