Solved Switching Windows 7 premium and Windows 7 professional between PCs

[Snakeyeskm]

I have to PCs, one with Windows 7 premium and the other with Windows 7 professional. Ideally I would like to switch the Windows versions on the PCs.

Is it as simple as changing the original CD codes in each of the PCs?

 

[VistaKing]

Are the versions OEM ? If they are retail its a reinstall of both versions .

 

[Snakeyeskm]

Unfortunately they are both retail.

 

[Kari]

To explain my idea I need first give you some background information, mostly what you might already know.

A Windows 7 upgrade install can be done in two ways, either a so called In-place Upgrade from Vista or inferior version of Seven or an Anytime Upgrade from an inferior version of Seven.

When upgrade installing, the underlying old OS is afterwards considered as used i.e. its licence cannot be re-used in another PC, as the upgrade version costs less than full retail version so the upgraded old OS is considered as "part of the price". However, as both In-place Upgrade and Anytime Upgrade can also be done with a retail key instead of an upgrade key, there's basically no reason for the underlying old retail OS to lose its re-use rights when a retail key is used for upgrade. Please notice this is only my personal interpretation of the Windows End User Agreement and general licence terms, based on logics and my own experience.

This being said, you could try to do an Anytime Upgrade for your retail Home Premium, using your retail Professional key to simply upgrade it without installing, converting it to Professional. This way you only need to install the Home Premium on the machine now containing Professional. Half the work, half the trouble.

In our household we have done something similar, it worked flawless without any issues. My wife had a computer with retail Home Premium, we did an Anytime Upgrade to Ultimate with a retail key for her so she could get the language packs. Later we installed the old now useless Home Premium to another PC using its original retail product key; activation went through and the machine was used almost a year before it finally "died" (laptop's motherboard fried, too expensive to repair) and was sent to PC Heaven .

Just my two cents...

Kari

 

[Snakeyeskm]

Thanks Karl. Really appreciate the information.

 

[jimbo45]

Unfortunately they are both retail.

Actually FORTUNATELY they are both retail as you can move the OS to another PC. OEM for W7 restricts to the original PC it's installed on but RETAIL is moveable to a new computer.

Simple method -- Image both W7's with something like Acronis. Now RESTORE to the other PC's with the Universal restore feature.

Boot up -- W7 should find various drivers etc if the hardware on both machines is totally different. Then ACTIVATE by PHONE saying you've moved the OS to another machine --shouldn't be any problem.

BTW in some cases you might get away with using say FREE MACRIUM to backup and restore the OS'es on the machines (swap the machines). Then on boot if you get BSOD's just launch the recovery for each machine -- this should get a bootable system on each --then fix drivers etc as necessary.

Being retail - there won't be a problem with activation -- just activate by phone.

Chances are also that if OFFICE requires re-activation too (assuming you've installed it) it will activate automatically -- office doesn't seem to bother about the machine it's on - it just seems to detect hardware changes and sometimes it just doesn't even bother with that either.

Other application programs requiring activation might present problems but PHOTOSHOP is quite easy -- before moving CS6 say de-activate the license on the ADOBE site from the old machine before installing the NEW OS and then RE-ACTIVATE it on the machine you've moved it to. Photo shop allows this -- I often want photo shop on my laptop when I'm away from home and then move it back to a desktop processor at home --and I certainly can't afford TWO FULL licenses for CS6 suite. !!

Cheers
jimbo

 

[Snakeyeskm]

That's probably what I am going to do, Jimbo. Appreciate the advice..

Cheers