Windows 7 "upgrading" from un-activated 7 Ultimate to legitimate 7 Home Premium

jackzm

Well-Known Member
A few months ago, i heard about the student Windows 7 Upgrade deal, and decided to take advantage of it. I had Vista Home Premium 32-bit and tried to upgrade to 7 Home Premium 32-bit, but it didn't work properly. I downloaded the upgrade and tried to install it, but before it finished installing, it said that the installation was unsuccessful and it was going to roll back to Vista. but it had already removed vista. my computer was stuck in a reboot loop, and didn't have vista or 7. I managed to fix this by getting a cracked copy of 7 Ultimate from a friend, booting from the disc, formatting my hard drive, and doing a clean install.

This copy of 7 Ultimate has been working perfectly for months, but a couple days ago, it started telling me that it is not a genuine copy of windows and i need to validate it. I traced this back to a specific windows update, and tried uninstalling it, and restoring to a point before this update, but it hasn't fixed it. (i realize now that i should have turned off automatic updates and screened all the updates).

So i need some advice on the best/cheapest way to fix this and get a legitimate, activated version of 7 on my computer. I have a product key for a Windows 7 Home Premium Upgrade from the original student deal, but no disc to install it from. If i can get a hold of a disc, will i be able to "upgrade" from this un-activated version of 7 Ultimate to 7 Home Premium and use my product key? Is it possible to "upgrade" from Ultimate to Home Premium? Or will i need to do a clean install? and if i do a clean install with upgrade media, will i be able to activate it? my last resort is buying a full version of 7.

I would really appreciate any advice you can give me. Thanks a lot.
 
Unfortunately as far as I know you can't downgrade with an upgrade.When you downloaded the premium upgrade did you not make a disk to install from.
You can do a fresh install using an upgrade disk but without the disk you could be somewhat screwed.

You could see if you can borrow a home premium upgrade disk from a freind then try a clean install and use your legit serial to activate.
I have done two clean installs for customers with an upgrade disk and was able to activate it.

I presume that when you had Vista on your computer you either got an os disk from the manufacturer or you made recovery media yourself.
If this is the case you could try installing vista from scratch and then try the upgrade path again.

Good luck
 
A few months ago, i heard about the student Windows 7 Upgrade deal, and decided to take advantage of it. I had Vista Home Premium 32-bit and tried to upgrade to 7 Home Premium 32-bit, but it didn't work properly. I downloaded the upgrade and tried to install it, but before it finished installing, it said that the installation was unsuccessful and it was going to roll back to Vista. but it had already removed vista. my computer was stuck in a reboot loop, and didn't have vista or 7. I managed to fix this by getting a cracked copy of 7 Ultimate from a friend, booting from the disc, formatting my hard drive, and doing a clean install.

This copy of 7 Ultimate has been working perfectly for months, but a couple days ago, it started telling me that it is not a genuine copy of windows and i need to validate it. I traced this back to a specific windows update, and tried uninstalling it, and restoring to a point before this update, but it hasn't fixed it. (i realize now that i should have turned off automatic updates and screened all the updates).

So i need some advice on the best/cheapest way to fix this and get a legitimate, activated version of 7 on my computer. I have a product key for a Windows 7 Home Premium Upgrade from the original student deal, but no disc to install it from. If i can get a hold of a disc, will i be able to "upgrade" from this un-activated version of 7 Ultimate to 7 Home Premium and use my product key? Is it possible to "upgrade" from Ultimate to Home Premium? Or will i need to do a clean install? and if i do a clean install with upgrade media, will i be able to activate it? my last resort is buying a full version of 7.

I would really appreciate any advice you can give me. Thanks a lot.

This is not a forum for adding or removing "hacks." Your friend with the cracked ultimate version is your best adviser at this point since he knows what activator he installed and how to uninstall it. Once you get back to a "normal" ultimate, you can probably do a re-arm and then change your copy to Home Premium. (Your friend will know how to do this.) From there you may be able to use your key. In any event, a clean install with a legitimate Win7 Upgrade Disk will allow you to use your key. (See your friend for a registry change to allow a single install of Win7 from your upgrade disk without having to install twice.)
 
Sure it can be done with a small amount of playing around with your registry. Link Removed - Not Found is a good guide. You will need that legit key you have to activate it again.
There are also guides on this forum for doing clean installs from upgrade media that might help you. Also this post might help too.
 
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