• Donate
    TheWindowsForum.com needs donations to stay online!
    Love TheWindowsForum.com? Then help keep it alive by sending a donation!

Downgrade: Change Windows 7 Ultimate to Premium or Professional

WELCOME TO THEWINDOWSFORUM COMMUNITY!

Our community has more than 63,000 registered members, and we'd love to have you as a member. Join us and take part in our unbiased discussions among people of all different backgrounds about Windows OS, Software, Hardware and more.

-nelly-

Member
Jan 12, 2015
11
0
A Windows 7 Ultimate Installation can normally not change into a minor version of "Windows 7 Home Premium" or "Professional". If you have installed a version of Windows 7 Ultimate (e.g. beta, release candidate build 7100 or RTM build 7600) and want to install a cheaper version, e.g., Windows 7 Home Premium or Professional the installation is refused.
Below is a simple tutorial showing how to work around this issue.

Process below spoiler:
cCBnxWN.png


But with a change of a registry key whilst installation you can fake a minor version - so you can install the minor version.
(Downgrading Ultimate to Professional):

Change these registry keys ...

RMSdLwf.png


... into these for installing Windows 7 Professional ...

7arIEb2.png


A re-boot after changing these registry keys is not necessary.

The version name to be entered must be identical to the version name on the installation DVD. See here the differences of an English and a German installation:

yU5oe8T.png


mIvzeN9.png


For downgrading do not boot from Windows 7 installation DVD.

JdLklCL.png


Boot to Windows 7 and start "Setup.exe" from DVD; or after loading DVD the setup process starts automatically.
Start Upgrading (Even this sounds absurd):

n3LyzNh.png


PzYXVwS.png


Zaqvbly.png


After successfully downgrading the welcome screen shows the new version:

rdEEKmx.png


Also the program "winver" shows the successfully downgrading:

vtm0pUb.png




All data, documents, music and movie files, installed driver and programs, shortcuts, program and user settings are retained. Only in a few Windows 7 programs some settings are reset to the initial settings; e.g. in the "services". After the downgrade the Windows 7 installation, of course, must be re-activated.

Attention:<i></i> In Windows 7 Ultimate Build 7100 (Release Candidate) the effort is greater. First the entire DVD content must be copied to a folder to the hard drive. Then open in subfolder "sources" the file "cversion.ini" and change the entry "MinClient=7233.0" to "MinClient=7077.0". Then you can start the installation with "Setup.exe" (one folders hierarchy up).
After the installation the entire folder can be deleted.

Sources:<i></i>

http://icrontic.com/article/upgrade-the-windows-7-rc-to-retail

http://forums.mydigitallife.info/threads/68615-Downgrade-Daz-activated-Win7-Ultimate-to-genuine-Win7-Pro

http://www.unawave.de/installation/downgrade-en.html?lang=EN
 
Back