Upgrading Windows 7 Home Premium to Windows 7 Professional

cover said:

I'm purchasing a Windows 7 Home Premium 64 machine that I want to upgrade to Pro to be able to use the virtual & XP mode features on. I have quite a bit of 16 bit installer programs that appear to run okay on Windows 7 32 bit but not Windows 7 64 bit. Has anyone done an upgrade from 64 bit to 32 bit? I can purchase the upgrade directly from MS and am thinking about it.

Interesting read here on similar stuff from 2 yrs ago.

Is Windows 7 able to run 16 bit installers under XP mode? - Microsoft Answers

TIA

Use virtual pc: since you have Home Premium you can't use the new one but the old one works fine:Download: Virtual PC 2007 - Microsoft Download Center - Download Details

Install XP in this VPC and enjoy ;p your programs will run fine

cover said:

Sure Windows 7 supports VPC 2007 ? Didn't see listed in System requirements.

But it works !, Just download the x64 version and if you try to install it and you got an error ('Not supported OS!) just click OK, and it will install so just ignore it. It works fine trust me :) and if the installation is complete you will get this message (attached (1)) (just click don't show this message again) and it works !

PS:than you just have to install a 32-bit XP iso in this virtual machine

alphanumeric said:

Technically you can't upgrade from 64 bit to 32 bit, or 32 bit to 64 bit. You have to do a custom/clean install. Just so you know, that would mean recovering your stuff from the Windows.old folder if you don't back it up, and re-installing all your apps.

But downgrading from 64-bit to 32-bit isn't recommend use virtual pc with the instructions I posted in my previous post

seavixen32 said:

Windows XP Mode - Install and Setup

The 64-bit version of Windows 7 will not run 16-bit applications.

No, he has Home Premium and he doesn't need to upgrade to win 7 pro if he uses my instructions

alphanumeric said:

Isn't XP mode 32 bit anyway, even on 64 bit Windows 7? So there would be no need to go 32 bit, just upgrade to Pro 64 bit. I'm not saying do it, I'm just asking if the 16 bit apps would work in XP mode on a 64 bit system? If the answer is yes then you could just use anytime upgrade to unlock Pro and install XP Mode and not worry about going 32 bit at all.

Yes 16-bits apps will work in XP mode even if the host pc is 64-bit