OEM Windows 95 to Windows 98 upgrade question

[vwestlife]

If you upgrade an OEM installation of Windows 95 with a generic retail copy of Windows 98, does it retain the original OEM branding on the System Properties screen?

I've never actually done a Windows upgrade -- I've always done clean installations -- but I'm playing around with an old Compaq that originally came with Win95 and was upgraded to Win98 (first edition), but it still has the Compaq Presario branding. So I'm just wondering if they took it back to a Compaq dealer to have the upgrade done, or if maybe they just used an off-the-shelf copy of Win98 for the upgrade. The hard drive still had traces of Win95 left on it, so I know it was not a clean installation.

 

[Agent Orange]

If you upgrade an OEM installation of Windows 95 with a generic retail copy of Windows 98, does it retain the original OEM branding on the System Properties screen?

I've never actually done a Windows upgrade -- I've always done clean installations -- but I'm playing around with an old Compaq that originally came with Win95 and was upgraded to Win98 (first edition), but it still has the Compaq Presario branding. So I'm just wondering if they took it back to a Compaq dealer to have the upgrade done, or if maybe they just used an off-the-shelf copy of Win98 for the upgrade. The hard drive still had traces of Win95 left on it, so I know it was not a clean installation.

Possibly when it was new it may have came with an 'upgrade' coupon'? Unless the logo for that model was burned into the BIOS, I don't know why it would persist - something like that 'Energy Star' logo that you used to see at POST.

 

[the3dfxdude]

The logo is shown from the \windows\system\oeminfo.ini and oemlogo.bmp files. Vendor customized installers would copy in those files. Generic OEM and retail disks would have not provided them. So the answer is that they were probably kept from the earlier Win95 install.

 

[vwestlife]

Possibly when it was new it may have came with an 'upgrade' coupon'?

It's possible, since the machine was sold in 1997 -- however it originally came with the 12/31/1995 version of Windows 95 (with no FAT32 or USB support), not the later OEM Service Releases from 1996-97.