Windows Vista Ultimate -> Windows Home Premium 7

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Jaydog1212
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23 Oct 2009, 10:36 pm

Why does MS have to have so many version of Windows (I understand 32bit/64bit but what about the others)? :roll:

Anyways, I bought a copy of Win 7 Home Premium via Digital River for $30. On their site, they did not include that handy matrix telling which versions you can upgrade from :(
Or at least I didn't see it.

Is there anyway I can downgrade Vista Ultimate to Home Premium to make it work. Any registry key changes etc? I don't want to reinstall everything.
:cry:
Thanks



Celtic_Frost
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24 Oct 2009, 1:30 am

Is it the Upgrade version? I guess dual-booting wouldn't work, right?



Last edited by Celtic_Frost on 24 Oct 2009, 1:35 am, edited 1 time in total.

Jaydog1212
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24 Oct 2009, 1:34 am

No tricks?
I found this one to go from beta to cheaper retail win 7
beta to cheaper win 7



Jaydog1212
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24 Oct 2009, 1:44 am

This is where I bought it.
It only offered home premium and pro. Apparently you need Windows 7 Ultimate to upgrade. I was wondering if I could downgrade Vista Ultimate to Vista Home Premium so that I can install the downloaded Windows 7 home premium.



Celtic_Frost
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24 Oct 2009, 2:21 am

Jaydog1212 wrote:
This is where I bought it.
It only offered home premium and pro. Apparently you need Windows 7 Ultimate to upgrade. I was wondering if I could downgrade Vista Ultimate to Vista Home Premium so that I can install the downloaded Windows 7 home premium.


Did Vista Ultimate come pre-installed on your computer or is it a retail version?



Jaydog1212
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24 Oct 2009, 7:43 am

Retail.



CloudWalker
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24 Oct 2009, 11:17 am

If you don't mind doing a clean install, then you can install it as a trial first and activate afterwards.



Jaydog1212
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25 Oct 2009, 5:14 am

CloudWalker wrote:
If you don't mind doing a clean install, then you can install it as a trial first and activate afterwards.


I was hoping to avoid that.

Thanks...



Celtic_Frost
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25 Oct 2009, 6:49 am

Jaydog1212 wrote:
CloudWalker wrote:
If you don't mind doing a clean install, then you can install it as a trial first and activate afterwards.


I was hoping to avoid that.

Thanks...


Well, you're running out of options. Can you not dual-boot?



zer0netgain
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25 Oct 2009, 12:37 pm

No expert, but my 2 cents.

You probably must upgrade to a similar or superior product because you are using a product with features not included in the upgrade of a lower OS "package."

Win7 Home Premium lacks things that might be part of Vista Ultimate.

I looked at the different Win7 packages. Win7 Home Basic, Home Premium, Professional and Ultimate. There are only a couple of extra things you get with Ultimate over Professional. It is possible you could go from Vista Ultimate to Win7 Professional, but you should check with Microsoft for the answer to that.

Here is a helpful bit of advice.

If you need a clean install of the OS you want (Win7 Home Premium), you can get an OEM full release from Newegg by simply buying a single qualifiying piece of hardware.

EXAMPLE (actual links from Newegg):

link Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium Upgrade - Retail - $119.99 (free shipping)

link Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium Full - Retail - $199.99 (free shipping)

link Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit 1-Pack for System Builders - OEM - $109.99 (free shipping)

I just tried buying the OEM version and other than the product description saying it's intended for resale and that the buyer is responsible for support to the end user, I had no flags that I needed to buy ANYTHING else to get the OEM version at that price.

Stop kicking about and just go to Newegg and buy a full install of the OS you want. It'll be cheaper than buying the retail upgrade package.



Jaydog1212
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25 Oct 2009, 2:16 pm

I'm going to return the one I bought from digital river. I read online that they have been accepting returns. Then I will buy the correct version later.

Thx



Tach
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31 Oct 2009, 3:49 am

MS set it up so that home premium can only go to home premium, enterprise and business can go to pro, and Ultimate only goes to ultimate. (I have to reformat 3 comps because of this, 2 were ultimate and 1 was home premium, now all 3 are going to pro)


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zer0netgain
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31 Oct 2009, 11:26 am

Frankly, I agree that it's insane to have multiple levels of OS out there. Make Win7 only in Ultimate and it would be cheaper to mass produce and market in the long run. You could always have a "first run" program that configures the layout of the OS based on the type of user you will be, but the marketing and packaging is so insane, and I don't think you really save that much by buying one over the other by doing all this.



WattageSheep
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31 Oct 2009, 12:47 pm

I read that if you install a version of Windows 7 that's lower than the Vista version like what you want to do you have to do a clean install.



Tach
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31 Oct 2009, 1:54 pm

WattageSheep wrote:
I read that if you install a version of Windows 7 that's lower than the Vista version like what you want to do you have to do a clean install.


I tried installing 7 Pro RTM on the laptop which uses Home Premium, and it told me clean install only.


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DavidK
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03 Nov 2009, 5:12 pm

For upgrading from 7 RC to RTM there's a tweak that involves copying the DVD to a folder and changing a number in a file.


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