Getting New Win 7 Pro PC To Work With Old Home Premium Drive

Slartybart · 25 Jan 2015

Adelphi1 said:

Status:

Still waiting for my Retail Professional DVD. Meanwhile, listening to the wonderful people here, I dug up a 1 TB drive and using software recommended here, I cloned it and the drive is bootable. Thank you everyone!!!!

Should my Windows 7 Professional Retail never come, what are my options?

I cannot upgrade my Home Premium hard drive on my new PC because my new PC has 2 CPUs, Home Premium does not run on a PC with 2 CPUs.

I always thought the difference between an OEM upgrade and a retail upgrade is that the OEM upgrade will only work on the CPU you are upgrading. Retail allows you to upgrade the hard drive, then use the hard drive with a different CPU.

Or am I wrong? Can I upgrade my old Home Premium hard drive with either an OEM DVD or via Windows Anytime Upgrade and then take it home, boot it on my home PC and then activate it. I would NOT be activating it on the CPU that I upgrade it on.

Again, thank you everyone for their help :)

You're welcome,

Good news and thanks for the update.

I'm not sure about the machine with two physical CPUs - I wouldn't think it would matter to Windows.
It's still one Mobo and one BIOS, yes?
This might be one of those licensing grey areas. dsperber posted a lot of information about licensing, but there might be more (it can get complicated and confusing, especially one-offs).

I wouldn't worry too much about the 2 CPU / home edition upgrade licensing thing
- put the Pro version on the new machine.
I always got frustrated by the home edition lacking some features, mainly group policy edit.

Bill
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gregrocker · 25 Jan 2015

As I said earlier you do not need to buy Win7 Professional if it came on the new PC, you can use that Product Key so it's $100+ value is not wasted. I already have said this twice now so I don't know why you bought this from some dodgy eBay seller. I would return it unopened.

If Home Premium will not boot in a PC with two processors we surely would have heard about it here before, so it merits a real attempt. Did you make the BIOS changes to CSM or Legacy BIOS, Adjust Win7 to boot on new hardware with Paragon Adaptive Restore CD and then if it still won't start confirm the Partition Marked Active to run Startup Repair - Run 3 Separate Times so you know you've tried everything?

If so then in the other PC you can do the Change versions workaround on Home Premium to change it to Professional, move its hard drive or image to the new PC, follow the above to get it started. Then activate it using the Professional key that came with the new PC on it's COA sticker.

If you haven't tried everything above to start Professional in the new PC, I'd do that first then do Change Versions workaround to Professional to activate with the Product Key that came with the new PC. This will save needing to adjust it twice with PAR.

Adelphi1 · 25 Jan 2015

Thank you.

Just one wrinkle. When does the activation process occur? Does it happen during the upgrade or afterwards.

I was told elsewhere that one can upgrade one's version of Win 7 on a different CPU/hard drive combo. It is only when you try to activate it, a separate process, does it lock you into that particular CPU/MOBO.

I do not need an Internet connection to upgrade my old hard drive. So activating it is not possible. If I can upgrade it on one CPU/MOBO (no Internet) , put the HD on my new PC (which needs Win Pro to run) and then try to activate, will that work?

gregrocker · 25 Jan 2015

You would not be Upgrading Home Premium lest you waste an Anytime Upgrade - if you used one for the old install it will now become free to use elsewhere, but isn't needed here .

Instead you are merely changing the versions for the purpose of reactivating with the Professional key on the new machine's COA sticker, which will activate as long as its for Professional and you're sure that's what you have achieved. If it fails then you have typed wrong characters, which is the only reason it would fail.

Slartybart · 25 Jan 2015

It might be easier, for me anyway, if you worked on one machine at a time.
I'm confused what came on each machine and what you want on each machine - but that might only be me.

Greg is excellent at working through these types of issues. If you take the one machine at a time approach it would only be for my benefit reading the thread and trying to follow.

Good luck, I'll watch and maybe learn some things along the way.

Bill
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Adelphi1 · 26 Jan 2015

Greg Rocker

OK, I read your e-mail and went into some links. Thank you for being as persistent as you have been.

Here is my plan:

I change my BIOS to Legacy. I boot up with Paragon and let it Adjust My OS. I have a 2nd DVD drive and have the disks that came with the PC. Hopefully that will find all the drivers. From my existing Win7 Pro installation, what folders do you recommend I copy to a USB key as an added resource? I am only looking for critical devices at this time.

If that gets my PC booting, hurrah. If not, I try the change versions workaround via regedit.

Presuming it works, do I need to do a Win Professional Upgrade? I downloaded the ISO from http://msft.digitalrivercontent.net/win/X17-59186.iso. I will extract it, then run ei.cfg on the extracted data and put it on a USB key.

Then, do I need to do a Windows Repair via that USB key or will that work already have been done?

Microsoft has clearly documented that Home Professional will NOT work with a box that has two CPUs. My reluctance to try your methods was because I had just an original hard drive. Now that I was able to clone it on Friday, I feel much safer

gregrocker · 26 Jan 2015

No, if you want to use the Professional license which came with your new PC and not waste it's $100+ value, a Home premium license and an Anytime Upgrade license, then once you have Win7 Home premium cloned and booting, you must do the Change versions workaround to Professional.

You cannot Upgrade within Win7 except by Anytime Upgrade which I have repeatedly written is not needed here since that would require Activating Home Premium and then doing an ANytime Upgrade, which waste a Home Premium license and the Anytime Upgrade license too. You merely need to change the version before any activation is done, and then activate with the new Professional license which came with the PC on it's COA sticker.

PAR may prompt for SATA drivers to be able to do its job. Any other drivers you can provide on disk or mapping a path to stick are fine but not absolutely needed as they will be found once the OS boots, swaps out all drivers requiring several reboots, then pulls in any missing from Windows Update. Again, be sure to Enable hardware auto-updating via Windows Update (Steps 3 and 6)

The steps in Adjust Win7 to boot on new hardware with Paragon Adaptive Restore CD are pretty complete.

Adelphi1 · 26 Jan 2015

You cannot Upgrade within Win7 except by Anytime Upgrade which I have repeatedly written is not needed here since that would require Activating Home Premium and then doing an ANytime Upgrade, which waste a Home Premium license and the Anytime Upgrade license too. You merely need to change the version before any activation is done, and then activate with the new Professional license which came with the PC on it's COA sticker.

So the Change Versions registry edit is all I need for my old hard drive to boot in my new PC. That is the only thing that Windows looks for to start the initial boot?

gregrocker · 26 Jan 2015

What is the clone you said you have booting now, and where?

If it is your Home Premium that you want installed to the new PC, then save another backup image and then change the version using tutorial.

Then take another image and apply it to the new PC after deleting all partitions using the Macrium boot disk. Make sure the BIOS is changed to CSM or Legacy mode and changes are Saved.

Now boot PAR to adjust that image to boot providing only drivers which PAR says must be added.

Now boot the image. If it won't boot still then confirm Active partition and run 3 Startup Repairs from Win7 disk not booted as UEFI disk.

It should swap out a drivers from animation in botttom right System tray which you can monitor by clicking on it. If not reboot until it does.

Enable driver Auto Updating from link I've given then Check for Updates to install all Important and Optional until there are no more offered when you check.

If you have questions about these steps then ask back until you are clear.

None of this has anything to do with activation which is done after you have Pro booting on the new rig, with the key that came with that PC.

Adelphi1 · 26 Jan 2015

What is the clone you said you have booting now, and where?

First off, I am trying to learn and my not knowing is at the root of my problems. I cloned my old hard drive, it boots as Home Premium to a rig at work (OptiPlex 990). In a previous post, I said that the same hard drive does not boot off Legacy in my new multi-CPU rig at home, it hangs for over 35 minutes.

Here is also where my ignorance is apparent, the differences between the various Windows Versions as far as actual files, etc. I have been upgrading PCs for 30 years, an upgrade means new/different files even if the names of the files are the same, like different versions of DLLs.

But if you have taught me correctly, then the Windows DVD is for all versions, Home Premium, Ultimate, Professional, Starter, etc. and it uses the same files for all versions. What differentiates them, from an installation point, is the ei.cfg file, and then the license to activate. You cannot use a Home Premium license to run a version of Professional or Ultimate, etc.

So why doesn't my Home Premium hard drive boot on this multi-CPU rig? Is it simply that when my Home Premium hard drive boots, something in the boot sees the 2 CPUS, and expects to see Windows Professional (or Ultimate) in the registry in those two places in order to boot the hard drive. If it doesn't, it gets nasty.

If what I wrote is correct, then I see why this is so frustrating. It is as if the same basic product is given all these different names and corresponding functions, based on the ei.cfg file and the license. I am expecting different editions to have more differences, "under the hood".

Based on the fact that my cloned hard drive boots a rig at work, then I do have an Active Partition. The drive is good. From reading the documentation, PAR will help me put in whatever new drivers are needed. But will PAR change the registry on my old hard drive to Windows Professional or is that a step I should take first by booting the OptiPlex at work with the old hard drive (or its clone), then making the registry tweaks via regedit.

Thank you again for your patience. I need to teach this to my peers at work.