Windows 7: How can I do an in-place upgrade from Vista Home Premium to Win 7 Pro?

I'm installing this for a friend and she bought a Windows 7 Pro from digital river. She's using Vista 32bit home premium, and it won't let me do an in-place upgrade. She has a lot of programs and I don't wish to re-install one by one, especially when they're programs in Japanese.



I'm comfortable with any work around as long as it has no problems upgrading.

Hello, Dmak welcome to the Seven Forums.

You can not in-place upgrade Vista Home Premium to Seven Professional. From Vista Home Premium you can in-place upgrade to Seven Home Premium or Seven Ultimate; in-place upgrade to Seven Professional is possible only from Vista Business.

In this post you can find a chart about various in-place upgrade options. This tutorial shows then how to do in-place upgrade.

Kari

I was hoping to find useful workarounds.

For future Googler's, I found this post that teaches a workaround that was a little more useful than Kari's:Zeroization › In place upgrade from Vista Home Premium to Windows 7 Professional

You asked a question, I gave you valid answer in accordance with the forum rules, based on official, legal and valid upgrading policy of Microsoft.

I repeat what I said: Legally and in accordance with Windows EULA, Vista Home Premium is not possible to in-place upgrade to Seven Professional. That's official information from Microsoft (re: Windows 7 Upgrade Paths and Windows 7 Upgrade Paths - FAQ).

We'll be here for you when you need help after you messed your friends computer

Kari

There is no need to upgrade to Ultimate which requires changing edition ID to run a second in-place downgrade to Premium. You can instead upgrade to 7 Home Premium and then insert the Pro Product Key into Anytime Upgrade which unlocks the Pro features in 15 minutes.

Back up all files and Save externally a Windows 7 backup image so you can start over if necessary: Backup Complete Computer - Create an Image Backup - Windows 7 Forums

Unlock all versions in the Windows 7 installer by extracting the ISO using ImgBurn, then run Ei.cfg Removal Utility in Elevated Command Prompt. Burn to DVD using Imgburn at 4x speed with verify.

Now from the Vista Home Premium desktop run an in-place upgrade to Windows 7 Home Premium. Select to update installer and remain connected to the internet, leave Product Key blank during install.

Then type Anytime in Windows 7 Start Search box, insert Professional Product key to unlock Pro Features in Home Premium and activate Windows 7.

**The are paid licenses involving an higher version Upgrade so I'm offering the workaround as a convenience.