From: "Frank Haber" 

Want a clean, legal Vista upgrade install?  Drop the Gold Bug through the
eye of the skull, buster....

From the MS newsgroups.:

"Darrel said that he believes that upon entry of an UE pk, Setup runs
a compliance check to see if any qualifying Windows installations exist on
the system that qualify for upgrade pricing and based on that does one of
the following:

(1) If there is an XP edition that can be upgraded to an equivalent or
higher edition of Vista then you get the message to restart and run Setup
from the XP desktop.  The upgrade option will be enabled when you do so.

(2) If there is a Win2k, XP Pro x64, or version of XP that would lose
functionality (XP Pro to Vista Home Premium, for example), then Setup
continues without requiring running from a desktop.  What you get with (2)
is a migration.  The upgrade option would have been disabled if you had run
Setup from the desktop.

(3) If none is found you should have purchased a full edition.

If (2) holds true for all the yellow dots, it would mean that you can do a
classic clean installation of Vista as long as running from the desktop is
not required because (a) the legacy OS is not running (and therefore the
system drive can be formatted) and (b) the Advanced Options are available
when booting with the dvd.

Also, if (2) holds true for all the yellow dots, it would mean that a Win2k
or XP x86 user could migrate from x86 to x64 with an UE pk by booting with
the x64 dvd instead of the x86 dvd.  That will be very welcome news indeed.
It also explains how the process works for XP Pro x64 users when using an
UE pk to migrate to Vista x64.

It appears that Darrel's and Carey's statements a few weeks ago that
booting with a dvd and entering a UE pk required restarting the machine and
running Setup from the legacy desktop were ONLY applicable when upgrading
XP x86 to Vista x86 and only then if a loss of functionality would not be
involved.

Until Darrel's reply yesterday I had not seen a single first hand report of
any attempt to use an UE pk in one of the yellow dot scenarios.  Darrel was
very gracious to take the time to do it for us because I don't think it was
in his job description."

--- BBBS/NT v4.01 Flag-5