Friday, September 21, 2012

Upgrading Windows 7 Ultimate to Windows 8 Enterprise

Unfortunately, Microsoft does not support performing an in-place upgrade of a Windows 7 Ultimate installation to a Windows 8 Enterprise edition; Windows 7 Ultimate can only be upgraded to Windows 8 Professional (since Windows 8 does not come with an Ultimate edition). True, there might be little added value for a home user in Windows 8 Enterprise, but since it was the only version I had ready on a bootable USB stick, I tried to fool the installer to continue anyway.

This was surprisingly easy. It suffices to modify the "EditionID" and "ProductName" registry keys in the following location:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\Current Version

from "Ultimate" and "Windows 7 Ultimate" to "Enterprise" and "Windows 7 Enterprise" respectively, to let the installation proceed.

6 comments:

CyberAngel said...

Thanks for your suggestion!

Anonymous said...

doesnt work.... :@

Anonymous said...

Seems to work! thanks

Windows 7 Ultimate said...

cool

windows 7 starter snpc oa said...

Hi thanks for sharing your upgrading windows 7 ultimate to windows 8 enterprise article..

rainabba said...

Not any more. Not a full upgrade anyway, but the "Keep Personal Files Only" option worked before the tweak.