Going from Windows 7 Enterprise to Professional

I am using a 90 trial of W7 Enterprise edition. I am going to installing the Professional edition soon and want to know what type of installation I should do.

I've only been using Enterprise for less than a week now and was wondering if I should do a clean install of Professional when I get it.

If I do a clean install, it will format the drive and everything. Is there a way where I can just convert it to Professional and keep all of my programs and files in tack? Is there any advantage to do a clean install instead?

1) Win7 does not allow users to downgrade from more premium versions to less premium ones. One can only upgrade from lower versions to higher ones E.g. from pro to ultimate or hime premium to pro. So there is no official way of downgrading.

2) A hack to do an in-place downgrade is posted on the page below.

Hack to In-Place “Downgrade” from Windows 7 Ultimate or Professional to Less Premium Editions My Digital Life

IDK whether it works for Enterprise.

3) IMO, a clean install is the best way to go. You get a fresh OS without any residue from the previous install. Windows OS, in any case, degrades in performance over a period of time due to installs and uninstalls of user apps. But you'll need to reinstall all your apps. That might take a bit of time but the end result will be worth it.

Enterprise has as different method of activating using volume licensing, so whether you can apply the popular workaround to in-place Upgrade http://tech.icrontic.com/articles/up...7-rc-to-retail is not a sure thing. But if you want to wait to do the superior clean install, then it is worth a try.

Change the registry keys shown below to trick the installer into thinking it is doing an allowed repair install of the same version: