How to Choose Desired Windows 7 Edition / Version During Setup?

UPDATE: You can also use a free tool "ei.cfg Removal Utility" to delete "ei.cfg" file so that you can choose the desired version at the time of installation.

OR you can use another free tool "Windows 7 ISO Image Edition Switcher" to modify "ei.cfg" file so that you can convert a specific Windows 7 edition setup ISO file (e.g. Windows 7 Ultimate) to another one (e.g. Windows 7 Professional).

Thanks to "cskamper" & "Manan" for suggesting these 2 apps.

Many people are curious to know how to install a desired Windows 7 Edition while installing Windows 7. Actually Windows 7 setup doesn't allow to choose any particular edition by default.

Windows 7 comes in various editions like Ultimate, Professional, Home Premium, Home Basic and Starter. Now there might be many cases when you would like to choose the edition during setup for example, you have Windows 7 Professional key but you downloaded wrong Windows 7 Edition. So now you want to choose Professional edition during setup.

Another case might be, you ordered Windows 7 Edition but don't want to wait till you get the installation media. So you want to install Windows 7 now with the correct edition which you have ordered.

Or you want to test various Windows 7 editions but don't want to download all editions separately. Wouldn't it be great if you download a single Windows 7 ISO and can install any desired edition from it?

So how to force Windows 7 setup to allow us to choose desired edition during installation? Answer is very simple! By modifying "ei.cfg" file present in Windows 7 setup.

"ei.cfg" file is present in "Sources" directory of Windows 7 setup disc which tells the setup which edition should be installed in system.

If you open the file in Notepad, it looks similar to following:

[EditionID]
Ultimate
[Channel]
Retail
[VL]
0

Here:

Edition ID tells Windows setup which edition should be installed.

Channel can be either OEM or Retail.

VL represents Volume License and it can be either 1 (for True) or 0 (for False).

So the simple solution is, delete "ei.cfg" file from setup and it'll ask you to choose the desired Windows 7 version at the time of installation as shown in following screenshot:

Another solution is to modify the "ei.cfg" file and change the [EditionID] to your desired one. You can use any of following valid "Edition IDs":

Ultimate
Professional
HomePremium
HomeBasic
Starter

So if you want to install Windows 7 Professional, simply change [EditionID] to Professional and your custom "ei.cfg" file will look as following:

[EditionID]
Professional
[Channel]
Retail
[VL]
0

Now the question is, how to delete or modify "ei.cfg" file in Windows 7 setup?

There are 2 ways! You can extract the content of Windows 7 setup ISO file using 7-Zip and then delete or modify "ei.cfg" file according to your requirements. Its useful if you are going to do an upgrade because you can run setup.exe file directly from the extracted folder and install Windows 7.

If you are going to do a clean install, you can open the ISO file using "UltraISO", "PowerISO" or "MagicISO" software and then delete or modify "ei.cfg" file and save the ISO. Now you can burn the ISO file to DVD and install your desired Windows 7 edition.

If you have a USB drive, you can use our "A Bootable USB" tool which allows you to create bootable USB drive for installing Windows 7.

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This article was posted in Troubleshooting, Windows 7.

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24 Comments

Raj

Hey vishal after deleting that file thro magiciso or poweriso or ultraiso the iso doesnt boot any more ....... Help me please
xy98xy

What is with the product key? Can it make problems?
VM

@Raj

I use MagicISO and do this:

1:Open ISO
2:Go to Tools\Save boot image give a name and save it anywhere
3:Delete ei.cfg and if now the iso is non-bootable go to Tools\Load Boot Image, go to the path that you saved the Boot Image File (.bif), hit ok and save
Arjun

@Raj,

The windows7 iso edited using ultraISO or magicISO or powerISO will not boot after you edit and save. Because the win7 iso is build using UDF file system and dummy ISO9660 file system. while ultraISO and such softwares wont recognize such differences, and causes problem during boot. The reason to go for UDF file system is ISO9660 cannot handle files larger than 2GB.
In order to make the win7 image, you need oscdimg.exe which is present in WAIK.
DuDeX

@Arjun

Dont be daft, use Poweriso 4.5 not probs at all, i have created "all version iso" of an x86 and an x64 from homepremium x86 and homepremium x64 also added custom folder on each with my drivers.

have booted and installed from both disks.

so do research before making statements.

FYI ultraiso doesnt work, magiciso doesnt work, Poweriso 4.5 is perfect
Ryan

can you do this with XP and Vista installations?
Thanks
Ryan
Ryan

can you do this with XP and Vista installations?
Thanks
Ryan
Ricardo

Nice one
SnowyFox the Geek

Helpful if you want to:
-Get ultimate WITH 1 dollar
-Is bored
-junk
-Whatever
-Aeoro
-Granma hates Windows Se7en
-Dad got in an accident because of Windows 7 Starter
-You could get suicide because of the 3 program limit
-your mom said "Xp rocks,Se7ev is a Piece of junk."
-You said "Fool mah bootiez"
-Dialga did roar of time.

Yeah,1st one is helpful
Ryan

@xy98xy,
@SnowyFox the Geek,

The product key matters. You can't go out and buy Starter and just use this to get Ultimate. It doesn't work that way, you need to have a license key for the edition you install. If it worked that way, everyone'd be downloading the Ultimate version from Microsoft's website and using a Starter or whatever key. Unfortunatey, you need a matching key for installation, this trick is only good for testing different versions, using 1 disc w/ multiple licenses, and so on. And SnowyFox the Geek, if this trick worked, it'd be ultimate upgrade for free, not $1.

Hoped this helped. . .
Ryan