Apparently, I’m not the only one out there with this scenario. I recently obtained a legal copy of Windows 7 Professional through my MSDNAA account. (MSDNAA provides lots of useful software for college students… as long as your college participates. See http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/academic/default for more information.) So, I excitedly obtained a legal copy of Windows 7 Professional. A key was provided to me through my account. Cool! That is, until I tried to upgrade my system.
I’ve been wanting to upgrade my installation of Windows Vista Home Premium, 64-bit edition. I burnt the .iso image to a DVD, started up the setup program, and proceeded to try to upgrade. Unfortunately, I received an error message indicating that I could only install Windows 7 Professional using a custom installation, which means that I could not transfer all of my existing settings from Vista.
Here is a solution that worked for me:
STEP 1 – Modify the .iso image and remove ei.cfg
Follow the instructions on the site below to remove the ei.cfg file from the .iso image. There are a few ways to do it. (If you have PowerISO installed, it’s quite easy to do.) The file ei.cfg is a special file that tells the installation program what version to install when you run setup. Most people do not realize that all versions of Windows 7 are available on the installation image. Removing this file will cause the setup program to ask you what version of Windows 7 you want to install. Bear in mind that your key is only for a specific version of Windows 7. The key I was provided from MSDNAA is for Windows 7 Professional only.
Here is a nice, concise set of directions to help you complete this step:
http://lifehacker.com/5438005/eicfg-removal-utility-lets-you-use-any-product-key-with-your-windows-7-disc
Once you modify the .iso image, burn the new image to a DVD.
STEP 2 – Upgrade your system to Windows 7 Home Premium
After you burn your modified .iso image to a DVD, navigate to the DVD folder and start the setup. (Alternatively, you can restart your system and boot off of the Setup DVD you just burned.) When prompted, choose to install Windows 7 Home Premium. It will eventually ask for a key. Just skip this step. The setup program will install Windows 7 Home Premium edition with a 30-day evaluation license. Keep in mind that it might take some time to do the installation. (Mine ran for almost two hours.) When you are finished, you should be able to reboot your system, and confirm that you have a complete version of Windows 7 Home Premium installed on your system. You might be nagged to activate and enter a key. Just ignore it.
STEP 3 – Modify the registry
This is tricky if you are not familiar with the registry. However, it’s pretty straightforward. You essentially need to make TWO modifications to the registry to fool the setup program that you have Windows 7 Professional already installed. I know – it doesn’t quite make sense. Just bear with me. (Thanks to the writer of the page: http://tech.icrontic.com/articles/upgrade-the-windows-7-rc-to-retail which gave me the important steps I needed to do.)
Start up the registry editor by typing regedit into the search box and press enter:
Next, in regedit, navigate to the branch HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion. In this branch, you will see two keys that you need to carefully change. Set the EditionID key to the value Professional, and the ProductName to the value Windows 7 Professional.
This will allow the Windows 7 setup program to think that the current version installed on the system is Windows 7 Professional. Exit the editor.
STEP 4 – Run Windows 7 Professional Setup
Run the setup program on the DVD, and select Upgrade. Sit back and let it go through the entire process of upgrading your system to your legal copy of Windows 7 Professional! You can enter your Windows 7 Professional key when prompted to do so. And, that’s it! You now have a completely upgraded system, without having to lose all of your Windows Vista customizations.
On a final note, having had to work with Windows going back to 3.0, I’ve become quite untrusting of Microsoft and their ability to put out quality OS software. This is certainly true of their ability to upgrade from previous versions of Windows. I’ve always opted to simply install to a new partition and then remove my old version. However, I’ve becoming quite fond of Windows 7. Despite this silly, ridiculous path I had to go through to get my system upgraded to Windows 7 Professional,I’m pretty trusting of Windows 7 for the most part. I think that MS has finally done a reasonable job producing a usable operating system. Good luck!
