In this article we take a look at how to downgrade from one edition of Windows 7 to another. For instance, if you have Windows 7 Professional, but would like to downgrade to Windows 7 Home Premium. You might ask, for what reason? Well, there are scenarios where this issue might come up. Maybe you want to reassign Windows 7 Professional to another computer, and install Windows 7 Home Premium on it instead. Maybe the edition is not being used effectively and could be more useful else where such as a laptop you carry to work since Windows 7 Professional includes a lot of business features.
The problem is the process of reassigning licenses, this would probably mean you will have to backup data, prepare to reinstall applications and drivers then restore data. All of this can cost some down time. Luckily I found a cool little third party utility that allows you do this with ease. Its called Windows 7 Downgrader.
Windows 7 Downgrader will let downgrade popular editions such as Windows 7 Ultimate, Enterprise, Professional quickly and easily. Once it downgrades, all you need to do is insert the Windows 7 installation and do a repair upgrade to a desired edition. Lets take a look at how to do it.
First you need to download Windows 7 Downgrader here
Save the file to your hard disk and extract it.
Double click the Windows 7 Downgrader executable (notice I currently have Windows 7 Professional installed)
As you can see, the Windows 7 Downgrader utility is quite simple. You have three options which will allow you to downgrade to any of three editions: Ultimate, Professional or Home Premium. Downgrading to Ultimate is useful if you are running Windows 7 Enterprise and would like release that license, but don’t want to go through the chore of backing up and install from scratch.
Once you have identified the edition you would like downgrade to, click it. You might receive error message, click Continue. Do not restart your computer. Insert your Windows 7 installation DVD for the edition you want to downgrade to. In my case, I am downgrading to Windows 7 Home Premium, so I will insert the Windows 7 Home Premium installation DVD.
Click Install Now
Click Upgrade
What you are doing now is a repair upgrade.
When the downgrade is complete, you should be successfully downgraded to the specific edition.
