How-to with XP to Vista

hi all,
i am apparently having an issue trying to do the in-place upgrade of my xp professional to vista ultimate. the goal here is to vista as a stepping stone up to win 7 or win 8 and then eventually to win 10. its 32bit OS and i have the "Upgrade" retail vista box 32 & 64bit dvd's.

but why when i get to the "choose install type" window the Upgrade option is always grayed out with the message "upgrade option has been disabled, compatibility checks could not be completed"? i ran the vista advisor tool and it green lights everything.

is there a hack to make this work?

 

I'm not sure.
I think Windows XP > Vista upgrading was a feature when it was launched, and discontinued a while later, but correct me if I am wrong.

 

well, isnt a Vista "upgrade" DVD supposed to work even when there is no internet connection? Was there some sort of timer or something built into the Vista upgrade DVD that renders upgrading useless at a certain date/time? perhaps i can set my XP clock back and it would work?

 

It might be possible: again, I've forgotten a lot of the stuff related to XP-Vista upgrading.
If that doesn't work just back everything up onto something external and upgrade manually ^^

 

i was looking to do in-place upgrade to preserve programs, otherwise there is no point in do a Vista install, etc. the goal was to upgrade all the way to Win-10 32bit, etc.

 

You know that might break program compatibility and stuff. Didn't know your goal.

In fact it could be some sort of program compatibility issue with something but I'm not sure, I've never upgraded an OS, sadly.

Just trying to work out stuff this board isn't active plus a lot of my research is quite dirty checked.