Look how old this is! I post at SearchCommander.com now, and this post was published 17 years 9 months 7 days ago. This industry changes FAST, so blindly following the advice here *may not* be a good idea! If you're at all unsure, feel free to hit me up on Twitter and ask.
Thanks to a commenter on this blog, we now know there’s a workaround for this issue. Still, why would Microsoft not send us full versions?
Now I can go buy a new hard drive, then do a clean install of Windows Vista from an upgrade disk
You can install a clean copy using an upgrade disk. You will be prompted for your original XP disk during install.