Got my copy of Visual Studio 2008 Professional from the Install Fest Microsoft had a few months back…

It came with a nice Product Key, but no instructions on how to take our existing trial edition and upgrade it to the fully registered professional product…

Here’s what I did to get it working:

Step 1.

Insert newly acquired Visual Studio 2008 Professional DVD that you received from Microsoft.

Step 2.

Wait till the auto-run starts, or right click on the CD and run the auto-run.

Step 3.

Select Change or Remove Visual Studio 2008

Step 4.

Wait till it goes through it’s initialization procedure and click next.

Step 5.

You’ll be prompted with a dialog with the Product Key Entry on the bottom and a button that says Upgrade. Enter in your Product Key and click Upgrade! (NOTE: My screen shot does not have the product key box, but it will be located at the bottom of the screen in the white space)

Step 6.

Wash hands repeatedly and enjoy your free software…

That’s all that it took to get my copy up… from trial to Professional!

Read the complete post at http://www.thoughtstoblog.com/articles/2008/2/20/visual-studio-2008-professional