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Downgrade from Ultimate to Professional without a clean install
Is this possible? I have Ultimate with SP1 right now and want to use Professional SP1
Is this possible? I have Ultimate with SP1 right now and want to use Professional SP1
There is a workaround to trick the installer into thinking it is doing a same-version Repair Install which is an in-place Upgrade over itself.
You would need the Professional installer which can be unlocked in Ultimate by extracting the ISO with ImgBurn then run the eicfg removal tool to unlock all versions, burn to DVD using ImgBurn at 4x speed.
Before I give you the steps for the workaround: How do you plan to activate Professional version?
Last edited by gregrocker; 16 Nov 2011 at 00:04.
Curious about this too. The differences (or features available) in Windows editions, especially in regards to Professional and Ultimate, are minimual unless you are in an enterprise environment. I'm not sure why someone would want to downgrade, although, I've been around IT enough to know that I know nothing. Are you doing this because you want to go from a 32 bit edition back to a 64 bit edition? (or vise-versa?) If so, you will need to do a clean install. I guess more information might help.
Same here...there's virtually no performance or disk space to be gained from such a downgrade, plus any Ultimate-only features could be disabled through the group policy editor or similar if that's what the OP wants.
Actually, I can't even think of any right now, other than multiple languages and Bitlocker.
I am doing this because I had to format my laptop and wanted to temporarily use W7 Ultimate without a key. I recently received a 2yr license for Pro through MSDNAA and my university and want to install that instead.
Why not use the Pro you own instead of ULtimate?
Why did you install Ultimate if you dont' have a key?
WHat is the licensed version for that machine, or that you were running before reinstall?
Because I received the Pro after I installed Ultimate. There's no need for me to explain everything about this laptop.
All I want is to downgrade it to Pro. How can this be done??
Well then there's no need for me to give you special workarounds we save for those who answer our questions, which are all asked for very specific technical and legal reasons.