Hack to Upgrade Windows 7 From Beta or Pre-RC to RC (70xx to 71xx) Version Directly
According to Microsoft, it is not possible to directly or in-place upgrade from Windows 7 Beta or pre-RC build versions such as build 7077 (32-bit Windows 7 Build 7077 or 64-bit Windows 7 Build 7077) to final RC (Release Candidate) build, which widely rumored to be build 7100. The blocking of direct upgrade from beta or pre-RC builds to official RC build is meant to avoid potential issues that may affect such upgrade path.
Microsoft recommends Windows 7 beta testers to restore and reinstall Windows Vista prior to upgrade to Windows 7 RC, or perform a clean installation of Windows 7 RC. A few tweaks and enhancements have been introduced during the development process, which can enhance support of Windows Vista to Windows 7 build-to-build upgrade. Build-to-build upgrade within Windows 7 builds may fail, or encounter error, such as setup does not success completely or unable to set some settings. Beside, Windows Vista to Windows 7 upgrade is what will most likely occur in reality when Windows 7 is finally released to shelf, as end-users probably won’t install any non-final or non-RTM product.
A mechanism has been built into Windows 7 RC to identify non-Vista Windows OS, and block or prevent upgrade of OS from Windows 7 Beta (build 7000 till 7099) and all pre-RC development milestones to final Release Candidate milestone. Users are encouraged to install Windows 7 RC with clean installation (fresh install) method, or use the Windows Easy Transfer feature to save and transfer accounts, settings, files, personalizations, and others from current installation to newly installed Windows 7 RC system. However, there is also a hack technique to circumvent and bypass the limitation.
When trying to upgrade Windows 7 pre-RC build to Windows 7 RC, but been stopped and cannot continue with installation process, before been force to exit gracefully, use the following trick to to upgrade successfully from pre-RC (build 70xx series) to RC (possibly 71xx series).
- Download the Windows 7 ISO.
- Burn the Windows 7 ISO image to a DVD, and then copy and whole image to a storage location that you wish to run the upgrade from (can be either any directory/folder on any partition/drive on the machine running the pre-release build, or a bootable USB/FireWire flash drive).
Alternatively, it’s possible to directly extract the content of the ISO to a desired folder using file extraction tool such as WinRAR.
- Browse to the sources directory.
- Open the file cversion.ini in a text editor such as Notepad.
- Modify the MinClient build number to a value lower than the down-level build. For example, change 7100 to 7000.
- Save the file in original place and original name.
- Start the setup process of Windows 7 as per normal from the modified copy of the installation files, and the version check will be bypassed.
It’s expected that the next development milestone of Windows 7 – Windows 7 RTM will also be blocked from upgrading directly from Windows 7 RC. If so, the hack above can be used to skip the version check too.
Update: How to in-place direct upgrade from pre-release version of Windows 7 to Windows 7 final RTM build.
Related Articles
- Windows 7 Supported and Non-Supported Upgrade Paths Test Matrix
- How to Direct In-Place Upgrade Windows 7 Beta or RC (Prerelease Version) to Windows 7 RTM
- Windows 7 RC (Release Candidate) Public Download Begins
- Download Windows 7 RC x86 and x64 ISO Installer Image (Version 7100)
- Windows 7 RC ISO Official Microsoft Direct Download Links (32-bit and 64-bit)
- Windows Vista In-Place Upgrade from Windows XP Support Matrix and Options
- Fix Windows Vista SP1 PC Unable or Cannot See SP2 Option in Windows Update
- Unable to Clean Install Windows Vista with Upgrade Edition Product Key
- Trick to Buy and Install Full Retail Windows Vista at Upgrade Price Even Without Existing Old Windows CD
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Entries (RSS)
July 29th, 2009 01:51
[...] the hack similar to upgrade from Windows 7 Beta to RC can be used to hack the Windows 7 RTM installation DVD ISO to circumvent and bypass the blockage, [...]
July 29th, 2009 00:25
if this is not working than try to setup compatibility mode of setup.exe from windows dvd with vista service pack 2.
http://bayimg.com/image/nabbnaacg.jpg
July 25th, 2009 00:16
[...] Windows 7 Beta to Windows 7 RC in-place upgrade is NOT supported (can in-place upgrade using Windows 7 Beta to RC). [...]
June 26th, 2009 21:32
MICROSHAFT just can’t get it.
they must have a bunch of knuckel heads.to much work to list all there screw ups.
June 24th, 2009 10:36
[...] Remember that the Windows 7 beta (build 7100) will begin to shut down ever two hours starting on July 1st. The user will also be recommended to install the most recent release of Windows 7. Also, on August 1st the beta license will expire and Windows will switch over to a non-genuine experience. The RC release will only be available until August 15th, so if you want to continue using Windows 7 through or past the retail release in october then I recommend you download and install it. Keep in mind that you can upgrade directly from build 7000 (Beta) to 7100 (RC) using this hack from mydigitallife.info. [...]
June 1st, 2009 07:43
great tip, however, if the final version comes out. will this hack still work or will the folks at MS still include the cversion.ini file in the final release? i wouldn’t mind upgrading from the RC to the Final just in case, it’s a hassle for me to redo installing from scratch…
May 26th, 2009 08:36
I was wrong about this method not working. For some reason the .iso I downloaded on May 5th was corrupted as a clean install failed as well. After redownloading the .iso all was well.
May 11th, 2009 09:36
The reason why I wanted this has nothing to do with backups. I did not expect windows to trash my files, however after spending 20+ hours to install and setup my machine I do not want to have to do that again. Anyways this hack did not work on the copy I downloaded on May 5th. The install got to 100% of the copy phase and then said it could not continue so I guess I either reinstall or do not use the rc. I am leaning on not using the rc because I do not have the time to spend on that at the moment.
May 7th, 2009 10:17
Yo, what’s everybody talking about?
I’ve tested it. The installation backs up ALL of your files into Windows.old folder, files that matching the default windows named folder names. And all other folders or files that are made by you and are in C:\ directory, they are just left untouched. And that was THE cleanest installation I performed with Windows 7.
So chill! Why upgrading and mixing everything up with bs, when you can just install a new and clean RC version without even having to backup anything yourself?
Windows 7 does everything for you!;)
May 5th, 2009 16:21
[...] Microsoft also provides free product key to activate Windows 7 RC. Beside, direct build-to-build in-place upgrade from earlier pre-RC or Beta phase of Windows 7 is not allowed. For users who insists on upgrading instead of fresh installing, use this hack to allow Beta upgrade to Windows 7 RC. [...]
May 5th, 2009 13:26
[...] Users running the Windows 7 Beta will need to do a clean installation of the Windows 7 Release Candidate as direct build-to-build in-place upgrade from earlier pre-RC Windows 7 is not allowed. For users who insists on upgrading instead of fresh installing, use this hack to bypass version check to allow Beta upgrade to Windows 7 RC. [...]