Upgrade Windows 7 Professional to Enterprise

 Posted on April 2, 2013  |  2 minutes  |  Richard Fleming  |   14 comments

I’ve been looking for ways to upgrade Windows 7 Professional to Enterprise here at work so that BitLocker (and other features) would become available. I was lead to believe that the only way to accomplish this was to format the drive and install Windows 7 Enterprise from scratch, so I set about looking for hacks.

Searching through Google, I found a relatively simple approach that works quite well but takes the same amount of time as a re-install would. The upside is that it keeps all previously installed applications (and data) which is handy when you have a preconfigured machine.

So without further adieu…

Preparation

To prepare, simply open up regedit and navigate to HKLM/Software/Microsoft/Windows NT/CurrentVersion and modify EditionID and ProductName so that they say Enterprise instead of Professional.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SOFTWARE/Microsoft/Windows NT/CurrentVersion]
"EditionID"="Enterprise"
"ProductName"="Windows 7 Enterprise"

Upgrading

Once you’ve modified the registry and changed the edition information, simply insert your Windows 7 Enterprise DVD into the drive and run the installer from within Windows. Follow the on-screen prompts and ensure you select Upgrade. Let the installer do its thing and, when finished, your former Professional installation should now be Enterprise. If for whatever reason the upgrade process fails, the installer will revert your windows back to the Professional version.

Caveats

  1. Ensure you’re upgrading to the same service pack level. If you’re running Professional SP1, then upgrade to Enterprise SP1
  2. Be sure you enter in the new Product Key and activate Windows upon completion.
  3. If your Professional install has been deployed for a while, this method may not work.
  4. This process takes a while. If the machine you want to upgrade is fairly straight forward, you’d probably be best to just install Enterprise from scratch.

I’ve tried with older Professional deployments with mixed results, but have yet to encounter an issue with this method on new computers being readied for end users.

Disclaimer

I am not responsible if your machine decides to format itself, spontaneously combust, or become the world’s first self-aware neural net-based artificial intelligence. I’ve used this method several times without data loss, or issue.

upgrade  Windows 7  Windows 7 Enterprise  Windows 7 Professional 

14 comments

Marc

Worked great for me, Thanks, You said “This process takes a while. If the machine you want to upgrade is fairly straight forward, you’d probably be best to just install Enterprise from scratch.”

If you install it from scratch you have to go and find all the little drivers that make PCs work so great, This saves ALOT of time actually.

WJ

Is it possible that upgrade 7 pro sp1 to 7 Enterprise sp1 don’t work? only without SP?

Richard Fleming

I’ve successfully been able to upgrade 7 Pro to 7 Enterprise, and 7 Pro SP1 to 7 Enterprise SP1. I know you can’t go from SP1 to RTM, and I haven’t tried going from RTM to SP1, but I suspect it won’t work.

I think the problem that prevents the upgrade from working, at times, is dependent on how long SP1 has been applied. With the host of updates that get applied on top of SP1 and then upgrading to Enterprise SP1, those updates no longer are there, and Windows just can’t handle that.

For machines that don’t upgrade properly, it will be interesting to see what happens when SP2 comes out. With a fresh SP2 install then upgrading to Enterprise SP2, it just might work.

Jeff

Confirmed that this works. Tested on a spare desktop first before trying on a live user system. Going for the live system on Friday.

Ken

Thanks for posting this! I’ve used it at least 5 times now so that we can remove Symantec Encryption Desktop and use Bitlocker. What a difference it makes! This saves me from having to reload laptops and lets me get them back to the owners as quick as possible!

Thanks again! Ken

Benjamin Sigrist

Fantastic. Worked perfectly and saved a lot of effort rebuilding an image.

Thank you for the clear instructions.

matt

i tried with sp1 to sp1 and it kept telling me that my pro version was newer than my enterprise version and errored out. i didn’t want to have to start from scratch due to drivers but it seems i saved them and it wont take me too long. was just wondering if anyone knew what this error might mean.

Richard Fleming

Hey Matt, sorry to hear you had problems.

To answer your question, the reason why you received those errors is because your Pro version was newer than your Enterprise.

It isn’t enough to have a Pro SP1 install and an Enterprise SP1 install disk. The Pro minor version number needs to match what the Enterprise one will be. Your Professional install probably has SP1 and a bunch of hot-fixes and/or roll-up packages installed, where the Enterprise SP1 installer you’re using doesn’t have those extras included.

You can always use a technique called ‘Slipstreaming’ to inject updates into an install image, but if this is just a one-off thing, then reinstalling definitely quicker.

Cheers!

Rich

wolf

Hi Richard, I tried it and got Trouble to convert from nterprise to Prof, but then I uninstalled IE11 and all works like desired… Thnaks and regards Wolf

Adrian Jung (bluecon)

Thank you for sharing nice informations. Great. In the last years i do it in the same way, but if you have a fully installed pc with many applications, it can be that some products of Microsoft don’t run after an upgrade to Win 7 Enterprise. If it possible, check if you can do a fresh install of Windows 7 Enteprise. Thats my recommandation. Thanks Richard.

best regards Adrian Jung (bluecon)