Upgrade from Windows 7 Beta 1 at Your Own Risk

I call it the "Keep your hands out of the fire" post. First, it's cajoling to not stick your hands into the fire. But if you really must, here are instructions how to do so.

GOT A TIP OR RUMOR?

The post was written for people like me, who are either too lazy or too busy (perhaps both) to start over when Windows 7 Release Candidate comes available. We want to install the RC over the public beta and keep on computing. I don't recall Microsoft ever supporting such a scenario. RC to gold code, sometimes yes. Beta to RC, never.

Last week, I restored my Sony Vaio VGN-Z590. I lent the computer to a friend while I tested iLife '09 on a MacBook. Much as I trust my buddy, I don't trust anybody's network, particularly geeks who download every bleeding application posted to the Web. Beware the NTDs—network transmitted diseases—I say. As soon as the Z590 returned from its few days furlough, I installed a fresh image (from restore DVDs), reinstalled applications and upgraded to Windows 7 Beta 1.

Something strange happened during the reimaging. The Z590 I saw at the local SonyStyle Store in December had a Windows Experience Index of 3.8, same as the model I bought in January. The rating jumped to 4.4, following last week's Windows Vista restore process, which makes me wonder about the hardware drivers or the quality of the image laid down at that Sony factory.

Having just rebuilt the software, I'm not looking forward to repeating the process perhaps in just a few weeks. But, of course, that's what Microsoft encourages everyone to do. From today's E7 blog post:

You're anxious for a refresh. You've installed all your applications. You've configured and customized the system. You would love to get the RC and quickly upgrade to it from Beta. The RC, however, is about getting breadth coverage to validate the product in real-world scenarios. As a result, we want to encourage you to revert to a Vista image and upgrade or to do a clean install, rather than upgrade the existing Beta. We know that means reinstalling, recustomizing, reconfiguring, and so on. That is a real pain.

Now comes the "this is really about us and not about you" part, so don't feel bad:

The reality is that upgrading from one pre-release build to another is not a scenario we want to focus on because it is not something real-world customers will experience. During development we introduce changes in the product (under the hood) that aren't always compatible with what we call 'build-to-build' upgrade. The supported upgrade scenario is from Windows Vista to Windows 7. Before you go jump to the comment section, we want to say we are going to provide a mechanism for you to use if you absolutely require this upgrade. As an extended member of the development team and a participant in the Beta program that has helped us so much, we want to ask that you experience real-world setup and provide us real-world telemetry.

In other words, please, please, please don't stick your hand in the fire. But if you must, the blog instructs:

Here's what you can do to bypass the check for pre-release upgrade IF YOU REALLY REALLY NEED TO:

1. Download the ISO as you did previously and burn the ISO to a DVD.
2. Copy the whole image to a storage location you wish to run the upgrade from (a bootable flash drive or a directory on any partition on the machine running the pre-release build).
3. Browse to the sources directory.
4. Open the file cversion.ini in a text editor like Notepad.
5. Modify the MinClient build number to a value lower than the down-level build. For example, change 7100 to 7000 (pictured below).
6. Save the file in place with the same name.
7. Run setup like you would normally from this modified copy of the image and the version check will be bypassed.

These same steps will be required as we transition from the RC milestone to the RTM milestone.

Whoops, so there won't be a supported RC to release-to-manufacturing build either. See what happens when you play with fire?

[Please send your tips or rumors to watchtips at gmail.com.]

Related Posts:

• How I Came to Get a PC and Not a Mac, Microsoft Watch, April 6, 2009
• Don't Expect Windows 7 for Back to School, Microsoft Watch, March 26, 2009
• Windows 7 Beta 1: Two Months Later, Microsoft Watch, March 9, 2009
• Windows 7 UI: Design by Committee, Microsoft Watch, Feb. 26, 2009
• Next Windows 7 Milestone: Release Candidate, Microsoft Watch, Jan. 30, 2009