Jume, thank you very much for your time in sharing a good idea.
See Robert Moir's input--similar to your idea--I am gonna knuckle under and
pay for the upgrade key.

Everyone agrees (?) that if I do that, I can restore my date from the RC1's
totalbackup disk set?

Thank you sir, for your help.

"Jume" wrote:
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> well, i didnt thought too much about it, but, if the backups are on dvd or
> another hard drive, you can get back your data if:
> 1.- install virtual pc or vmware
> 2.- install the rc1 into a virtual machine, same edition from where you made
> the backup (ultimate)
> 3.- ensure the virtual machine sees the backup media and try to restore the
> backup into the virtual machine
> 4.- move your data from the virtual machine to your real machine, either by
> net, additions or whatever you want to use :-)
>
> as it is timebombed, try to set the virtual machine date to before june and
> cut out its internet connection, that (probably) will give you enough room
> and time to do your things
>
> on a sidenote, i didnt tried to do this, but if your backup media gets seen
> to the virtual machine, it should work flawlessly, i think
>
>[/color]