Here you go. :-)
Convert Win7 Ultimate to Pro or Home Premium
Here's the crux of the matter: If you put a DVD containing Win7 Ultimate
in your PC and run the installer — either by booting from the disc or
running the setup program from inside Windows — you end up with Win7
Ultimate. No surprises there.
However, if you first delete a tiny file named ei.cfg before making the
installation DVD, the Win7 installer will give you the choices shown in
Figure 1.
Windows 7 installer
Figure 1. Delete or rename ei.cfg before burning a Windows 7
installation DVD, and a menu then allows you to select which version to
install.
In fact, no matter which Win7 installation DVD you have — Ultimate, Pro,
or Premium — if you delete the ei.cfg file from the disc, you'll be
offered the same choices and can install any version of Windows 7.
At the moment, only a small number of people have received a physical
DVD containing Windows 7 Ultimate. Instead, most current Win7 users
downloaded an .iso file, which includes everything on the Windows 7
Ultimate DVD: boot settings, file-structure details, etc. You burn the
.iso file to a DVD. Then you either boot your PC from the DVD or run the
setup program within an older version of Windows to kick the Win7
installer into gear.
If you have a Windows 7 Ultimate .iso file, it's easy to delete ei.cfg.
First, get a 30-day trial version of the gBurner utility, which is
available from the program's download page at CNET's Download.com. Then
install and run gBurner, open the Windows 7 .iso file, and delete (or
rename) \sources\ei.cfg. Piece o' cake, although it can take 20 minutes
to save the altered .iso file.
You can then use either gBurner or Alex Feinman's ISO Recorder program
(available from Alex's site) to burn a version of the .iso file without
ei.cfg to DVD.
What if you do have a physical Windows 7 installation DVD, but you don't
have an .iso file? In that case, use either gBurner or ISO Recorder to
rip the DVD into an .iso file. Then follow the instructions above to
delete the ei.cfg file and burn a new DVD.
Get the right version of Windows 7 going now and you won't have to
reinstall it — or pay an exorbitant price — later.
(My thanks to all-around good guy Seth Bareiss for his help in
researching this topic.)
Bobby Heid wrote:
I seem to remember that there is some sort of "key" file on the disk that
tells the installer what version to install, but all of the versions are
there. I saw something a while back that tells how to update the file to
get a different version. If I can find that info, I'll post back.
Bobby
-----Original Message-----
From: hardware-boun...@hardwaregroup.com
[mailto:hardware-boun...@hardwaregroup.com] On Behalf Of maccrawj
Sent: Wednesday, September 02, 2009 10:33 PM
To: hardware@hardwaregroup.com
Subject: Re: [H] windows 7 upgrade confussion
So Vista is not like XP upgrade where all you needed was the previous CD/DVD
to
verify it? Seems stupid if down the road to do a fresh install you'd have to
start
with the previous version 1st though I see the anti-piracy benefit.
Will the DVD's for 7 be like Vista where all versions are there and key
decides what
you can activate?
Sure hope 7 has revamped some of Vista account status BS with a single local
superuser where even domain admins sub-admins.
