Downgrading Windows 7 Ultimate to Windows 7 Home Premium

I am having an issue downgrading to 7 Ultimae to 7 Home premium. I am doing it because my brother had his computer worked on by our Nephew, and he went from XP to 7 ultimate with a hacked copy of 7 ultimate. I have done a fresh install, but it keeps starting and reverting back to Ultimate, The kicker os that I can go to KEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion and see windows 7 home premium as the operating system with no CD product ID. I'll add the product key, and go to regiser it but it won't let me activate it. The thing I have an issue with is that even after a fresh install, it starts up and says windows 7 ultimate. What am I doing wrong??

If you want Windows 7 Home Premium, you will need to install with Home Premium install disk.

Do you have Windows 7 Home Premium installation disk?

Before you can activate you must first install with the edition of Windows that matches the activation key you plan on using. I assume you already have an activation key for Windows 7 Home Premium?

Hacked copies work properly - if they do. Quite often they come with difficulties, and they are never legitimate = meaning you can't get any proper support for them, and any support you may get is hacked one = you never know about it. Having had two Windows 7 torrents, I can tell you these illegal copies may be persistent, simply because they are built to be that way: they are meant to resist "legal actions of Microsoft".

The Product ID and Activation Key are main issues, meant to be overcome by illegal copies. And downgrading may be difficult.

To your question, "What am I doing wrong" I would say, you're starting with the wrong base. You need to start from nil. You need to get rid of the Windows 7 Ultimate hacked copy altogether. Roughly, you need to re-partition your disk. What that means, needs some more information. You need to be careful, otherwise you may loose all data you have. You should, in my opinion, have an external partition program like gParted, GParted -- About to look for your situation.

Just awhile ago, I lost some 200Gb. Be careful.

Originally Posted by sloooo44

I am having an issue downgrading to 7 Ultimae to 7 Home premium. I am doing it because my brother had his computer worked on by our Nephew, and he went from XP to 7 ultimate with a hacked copy of 7 ultimate. I have done a fresh install, but it keeps starting and reverting back to Ultimate, The kicker os that I can go to KEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion and see windows 7 home premium as the operating system with no CD product ID. I'll add the product key, and go to regiser it but it won't let me activate it. The thing I have an issue with is that even after a fresh install, it starts up and says windows 7 ultimate. What am I doing wrong??

Windows 7 Ultimate is a nice version of Win 7. I am also using it for my personal as well as professional work. If you are upgrading for Win 7 Ultimate, i would appreciate.

Originally Posted by sloooo44

I am having an issue downgrading to 7 Ultimae to 7 Home premium. I am doing it because my brother had his computer worked on by our Nephew, and he went from XP to 7 ultimate with a hacked copy of 7 ultimate. I have done a fresh install, but it keeps starting and reverting back to Ultimate, The kicker os that I can go to KEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion and see windows 7 home premium as the operating system with no CD product ID. I'll add the product key, and go to regiser it but it won't let me activate it. The thing I have an issue with is that even after a fresh install, it starts up and says windows 7 ultimate. What am I doing wrong??

That's strange.It sounds like you did an upgrade install and not a clean install. And there is a difference. An upgrade install of Windows is just an upgrade from a previous version of Windows,not a full install.

A clean install is a complete install of Windows from scratch.

And the product keys on both an upgrade install and clean install are different as well. If you are just upgrading you get an upgrade product key. And you cannot use an upgrade key on a clean install of Windows. Which could be what you did.

You need to do a clean install of Windows 7,NOT an upgrade install. So you need to have a Windows full installation CD,not an upgrade CD.

And after installation,you need to activate Windows with the product key provided in the installation CD,within 30 days. And also you can only use the product key on one computer. So if you have activated Windows on another computer with the same key,Windows won't activate. So if that's the case you will need to buy another product key. Andrea Borman.