Hack to In-Place ~Downgrade from

Windows 7 Ultimate or Professional to Less

Premium Editions

Windows 7 does not allow users to 'downgrade or convert Irom a more premium and more
expensive edition to down-level, more basic and less expensive edition. For example, it`s
impossible to downgrade Irom Windows 7 Ultimate to Windows 7 ProIessional or Enterprise,
or Irom Windows 7 ProIessional to Windows 7 Home Premium or Home Basic.

Windows 7 SKUs or editions have a hierarchy as below:
Starter -~ Home Basic -~ Home Premium -~ ProIessional -~ Ultimate
Upgrade is only possible one-way Irom the lower edition to higher edition oI Windows 7, and
not the other way round. II user attempts to perIorm an in-place upgrade to downgrade to
lesser edition oI Windows 7, an error similar to below will be displayed at compatibility
report:
Windows 7 Ultimate cannot be upgraded to Windows 7 Home Premium. You can choose to
install a new copy oI Windows 7 Home Premium instead, but this is diIIerent Irom an
upgrade, and does not keep your Iiles, settings and programs. You`ll need to reinstall any
programs using the original installation discs or Iiles. To save your Iiles beIore installing
Windows, back them up to an external location such as a CD, DVD, or external hard drive. To
install a new copy oI Windows 7 Home Premium, click the Back button in the upper leIt-hand
corner, and select 'Custom (advanced).

The reIusal oI Windows 7 to downgrade causes several groups oI people some headache,
especially when user doesn`t want to lose and wipe oII existing programs installed. For
example, users who installed Windows 7 Ultimate during beta or release candidate phase oI
Windows 7, but now acquire a Windows 7 Home Premium or Windows 7 ProIessional
license. The situation can also apply to user who installs Windows 7 Ultimate or ProIessional
edition, but now wants to go legit by buying or being given a giIt oI Windows 7 Home
Premium license. End-users also have to go through the hassle oI backup all data Iiles when
clean install is required.
MicrosoIt probably Iorbids downgrade Ior a reason, such as possibility oI corrupting or
messing the operating system and complexity involved in such downgrade. For user who must
perIorm in-place downgrade, there is a workaround trick that can Iorce Windows 7 setup
installer to allow 'upgrade or downgrade Irom uplevel edition oI Windows 7 to downlevel
version oI Windows 7, while retaining all installed application soItware, drivers and migrating
all documents, music, video, shortcuts, bookmarks, Iavorites, and personal data Iiles or
settings.
1. On existing Windows installation, run #egistry Editor (#egEdit).
2. avigate to the Iollowing registry key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion
3. In the right pane, change the value data oI EditionID and ProductName to reIlect a
minor version oI Windows 7.
For example, to Iool OS to think that it`s another edition oI Windows 7, hack the
registry key to the Iollowing values as below:

Original Windows 7 Ultimate registry value
Windows 7 Home Premium (allow Windows 7 Ultimate or ProIessional to Home
Premium downgrade)
EditionID: HomePremium
Productame: Windows 7 HomePremium
Windows 7 Professional (allow Windows 7 Ultimate to ProIessional downgrade)
EditionID: Professional
Productame: Windows 7 Professional

ote: The Productame and EditionID should have the same name with the Windows
7 operating system name displayed during OS selection on the installation DVD.
Some Windows 7 installation DVD may use 'Windows 7 Home Premium as OS
name. See the hack to enable Windows 7 OS edition selection during setup by
disabling ei.cIg to create universal Windows 7 installer ISO.
4. Start Windows 7 installation by inserting Windows 7 DVD disc into disc tray, or
mount the Windows 7 ISO image into a virtual drive.
5. Select Upgrade as type oI installation. Then, continue to install Windows 7 as per
normal.
For user who decided to upgrade Irom Windows 7 Beta or Windows 7 RC release, the
Windows 7 upgrade paths also does not support direct upgrade any prerelease versions oI
Windows 7. However, an easy hack oI modiIying cversion.ini can enable direct upgrade to
Windows 7 Iinal Irom Windows 7 RC or Beta.
One last note is that aIter the 'downgrade oI Windows 7 installation, the operating system
must be reactivated.

Downgrade: Cbange Windows Ultimate to Premium or Professional

(Inspiiiteu by this blog: www.iciontic.com)
Windows 7 Ultimate Installation can normally not change into a minor version oI
"Windows 7 Home Premium" or "ProIessional". II you have installed a preview version oI
Windows 7 Ultimate (e.g. beta, release candidate build 7100 or RTM build 7600) and want to
install a cheaper version Windows 7 Home Premium or ProIessional the installation is
reIused:

But with a change oI a registry key whilst installation you can Iake a minor version - so you
can install the minor version
Change these registry keys ...

... into these Ior installing Windows 7 ProIessional ...

... or into these Ior installing Windows 7 Home Premium:

re-boot aIter change oI 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 diIIerences oI an English and a German installation:


For downgrading do not boot Irom Windows 7 installation DVD.

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



Iter successIully downgrading the welcome screen shows the new version:

lso the program "winver" shows the successIully downgrading:

ll data, documents, music and movie Iiles, installed driver and programs, shortcuts, program
and user settings are retained. Only in a Iew Windows 7 programs some settings are reset to
the initial settings; e.g. in the "services". Iter the downgrade the Windows 7 installation, oI
course, must be re-activated.
Attention: In Windows 7 Ultimate Build 7100 (Release Candidate) the eIIort is greater. First
the entire DVD content must be copied to a Iolder to the hard drive. Then open in subIolder
"sources" the Iile "cversion.ini" and change the entry "MinClient7233.0" to
"MinClient7077.0". Then you can start the installation with "Setup.exe" (one Iolders
hierarchy up). Iter the installation the entire Iolder can be deleted.