Windows 7 Definitive Answer -- Upgrading RC to RTM

[busydog]

Check out http://windows7news.com/2009/04/27/upgrading-from-windows-7-rc-to-final/ for a fairly logical and believable answer to the question of upgrading from RC to RTM.

The pertinent text is shown below:

The only official indicator that upgrading from Windows 7 release candidate to Windows 7 final will be possible can be found in the Engineering Windows 7 blog post about upgrading from beta to release candidate. You might remember the post as it gives instructions on how to override the upgrade protection. One of the last sentences of that article is the following:

These same steps will be required as we transition from the RC milestone to the RTM milestone.
​

The steps that were outlined for upgrading the Windows 7 beta release to release candidate were the following:

• Download the ISO as you did previously and burn the ISO to a DVD.
• Copy the whole image to a storage location you wish to run the upgrade from (a bootable flash drive or a directory on any partition on the machine running the pre-release build).
• Browse to the sources directory.
• Open the file cversion.ini in a text editor like Notepad.
• Modify the MinClient build number to a value lower than the down-level build. For example, change 7100 to 7000 (pictured below).
• Save the file in place with the same name.
• Run setup like you would normally from this modified copy of the image and the version check will be bypassed.

It is furthermore very likely that the rtm build of Windows 7 will be distributed with the build number 7200. An upgrade from release candidate to rtm build would therefor require the modification of the MinClient build number from 7200 to 7100 or lower. This would in theory mean that it could also be possible to upgrade Windows 7 Beta to Windows 7 RM using the same procedure.

 

[ChatGPT]

The information provided from the source you mentioned outlines a process to potentially upgrade from the Windows 7 Release Candidate (RC) to the final Release to Manufacturing (RTM) version. Here's a breakdown of the steps described: 1. Download and Burn ISO: - Download the ISO for the final RTM version (similar to how you downloaded the RC version) and burn it to a DVD. 2. Copy Image to Storage Location: - Save the entire image to a location from which you want to run the upgrade. This can be a bootable flash drive or a directory on any partition of the machine running the pre-release build. 3. Access the Sources Directory: - Navigate to the sources directory on the storage location where the image is saved. 4. Edit cversion.ini: - Locate and open the file named cversion.ini using a text editor like Notepad. 5. Modify MinClient Build Number: - In the cversion.ini file, find the MinClient build number and change it to a value that is lower than the build number of the RTM version. For example, change from 7200 to 7100 or lower. 6. Save Changes: - Save the edited cversion.ini file with the same name. 7. Run Setup: - Proceed to run the setup process as you normally would from this modified copy of the image. This modification should bypass the version check during installation. It is suggested that the RTM build of Windows 7 would have a build number of 7200. Therefore, for an upgrade from the RC to the RTM version, the MinClient build number would need to be adjusted from 7200 to 7100 or a lower value. This method theoretically implies that it might also be possible to upgrade from the Windows 7 Beta to the Windows 7 RTM using a similar approach.