How to upgrade Windows 7 Enterprise to Windows 7 Ultimate

by Jas on June 9, 2009 · View Comments

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There is a way to upgrade Windows 7 Enterprise to Ultimate

Go to, Start, Run: and type: regedit.exe
Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion
Change the key : ProductName from "Windows 7 Enterprise” to “Windows Vista 7 Business”
Change the key: EditionID from "Enterprise" to “Business”
Do not restart
Now insert Windows 7 Ultimate CD and start upgrading (the option Upgrade will not be graded out anymore)

The same rule would also apply to Windows Vista too

Tagged as: Microsoft, Windows 7

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{ 21 comments… read them below or add one }

byronbranfield August 18, 2009 at 2:23 pm: Would this also apply if wanting to change from Windows 7 Ultimate to Windows 7 Enterprise? The reason I ask is my company has volume licensing and requires me to load their software, I have Windows 7 Ultimate and don't really want to format and reinstall.
Brett Monten August 21, 2009 at 10:29 pm: Nice tip! – just to let u know (and byronbranfield) that I just did it in reverse and it worked like a treat. I loaded Ultimate by mistake when I had an enterprise key. Made those two changes to the registry and upgraded from the DVD (without rebooting). All sweet!

Thanks for the tip.
byronbranfield August 25, 2009 at 1:47 am: Awesome thanks mate, this is exactly what I need to do.
byronbranfield August 25, 2009 at 8:21 am: hmmm, this is wierd. I tried it and got an error saying that I cant upgrade from Windows 7 Ultimate to Windows 7 Enterprise and a reinstall needs to be performed (Not an option). I chenged the registry as stated. Any ideas?
Jas Dhaliwal August 25, 2009 at 8:30 am: Hi,

I would try a reboot. But I don't think you can upgrade from Ultimate to Enterprise.
Though you can test the scenario by using a virtual machine.
byronbranfield August 25, 2009 at 10:05 am: I get what you saying, I tried replacing the keys with Windows 7 Enterprise and EditionID to Enterprise and the upgrade takes place but back to Enterprise lol. My question is if you can upgrade from Basic to Enterprise so effectively I would replace the keys with Basic and then upgrade to Enterprise?
brettmonten September 6, 2009 at 5:40 pm: Did you try custom or standard? I just used the standard and left it to do its thang.
brettmonten September 6, 2009 at 5:43 pm: I've struck a snag with this reverse upgrade – something hasn't been done. Although I'm Enterprise for all intents and purposes, I'm now being told that Windows can't be activated cos the KMS host can't be activated. That's an Ultimate thing isn't it?
Any clues?

thx
lxmanh September 22, 2009 at 4:37 am: I was same problem!!! Not working.
…. T.T
kamlesh2011 October 31, 2009 at 7:21 am: Very good. Working fine.
jacquesflamant October 31, 2009 at 3:33 pm: Didn't work here. Are you sure it's “Windows Vista 7 Business” (not “Windows 7 Business” only ?).

I also tried the cversion.ini hack, with no luck. Any other ideas ? And yes, I'm trying to upgrade my Enterprise 7 x64 to Ultimate 7 x64 if you doubt it.
jacquesflamant October 31, 2009 at 5:44 pm: Alright here how it worked for me :

Do the trick as mentionned above, but don't launch or auto-launch the setup, first explore the DVD folder, right clic on “Setup.exe”, and go to the compatibility tab :
Make it compatible with Windows Vista SP2.

HTH
buttercatz November 7, 2009 at 6:21 pm: Sweet, it worked.
buttercatz November 8, 2009 at 1:21 am: Sweet, it worked.
absolutetech December 28, 2009 at 11:08 pm: Bravo to jacquesflamant, compat mode successfully enables fix on x64 enterprise to x64 ultimate!
billybones1178 April 19, 2010 at 9:58 pm: i have a key but my disk is damaged how do I get the upgrade software?
josephephi May 14, 2010 at 7:51 pm: Step1:
You may have to uninstall certain programs for the upgrade to work.
You will not know what these are until the upgrade does the

compatibility check in step 4 below. In my case I had to uninstall the

following:

Uninstall Lexmark Series Printer
Uninstall Microsoft Virtual PC 2007 SP1
Reboot!

If you get a message in step 4 requiring uninstalls, make sure you undo

the changes in step 3, uninstall the offending programs and then

reboot.

Step2:
Shut down Webroot and all programs

Step3:
Go to, Start, Run: and type: regedit.exe
Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftWindows NTCurrentVersion
Change the key : ProductName from “Windows 7 Enterprise” to “Windows

Vista 7 Business”
Change the key: EditionID from “Enterprise” to “Business”
Do not restart

Step4:
Browse Windows 7 Ultimate DVD for setup.exe
Right click on properties
Select Compatibility tab and make compatible with Windows Vista SP2
Double click on setup.exe and do the internet updates.
Select upgrade to ultimate only.
Bill Sonia June 5, 2010 at 7:13 pm: A little extra step I needed to do before this would work was completely uninstall any virus protection. I tried to kill the process but I needed to uninstall it completely and reboot (making sure I changed back to Enterprise and Windows 7 Enterprise in the registry before reboot). Finally figured that out after 25 tries.

I had Windows Essentials and Comodo and unistalled both.
dual sim phone July 3, 2010 at 2:06 pm: great post its wat am looking for
Your Name August 14, 2010 at 4:11 am: This post is wrong. I got it to work by changing the EditionID to “Ultimate” and the ProductName to “Windows Vista Ultimate”
Jack August 21, 2010 at 2:19 am: why in the world would you want this? Enterprise actually has the EXACT same feautures, just different licensing… its not really an upgrade.