Upgrade install to downgrade

[cclloyd9785]

I want to deactivate my copy of windows 7 ultimate, and give it to my family. Can I do an upgrade install but install Home Premium?

 

[zigzag3143]

I want to deactivate my copy of windows 7 ultimate, and give it to my family. Can I do an upgrade install but install Home Premium?

Your install path is not upgrade, its downgrade. Ultiimate>home.

Best bet, clean instalal if you have the license.

 

[Night Hawk]

You don't actually deactivate Windows. You simply wipe the drive with all of your data backed up and perform a clean install with the HP edition in order to replace the Ultimate edition on now. For downgrading editions you'll want a fresh primary to work with.

Personally I would miss Ultimate while I still have to upgrade someone in the family out of XP Pro with the HP edition on the existing build. Later with a new build Pro will be the one going on there since only Vista 32bit support is seen for the old case!

 

[cclloyd9785]

Yea I think my dad who works and needs a higher OS, needs it more than me. The only thing I rly needed from Ultimate was, XP mode, which i can use just as easily on VirtualBox or VMWare, and the bitLocker thing, which there is a hack to get that on any edition.

 

[Night Hawk]

The XP Mode has the integrated components edge over other VMs there you will lose. Too bad you didn't get Pro that would still be an option.

 

[cclloyd9785]

Well, the thing is that there was an error, and my computer came with 7 Ultimate, and a free upgrade of HP. So we decided my dad would get the Ultimate since he would benifit from it and I would have Home Premium.

 

[drywallguy]

Did your computer come with the OEM disk? Even then you may need to re register it and get a new key.

 

[gregrocker]

It is very unlikely you can use the HP Win7 Upgrade Kit to activate that Ultimate on another computer. It was probably either pre-locked to the Vista, or locked to the Hardware upon install.

Some reported they were able to use the Upgrade kits on other machines, but I would not expect it.

Is your Home Premium a retail copy you purchased? If so, it can migrate to any other computer as long as it is installed on only one at a time. A robocall to MS will deactivate it on the old machine and activate it on the new hardware signature.

 

[cclloyd9785]

Bought a Toshiba Satellite. Came with 7 Ultimate pre-installed. It also shipped with an HP upgrade disk in the box.

So I can just wipe the drive, install HP, activate.

Then on the other computer that is running Vista HP, just install and activate?

 

[gregrocker]

What does the Upgrade disk say on it? If the PC has Ultimate pre-installed, then you may have been provided with the installation DVD for that, or a Recovery DVD which includes the factory installed bloatware.

There really isn't any Upgrade from Ultimate, so the confusion is over what kind of "Upgrade" disk it is. Could it be Recovery DVD?

 

[Night Hawk]

The disk would be for recovery not upgrade! And any branded disk is only usable on the machine it was provided with and tied to the recovery partition tucked away on the laptop's own hard drive.

For any retail disk bought separately that is flexible not being locked to one system. With the Ultimate preinstalled on the laptop you would have to swap laptop for desktop in order to see your family run that edition or buy a new Ultimate or even 7 Pro disk for them.

For the higher price however it hasn't been a bad investment here in any way! I ordered a retail HPremium disk as a holiday gift but will still need to buy a new Pro disk later since HP will simply be going on the present XP case seeing only Vista 32bit support and no support for virtualization. A new mini tower will see Pro there since the request for a "small" case easy to carry was the word! oh well.

 

[cclloyd9785]

It says

Toshiba Windows 7 Upgrade DVD Home Premium Edition.

And i tested, and its not bootable, so it is an upgrade cd, but i can extract the wim from it and make it bootable.

 

[gregrocker]

Why would Toshiba provide a Home Premium upgrade disk with a machine that came preinstalled with Win7 Ultimate?

Is it for another Vista computer you bought?

Is there a Product Key on the packaging?

What happens when you attempt to run it? Can you post back the contents? Seems we helped extract files from one of these awhile back to run clean install upgrade, but you'd need the key to activate.

 

[Night Hawk]

It sounds like you replaced the original preinstalled Windows with the Ultimate edition while it already came with the 7 HP upgrade disk included. The initial promos for selling remaining laptops with Vista preinstalled would be having a branded OEM upgrade disk included free with the purchase or shipped afterwards with the Anytime Upgrade offers.

If this is what happen where you bought the Ultimate disk separately nuke the C primary and go back to the original factory restoration of what was on and then proceed with the preactivate upgrade to see HP on. Toshiba set all that up for upgrade with their prepackaged wares. Later you can reduce some if not all of the branded extras.

 

[cclloyd9785]

I bought it saying it came with Vista HP, but when i recieved it, it had 7 Ultimate, and it was sealed in the box.

Im guessing it was some kind of error.

And Ps, the contents look like an OEM upgrade disk... with an HTML of instructions to upgrade, and then both x32 and x64 verisions of the windows install DVD.

Final question.

Can I wipe my current HDD, and put ultimate with my current key, on a new computer.
Then with my blank HDD, install HP, with the key on the sticker on the back.

 

[Night Hawk]

For Vista HP you would simply restore the previous preinstall with the key on the sticker. If the Ultimate disk has it's own separate key that would be independent except if branded! If it requires the same key or can only be used on the original hardwares....? ouch!

 

[gregrocker]

Final question.

Can I wipe my current HDD, and put ultimate with my current key, on a new computer.
Then with my blank HDD, install HP, with the key on the sticker on the back.

If Ultimate was preinstalled on the computer then it is Factory OEM locked to the box which can only be reinstalled. Confirm the COA sticker on the machine says 7 Ulimate and has OEM in the PID.

If the "key on the sticker on the back" you refer to is on the back of the packaging containing the 7HP Upgrade disk, then you might be able to use it on another machine - worth a try.

 

[cclloyd9785]

I dont know what they did, but the Ultimate Install worked and activated on the other machine. It might be because they are both Toshiba products so its like only 'semi locked'.

Now all I have left to do is see if HP will install on my computer.

PS: Is there any way to transfer all my programs to my computer once i do a fresh install of HP?

 

[gregrocker]

You can try uninstalling the Product Key for Ultimate on your original computer by opening an elevated Command Prompt to type: slmgr -upk

Then do an in-place "downgrade" from Ultimate to Home Premium using the popular workaround here: http://tech.icrontic.com/articles/upgrade-the-windows-7-rc-to-retail/

After "downgrade" try installing the HP Product key to see if it takes it.

If it doesn't work, then clean install since you were going to have to do that anyway. Back up your files before doing anything.

 

[Night Hawk]

Have you tried with any retail disk? Remember just like that guide it refers to the 7 RCs not retail product when unlocking the list of editions.

The backup of all of your files and being prepared for a clean install of everything from scratch is what you would end up with. You can still use the Windows Easy Transfer but will need fresh installs most likely of all programs since you end up reformatting the C primary.