How to Direct In-Place Upgrade Windows 7 Beta or RC (Prerelease Version) to Windows 7 RTM

Officially Windows 7 does not allow upgrade path from prerelease version of Windows 7 such as Windows 7 Beta or Windows 7 RC (Release Candidate) to Windows 7 RTM, which has the build version 7600.16385. When user attempts to directly in-place upgrade Windows 7 RC or Beta or any pre-release version from within Windows 7 desktop itself to final Windows 7 RTM gold release, the setup will load, but stop at Compatibility Report, which shows the following error

You cannot upgrade this prerelease version of Windows 7. Go online to see how to install Windows 7 and keep your files and settings.

Unable to Upgrade from Windows 7 Beta or RC to Windows 7 RTM

The blocked upgrade path is similar to Windows 7 RC, which does not allow in-place upgrade from Windows 7. The blocking of direct upgrade from beta, RC or prerelease builds to official RTM build is meant to avoid potential issues that may affect such upgrade path, as few tweaks and enhancements have been introduced during the development process, which may be skipped during build-to-build upgrade.

Microsoft recommends Windows 7 beta or RC users to perform a clean or fresh installation of Windows 7 RTM, and uses Windows Easy Transfer to save and transfer user accounts, Windows settings, program settings, personal customizations and files from current installation to newly installed Windows 7 RTM system.The mechanism built into Windows 7 RTM to block and prevent upgrade from all pre-release versions of Windows 7 earlier than build 7233 for client edition, including Windows 7 Beta Build 7000 and Windows 7 RC Build 7100. For Windows Server 2008 R2, users can directly in-place upgrade from Windows Server 2008 R2 RC.

However, 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, in order not to be forced to exit gracefully from the upgrade.

  1. Copy or download the Windows 7 RTM ISO to the computer that wants to perform the upgrade.
  2. Mount the ISO image onto a virtual DVD drive and copy the whole content of the image to folder which can be located anywhere (on any partition or drive on the machine running the pre-release build, or external hard disk or USB/FireWire flash drive connected to the computer).

    Alternatively, it’s possible to directly extract the content of the ISO to a desired folder using file extraction tool such as WinRAR.

  3. Browse to the sources directory.
  4. Open the file cversion.ini in a text editor such as Notepad.
  5. Modify the MinClient build number to a value lower than the down-level build. For example, change 7233 to 7000.

    Original content of cversion.ini:
    [HostBuild]
    MinClient=7233.0
    MinServer=7100.0

    Change it to:
    [HostBuild]
    MinClient=7000.0
    MinServer=7100.0

  6. Save the file in original place and original name.
  7. Double click on setup.exe from modified installation files to start Windows 7 installation, and choose Upgrade to in-place upgrade to latest RTM gold build of Windows 7. The version check will be skipped and bypassed.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 29th, 2009 at 1:38 am and is filed under Windows 7. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

10 Responses to “How to Direct In-Place Upgrade Windows 7 Beta or RC (Prerelease Version) to Windows 7 RTM”

  1. dementor
    December 1st, 2009 08:56
    10

    How about expired date? RC Version is expires on June 2010. But RTM version is unlimited same as full version.

  2. Hack to In-Place “Downgrade” from Windows 7 Ultimate or Professional to Less Premium Editions » My Digital Life
    November 3rd, 2009 17:45
    9

    [...] For user who decided to upgrade from Windows 7 Beta or Windows 7 RC release, the Windows 7 upgrade paths also does not support direct upgrade any prerelease versions of Windows 7. However, an easy hack of modifying cversion.ini can enable direct upgrade to Windows 7 final from Windows 7 RC or Beta. [...]

  3. sean
    November 3rd, 2009 02:20
    8

    Thank you so much, this worked for upgrading from RC build 7022.

  4. Robert
    August 10th, 2009 01:04
    7

    I just wanted to thank you for the tip. I had been running the RC for a month and a half and I didn’t really want to reinstall everything. A few items are ok but I had a bunch of stuff. I got the RTM (downloaded from technet) and upgraded to it using your tip. It works great. I did have to reinstall a few items so here are pointers for the rest of you. Here is what I know you will have to reinstall… Daemon Tools, sptd driver (you will probably have to rip it out if you don’t uninstall it pre-upgrade — delete sptd from non-plug and play drivers, run “sc delete sptd” from admin command prompt to remove service then reinstall), iTunes, VMWare (if you don’t uninstall pre-upgrade then remove any extra vmware items fron non-plug and play devices after uninstalling it — bridge support will be broken until you reinstall — you won’t lose any data), synaptics mouse driver and I think that was it. I’m sure I’m missing something but I don’t remember what it was. Other than that it seemed to work ok. Prompted for the new key and the watermark is gone.

    @lewl: They block the upgrade because they want everyone on the same page (all “new” users will be doing clean installs or upgrading from vista anyways). There really don’t seem to be any issues going from RC to RTM.

    @dinh du: seriously… it isn’t even publicly available.

  5. Steve R
    July 30th, 2009 00:01
    6

    @pooja

    hey pooja thanks for the link…..

  6. JMB
    July 29th, 2009 12:22
    5

    Why do this ? If I choose to do a clean install, I’ll have to reinstall Office 2007, Dreamweaver, Shareaza, VLC, Leechftp, MSE, Foxit Reader, 7zip, TASM 5, MASM, Olly debugger, Win32Dasm, Lingoes, Winhack, EditHexa, visual studio, paint.net, and a few more.
    Hence I’m gonna use the magic trick if you allow me!

  7. dinh du
    July 29th, 2009 10:53
    4

    I can’t active Win 7 fianl RTM, share Key WIn 7 RTM ?

  8. Hack to Upgrade Windows 7 From Beta or Pre-RC to RC (70xx to 71xx) Version Directly » My Digital Life
    July 29th, 2009 01:53
    3

    [...] Update: How to in-place direct upgrade from pre-release version of Windows 7 to Windows 7 final RTM build. [...]

  9. Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 Officially RTM At Build Version 6.1.7600.16385 » My Digital Life
    July 29th, 2009 01:51
    2

    [...] Windows 7 RTM includes a version check that blocks upgrade path from pre-release version of Windows 7 (e.g. Windows 7 RC or Beta) to Windows 7 final RTM build. Use this hack to modify cversion.ini to allow in-place upgrade from prerelease version of Windows 7. [...]

  10. lewl
    July 29th, 2009 01:44
    1

    seriously, why do this.. its just asking for problems really.
    Saving your settings takes little effort and a clean install performs so much better then an upgrade that isnt even meant to work in the first place.

Leave a Reply

You can use these tags: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>

Subscribe to comments feature has been disabled. To receive notification of latest comments posted, subscribe to My Digital Life Comments RSS feed or register to receive new comments in daily email digest.
« How to Check Hotmail Available Storage Space for Ever Growing Unlimited Space Limit
New 750GB And 1TB WD Scorpio Blue Supporting Up To 3Gb/s Of Transfer Rate »

New Articles

Incoming Search Terms for the Article

windows 7 beta to retail - upgrade windows 7 beta to retail - windows 7 pre release upgrade - upgrade windows 7 prerelease - upgrade prerelease windows 7 - upgrading windows 7 beta to retail - cversion.ini - upgrade win 7 rc to rtm - upgrade from windows 7 rc to rtm - bypass windows 7 compatibility check - upgrade windows 7 evaluation - windows 7 upgrade key - windows 7 rc to rtm - upgrade win 7 to rtm - windows 7 evaluation upgrade - inplace upgrade windows 7 - how to upgrade win 7 evaluation to win 7 - windows 7 modify ini - upgrading win 7 RC - how to change windows 7 rc to rtm for free - how to upgrade pre-release windows 7 - inplace upgrade windows 7 rc - windows 7 beta change to original - how to bypass windows 7 compatibility report - upgrading windows 7 rc to rtm - upgrading windows 7 prerelease - upgrading a prerelease of win 7 - windows 7 beta version desktop paint - how to upgrade prerelease version of windows 7 - how to upgrade a prelease windows 7 - upgrading to windows 7 retail from windows 7 prerelease - UPGRADE FROM WIN 7 RC ULTIMATE TO WIN 7 RTM PREMIUM - upgrading from windows 7 beta to retail - windows 7 upgrade hack - upgrade from win 7 rc to rtm - windows 7 upgrade RC 7 electronic download - You can’t upgrade this prerelease version of Windows 7 - how to upgrade windows 7 beta to retail - in-place upgrade windows 7 RC - upgrade windows 7 rc to rtm - windows 7 rc upgrade hack - You can’t upgrade this prerelease version of Windows 7. Go online to see how to install Windows 7 and keep your files and settings. - upgrading prerelease Windows 7 - hack upgrade from win 7 beta - how to direct in-place upgrade windows 7 beta - upgrade ultimate from windows 7 prerelease - upgrade windows rc hack - upgrade pre-release windows 7 - upgrade from windows 7 prerelease - upgrade to prerelease windows 7 -