Jack Hoelz posted on February 09, 2007 17:41
The process does involve installing Vista "twice" but it does work. And considering Vista take far less time to install than XP it's a viable work around.
Here is a link to the instructions and I'll post them here as well.
I tested this out using a new hard disk on my desktop. I first installed and formatted the drive under XP-Pro. Then removed the disk with XP-Pro on it and made the newly formatted disk the primary drive.
Boot using the upgrade CD and go through the installation process. When you get to the section asking for your product key leave it empty and uncheck the "Activate" box. Your product key contains the information about your version of Windows, so without it you need to specify what version you are installing.
Go through the installation process and once your computer has booted up and is running Vista re-insert the installation DVD.
Run the installation program from within Windows now entering your product key, then select "Upgrade".
The installation process will now start again and when done you will have a clean installation of Windows Vista from the upgrade disk.