Sean Wallbridge
This from the Office Louis. 🙂
Windows 7 doesn’t allow you to downgrade” from more advanced versions such as Ultimate to Home Basic etc. If you try to perform an in-place upgrade to downgrade to a lesser version of Windows 7 it warns you that you will need to reinstall to use that version.
This is a pain because sometimes due to licensing issues or trial versions you would like to downgrade without losing all your work and settings. Thankfully there’s quick and easy workaround to let you do this.
-
On your existing Windows installation run Regedit and navigate to the following registry key:
- HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESoftwareMicrosoftWindows NTCurrentVersion
-
In the right panel, change the value data of EditionID and ProductName to reflect the version you want to downgrade to.
- Example: (This will let you downgrade Professional to Home Basic)
Once complete just restart the Windows 7 install process again and it will now let you downgrade to that version.