Thank you, DP! Thank you for giving more of your time for my aid. I'm in
for the 32 bit version for sure. I understand all you say, and will shop to
be sure to find the lowest cost for what I will need to do. It's my current
understanding that even this Home Basic boxed set contains Ultimate. It's
only that it lacks the license key to turn on Ultimate's features. Since I
have the boxed Home Basic, and have installed it and activated it per MS
directions, it's not resalable now. And if all I need to do is pay for a
license key--there's my path. Look for the cheapest license key. The first
search led to Amazon, $199. I'll check Newegg too. That's a good outfit.
Thank you very much again. I appreciate your kindness.

"DP" wrote:
[color=blue]
>
> "Lowered Expectations" <LoweredExpectations@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote
> in message news:59BCFE3E-C432-4F66-B246-8A6106036FC0@microsoft.com...
>[color=green]
> >
> > To be very sure, however =I only need to know now=, that IF I upgrade this
> > present "clean install" of Basic, to Ultimate,
> >
> > then can I for sure for sure for sure! regain my former files, programs,
> > settings of the RC1 installation?[/color]
>
> There are folks 10 times as knowledgeable on this issue than I am. But until
> one of them answers, let me raise a caution flag. You backed up your data
> using the backup software on a TRIAL version of an OS. It was probably very
> close to what was finally released to market. But if there were any issues
> with the backup software that were later fixed when OS was released (and/or
> through later updates), then I suppose it is conceivable that the data you
> backed up could be incompatible with the final version of Vista Ultimate.
> In my not-completely-informed opinion, I'd say that's highly unlikely, but
> since you're looking for a definitive answer, I thought I'd let you know.
>
> BTW: You mentioned something about $199 for the download from Amazon. When I
> bought Vista Ultimate 64-bit, I got the OEM version for that price from New
> Egg. You might consider that. You would actually have the media in hand
> rather than having to do a download. And depending on how you bought Vista
> Basic, you might be able to sell the Basic to someone else, or install it on
> another computer.
> If you don't want 64-bit, I don't recall if the 32-bit Ultimate OEM was
> cheaper or not.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>[/color]