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 our exclusive freeware "ISO Toolkit" 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.
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.
This article was posted by VG in following section: Troubleshooting, Windows 7.
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JrColas22
You can do it with Vista, if you don't enter a product key during the installation when it asks for it.
When you don't enter the key, it will ask you if you're sure about that or something, then you will be able to choose which version of Windows you want to install.
There is a catch:
Unlike Windows 7, Vista will require you to activate it in 14 days.
Uewd
I found a way to do it for Vista!
(Not sure if this really works but when i installed Vista on a virtual machine it asked me whether to choose Home Premium or Ultimate. I Did it using VirtualBox)
1. When it asks for the product key, do not enter it also untick the box saying "Activate Windows When I'm Online.
2. Click next then it will ask you a question, click yes.
3. You'll be Presented with the editions of Vista you can install.
VG Please correct me if I am wrong.
Hope this helps.
Coolslam
can you compress it?? my dl liit is only 1gb...plzzz
den
So can same key be used to activate the above professional version installation when my dvd came with windows 7 home key.
Please reply
VG
^^ If you have a Home edition key, it cant be used to activate Professional version.
Vanz
I'm unable to find the ei.cfg file. Please help me!
den
Ok I got it Thanks
JASKARAN
there is no file named - ei.cfg
but while installation it does'nt ask for window edition to be installed
and it only straight away installs window 7.
Abdul Rhanif
Can I use Windows 7 Ultimate or Home Premium to change it to Windows 7 Starter?
VG
^^ Yes.