Tips for upgrading Windows7 RC Ultimate to Retail Professional
Before the official releasing of Windows 7 RTM, Microsoft said that Windows 7 Release Candidate will able to directly upgrade to the Final version. But this was only half correct; at least I came over 2 errors this morning during my Windows7 upgrade this morning.
Ultimate downgrade to Professional Method
While I was going to upgrade my Windows 7 RC to Retail Professional version, the first installation error was that it didn’t allow my upgrade because it said my RC are Ultimate version and I couldn’t downgrade Ultimate version to others, unless I choose to have a clean install.
A simple trick found from internet is all you have to do is go to registry to change the Product Name value from Ultimate to Professional. See Unawave.de for full instruction and also the 2 screenshots put up on this post are taken from their web site.
Lower Build RC Upgrade Method
Secondly, the next error of Compatibility Report pops up saying that my prerelease Windows 7 couldn’t directly upgrade. Microsoft has been lying to us about the RC directly upgrade thing?!
So the next step is to modify the file named cversion.ini within “sources” folder. Change the value of MinClient from the default 7233.0 to 7100.0. My Windows was 7226, that was lower than the restricted 7233, that is why the installation stop me from upgrading. The detail instruction can be found at icrontic.com.
Microsoft does sell softcopy of Windows7 through internet, in case you don’t know. But I guess most of the users get the DVD box set of Windows 7, then please take note that you need to copy the entire DVD content to your hard drive and do the file modification and installation.
After resolving these two errors, the rest were just normal installation. Even though Microsoft officially didn’t allow the directly downgrade to other version and not allowing prerelease Win7 lower than 7233 to install retail version, the thing is my Windows7 is now working perfectly. As long as your build is not lower than 7100, I think it is safe to make such upgrade.
If any of you have anything you’d like to add, please contribute by commenting below. Thanks!
