Activate W7 Home Premium within Ultimate?

Quddy · 18 Mar 2010 at 05:44

Hi,

I am currently running W7 Ultimate 64-bit Trial (downloaded the retail iso - I realise it is not officially supported etc...). The trial period is soon due to expire so I am about to buy an OEM version for my PC.

Question is, if I buy Home Premium 64-bit will I be able to activate it within my current Ultimate setup or will I have to reinstall everything? Will it just disable all the Ultimate features?

Thanks.

lokkers · 18 Mar 2010 at 06:44

I think MS allow you to go up versions (I.e. Anytime Upgrade), but not to downgrade. You'll have to reinstall I imagine.

Quddy · 18 Mar 2010 at 09:31

Bugger, bit of a pain. Thanks for the reply though, much appreciated.

bledd · 18 Mar 2010 at 09:53

If you have a trial or RC, you have to reinstall (I'd recommend a full format) if you want to use a real full version.

SiriusB · 18 Mar 2010 at 11:56

Well, there are tweaks and fiddling you can do to get around that, but it is not at all recommended.

You are much better off doing a squeaky clean install, that way you know you have all the correct files etc [stuff may have changed from the RC] and you will know everything is gonna work.

Quddy · 18 Mar 2010 at 12:07

I think it was an ISO of the full retail version (leaked from MSDN I believe), not RC, as I checked the hash key with the one MS provide on their website. I am currently running in the 30 day trial period after install.

I think the ISO allows you to install all versions but Ultimate was the default as I do not remember seeing an option to install any other version. I believe I needed to edit the ISO before burning it to get the options but I did not know that at the time.

The only reason it is a pain is because I installed it on an iMac but subsequently modded it to replace the optical drive with an SSD! The iMac boot sequence is quite restrictive and I believe that it cannot boot from an external optical drive unless it has the MacOS DVD in it.

I will have a look for these tweaks and give them a go. If it does not work then I guess I will have to reinstall the internal optical drive.

Thanks.