Stupid Windows 7 version DVD Question

GT98

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Aug 29, 2001
Messages
1,267
Curious about this, say you have a Windows 7 Home Professional (or whatever its called) DVD and you have a keycode for say a Ultimate Windows 7 installation, would the Windows 7 Home Professional be able to install Ultimate?

Reason I ask is I have a laptop that has a Windows 7 product key, but no DVD, and would like to reinstall it using a USB key drive that has the Windows 7 Install files on it.
 
Afaict the files on the install media are the same for all (non volume license) editions but sometimes there are issues using an OEM key with a standard disk.

Try it and see.
 
Create a .iso of your dvd, then google the eicfg patch and patch the .iso, reburn it and enjoy an unlocked all-version dvd.
 
Reason I ask is I have a laptop that has a Windows 7 product key, but no DVD, and would like to reinstall it using a USB key drive that has the Windows 7 Install files on it.

Create a .iso of your dvd, then google the eicfg patch and patch the .iso, reburn it and enjoy an unlocked all-version dvd.

but thanks for the info, i didnt know about the eicfg patch ;)
 
If you remove the ei.cfg file from the sources folder of the ISO you will be prompted to select a version to install instead of being locked into the one version. Thats what the eicfg patch does. Your product code has to match the version you picked so you can't cheat. You can't install ultimate and then try to enter a professional product code, it will just get rejected. You can use this tool to create a bootable USB thumdrive from the original ISO file. http://store.microsoft.com/help/iso-tool Then just delete the ei.cfg file from sources folder on the thumbdrive.
 
The USB install is sweet. I hope to never install from a CD/DVD again.
 
I have everything on thumb drives now. One 4 gig with windows 7, another 4 gig with updates for 7, a 2 gig with all my drivers, a 1 gig with office on it, and an 8 gig with most of my programs on it. I just did a clean install with office and my most used programs and it only took me a couple of hours. I can remember spending days swapping Cd's and DVDs when doing a clean install of XP to get to the same point.
 
No, for me, I like it the way it is. They are color coded depending on whats on them. Plus large USB thumb drives drives are un-proportionately expensive compared to the smaller ones. I've got a couple of external USB hard drives for my music, pictures and documents backup.
 
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