Hi all
not sure if i am posting in the right place
I was looking to upgrade to windows vista Home Premium from xp home OEM
but i am not sure what copy of vista Home Premium to use
(I.E) Retail,Retail Upgrade or can i just use OEM

Try using the Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor before you do this. You should be able to upgrade any copy of XP with a retail upgrade copy of Windows Vista.

You can upgrade windows xp to any version of vista. One thing to keep in mind though, if you buy the upgrade version, you are going to have remnants of xp on your system still. You will get a cleaner install if you purchase the full version and repartition the drive before you install. just some food for thought.

Just also make it clear about the difference between Retail and OEM. OEM has a licence which is tied to one machine and if any major parts are replaced ( a motherboard is considered major) then the licence is void and a new one is needed. Retail however can be tied to one machine after another ( only one at a time though!) it's more expensive to buy initially but is cheaper in the long run if you expect to be upgrading often.
An upgrade version will only work if another copy of windows is found on the disk prior to install eg If you bought a new HDD and tried to install Vista (or any other windows os) upgrade version it won't install because it first searches for the previous copy. It can fooled however.. If it doesn't find a previous os it will then ask you to place your original os in the drive. If you have an old copy of 98 (even a upgrade version lol) it will be excepted and the install will go ahead. ( I used to do this with a upgrade version of XP I once had)

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