If you are planning on purchasing the upgrade version of Windows Vista, you may be surprised to find that you can’t do a clean install of Vista, as it requires you to have XP running on the machine you want to upgrade and the installation process has to be run from within XP.

Luckily there is a fairly simple workaround:

1. Boot your machine with the Vista DVD, but don’t enter your serial number just press Next (leaving the serial field blank).

2. 

3. Choose the copy of Vista that you purchased and continue to perform a clean install

   

4. Once the installation is complete you will need to restart the process over again but from within Vista. When prompted for the serial number this time make sure you enter in your Vista Upgrade serial number that you received with your purchase.

   

5. Now when prompted to Upgrade or Custom install, choose the Custom (advanced) option. You’ll be installing Vista for the second time but this is the only way to truly do a clean install of Vista using an upgrade DVD.
6. Optional: Since the installation was started from within Windows, you’ll still have a Windows.old folder on your drive that can be deleted after the installation is done.

Thanks to CyberNetNews for the guide and the pictures

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