4

I have a copy of Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit which came with the computer (so its an OEM edition I guess?). I want to upgrade to Professional using the discounted student upgrade media.

However every where I look it only talks about upgrading from XP or Vista, and for upgrading between editions it says to use the Windows Anytime Upgrade (which seems massively overpriced to me, where does Microsoft figures there is £120 worth of differences between home and pro?).

Will the student upgrade media work for upgrading to Professional (I don't mind if it takes a reformat to do it, as long as the media will actually work)?

Improve this question
2
  • Microsoft keeps changing the rules on these things, which drives IT folks crazy. As far as I know, the OEM and education licenses are not interchangeable; it's as if they are separate products. Upgrading that way is unlikely to work. However, in previous Windows versions, it was possible to do a clean install using upgrade media, as long as you had media for an upgradeable version of Windows handy that you could stick into the drive when asked by the installer. That may still work, if you have an old copy of Vista or XP lying around.
    – boot13
    Commented Sep 12, 2010 at 12:29
  • Why do you want to upgrade to Pro, out of curiosity? RDP, domains, or EFS....?
    – paradroid
    Commented Sep 12, 2010 at 14:41

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
2

I used the instructions posted at this article to convert a Windows 7 x86 Professional Edition iso image to Windows 7 x64 Professional. Its a simple process of editing one file (ei.cfg) through a script which makes the image an "universal disc" that will prompt the user to select an edition during setup, which can also be reversed to go back to the previous iso state if needed. This method edits the iso image of the operating system, so you'd have to reinstall Windows back onto your machine. Your current cd-key will not work when upgrading from Home to Professional edition, you'd have to purchase a new cd-key from Microsoft if you're not willing to use a cracked serial. I'm not sure if the student upgrade media will work for upgrading to Professional, but I have no hopes due to Microsoft extreme anti-consumer policies.

http://code.kliu.org/misc/winisoutils/

Improve this answer
1

Check out the Anytime Upgrade built into Windows 7.

  1. Open Windows Anytime Upgrade by clicking the Start button. In the search box, type anytime upgrade, and then, in the list of results, click Windows Anytime Upgrade.

  2. Follow the instructions on each page.

I'm not sure if there is a valid upgrade from Home Premium to Pro off hand, but the Anytime Upgrade will tell you for sure. :)

Improve this answer

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .