Win 7 enterprise install over win 7 home premium without losing apps

[bds51]

I have a new notebook with Win 7 home premium 64bit. + office 2010 professional. It has taken me almost 2 weeks to get all the info from the old notebook into the new one. Now I have a legal Enterprise Win 7 64 bit. disc from work and I want to install the Enterprise on the notebook and still maintain all the apps and Outlook mails etc. Is this possible or am I going to have to spend another 2 weeks reinstalling everything and no longer having the toshiba apps that came with the original start up/recovery disc?

 

[cluberti]

You cannot upgrade from any edition to Enterprise, as Enterprise is licensed differently than retail or OEM versions, and you will be explicitly blocked by the installer (you will receive an error message telling you such when you attempt to upgrade). Also, I have found people in the past that *have* managed to hack their way past this, and at approximately 180 days after install your activation will be broken and it cannot be fixed at that point without reinstallation.

All in all, you can't easily do it, it isn't a supported upgrade path, Microsoft will try to block you and save you the reinstall at 180 days, and lastly it was/is documented publicly here on the Microsoft site for both Vista and Windows 7 (this same thing was true for Vista).

 

[gregrocker]

Enterprise isn't meant for consumer use and is activated using Volume License Keys by the System Administrator. If you have approval from your SysOp who will help you activate it, then he/she should advise you how to clean install it.

You could create a partition to Dual Boot then later decide which one to keep. Either way I'd make your Factory Recovery disks and preserve your Recovery partition. But most tech enthusiasts are eager to get rid of the factory preinstalled bloatware which throttles Win7's native featherlight, instantaneous performance.

 

[bds51]

Thanks to both of you. When I first got the laptop and before transferring any files, I did an an anytime upgrade from Home Premium thinking my disc from work was Ultimate and typed in the Enterprise Product Key and within minutes I had Ultimate and all my apps were still there.

The next day, there was a message from MS telling me I had 3 days to activate by typing in the Ultimate key. I typed in the Enterprise Product Key which didn't work and then I realized I had Enterprise and not Ultimate. I had no choice but to put in the recovery disc and start all over.

Now I wonder if I'd typed in the ultimate key under "cmi" in product.ini from the Enterprise disc whether it would have worked.

 

[gregrocker]

Again: Enterprise isn't meant for consumer use, has a completely different activation process and key, and cannot be used with retail Win7.

 

[bds51]

Yea, that message I got and I won't try it. My musing related to the info under 'cmi' in product.ini