Windows 7 Downgrade: Change Windows 7 Ultimate to Home Premium or Professional

[unawave]

If you have installed a preview version of Windows 7 Ultimate (e.g. beta, release candidate build 7100 or RTM build 7600) and want to install a cheaper version of Windows 7 Home Premium or Professional the installation is normally refused.

But with change of a registry key whilst installation you can fake a minor version - so you can Link Removed.

 

[stueycaster]

Just a question along these lines. I heard that the Windows installation disk contains all the different versions. The thing that determines which version you install is the Product Key. Is this true?

 

[SIW2]

Hi stuey.

Yes. All the dvd's from MS are the same - even the upgrade dvd's . What counts is the key you enter.

The only difference is if it is 32 or 64 bit.

 

[stueycaster]

Thank You. That makes sense to do it that way.

 

[Scotty2010]

Downgrade from Ultimate Final to Home Premium possible?

Hello community,

first of all thanks to unawave for this great article. It seems to be popular all around the forums - good job.

As this article is mainly addressing Win7 Ultimate RC I was wondering if a final version could also be "downgraded". Unfortunately Microsoft must have read the article as well and prevents now an easy downgrade.

I tried to downgrade from Ultimate RTM to Home Premium RTM, changed all the registry keys as described, but Win7 set up keeps telling me that I still have an Ultimate installed.

Thanks for the help !

Scotty

 

[busydog]

Hello community,

first of all thanks to unawave for this great article. It seems to be popular all around the forums - good job.

As this article is mainly addressing Win7 Ultimate RC I was wondering if a final version could also be "downgraded". Unfortunately Microsoft must have read the article as well and prevents now an easy downgrade.

I tried to downgrade from Ultimate RTM to Home Premium RTM, changed all the registry keys as described, but Win7 set up keeps telling me that I still have an Ultimate installed.

Thanks for the help !

Scotty

Don't go by what Win7 says...... you can now "upgrade" with a Home Premium Disk. Been there, done that.

 

[Scotty2010]

Hi Busydog,

interesting, I'd like to know more because I wasn't able to do it. Maybe I missed a thing or two....

Can you describe in more details, please ?

Thanks
Scotty

 

[unawave]

Don't go by what Win7 says...... you can now "upgrade" with a Home Premium Disk. Been there, done that.

Seems so that it is important to enter the correct version strings for:
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion]
EditionID=???
ProductName=???

Can you give us the correct strings for "Home Premium" ? Capital letters ? Spaces ?
And your language localization ?

 

[Eyes]

Wondering if anyone can help me with this.

I've done all the above and it still get the same problem no matter what I do. It goes through all the upgrade process until it reaches the "transferring files, settings and programs" and then it just hangs and does nothing!!

Anyone have any advice? Cheers

 

[busydog]

Seems so that it is important to enter the correct version strings for:
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion]
EditionID=???
ProductName=???

Can you give us the correct strings for "Home Premium" ? Capital letters ? Spaces ?
And your language localization ?

Exact syntax is EditionID = Professional
and ProductName= Windows 7 Professional

If you check your version after changing the registry it will show Ultimate but you can then downgrade an RC Ultimate to Professional.

Eyes, if you've done this, you have other problems.

 

[Eyes]

Exact syntax is EditionID = Professional
and ProductName= Windows 7 Professional

If you check your version after changing the registry it will show Ultimate but you can then downgrade an RC Ultimate to Professional.

Eyes, if you've done this, you have other problems.

Great lol's Any idea's what could be causing it? Would my ATI program which windows flags up that might nto work after the upgrade be part of the program, but I wouldn't of thought so....

Cheers anyway

 

[unawave]

Exact syntax is EditionID = Professional

OK - with "Professional" you can't make big mistakes in spelling.

But in your last post you wrote you install "Home Premium":

you can now "upgrade" with a Home Premium Disk. Been there, done that.

And there I see this in German version:
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion]
EditionID=HomePremium
ProductName=Windows 7 Home Premium

Without space by "EditionID" of "HomePremium"

 

[Danisson]

So Link Removed, I'm gonna use the English version of win7, then the Regkey should be like this:
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion]
EditionID=PROFESSIONAL
ProductName=Windows 7 PROFESSIONAL
and can I use the "Upgrade" Edition to upgrade the RC1 to Retail?

 

[busydog]

So unawave, I'm gonna use the English version of win7, then the Regkey should be like this:
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion]
EditionID=PROFESSIONAL
ProductName=Windows 7 PROFESSIONAL
and can I use the \"Upgrade\" Edition to upgrade the RC1 to Retail?

Provided you have modified cversion.ini. BTW, I think the ProductName=Windows 7 HomePremium is the correct entry for Home Premium. I believe that Link Removed is the best authority on the whole process and it states HomePremium for both EditionID and ProductName. Eyes, I suspect your upgrade media.... have you tried burning the ISO at X1 or X2?

 

[tblount]

Wondering if anyone can help me with this.

I've done all the above and it still get the same problem no matter what I do. It goes through all the upgrade process until it reaches the "transferring files, settings and programs" and then it just hangs and does nothing!!

Anyone have any advice? Cheers

Backup and do a Clean install... and install the version you have a key for. You can delete ei.cfg and when you install it will ask you which version you want to install.

 

[Scotty2010]

OK guys,

did some research during the weekend and it seems that I finally got it.

Here's the trick:

I installed a fresh Home Premium on a separate test system and right after completion I exported the registry keys in "HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion". I kept only the ROOT ENTRIES, not the whole tree with all subkeys (about 20 entries).

After importing this to my Ultimate machine I was able to do an "Update" to Home Premium with the Win7 install DVD. Right now I'm writing these lines on my new migrated PC.

I'm pretty sure the keys "DigitalProductId" and "DigitalProductId64" are the ones I missed before, because these seemd to be the only entries different to my old settings (except EditionID, ProductName, etc that have been already mentioned here). Maybe someone could test that.

But I'm totally satisfied, my system is running smothly.

Hope that'll help others, too. Good luck !

Scotty

 

[tblount]

Great! Hang around and help.

 

[arcanemethods]

OK guys,

did some research during the weekend and it seems that I finally got it.

Here's the trick:

I installed a fresh Home Premium on a separate test system and right after completion I exported the registry keys in "HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion". I kept only the ROOT ENTRIES, not the whole tree with all subkeys (about 20 entries).

Since I only have the upgrade version of Home Premium, it being a fulfillment order for my Sony Vaio which shipped with Vista and which I upgraded to Win7 RC 7100, I can't do the fresh test install/export that you did.

Could you tell us the exact form and spelling of EditionID and ProductId as seen in the registry after you did the Home Premium downgrade install? (Assuming it was the English edition.)

Thanks,

Bob

 

[Scotty2010]

Hi Bob,

sorry I forgot to say, it's been the German Edition. The keys read there like this:

EditionID=HomePremium <<<<<< no space there as unawave described earlier.
ProductName=Windows 7 Home Premium

If this doesn't work in the English version, I would try to use capitals like this (because the menu options are in capitals as well in the English version but not in the German one):

EditionID=HOMEPREMIUM
ProductName=WINDOWS 7 HOMEPREMIUM

Unfortunately I have no English version so I couldn't try it out.

Anyway, good luck.

Scotty

 

[tblount]

ProductName=WINDOWS 7 HOMEPREMIUM

Unfortunately I have no English version so I couldn't try it out.

Anyway, good luck.

Scotty

My blog has the link for English, German and French Win 7 iso direct from Microsoft for the Pro version

YOU STILL NEED A VALID key to run past 4 months.