hi there, why do we get so many iso images from microsoft this time with win7? in winvista there were only oem, retail and volumelicensing editions. everything except business/enterprise was in one dvd image (starter, basic, homepremium, business, ultimate). only enterprise was separate, and then the special volumeactivation keyserver versions for enterprises as i said. so why the separate .iso image with all the separate hashcodes this time for all these editions of win7? this is annoying. anyone?
That is how MS decided to do it this time around. All editions are still available on the RTM DVD I have that was leaked by ZUKO (that is identical to the Ultimate Win7 image you can download off of TechNet). You just need to delete the "sources\ei.cfg" file within the .iso image prior to burning it to be able to select which version you would like to install... Thus if you have the legit x86 Win7 .iso, you can delete that ei.cfg file and be able to install any x86 version you want. Same for x64. There is just no x86 & x64 legit from MS on the same DVD...
ok thanks for the quick reply, so did anyone for real compare the editions file-wise and see what microsofts method is to distinguish between the editions? do they simply have different entries in that sources\ei.cfg file for each starter homepremium professional ultimate and so on? or are there other differences? damn :/
You only need to modify (or remove) the ei.cfg file to tell Windows installer which version to install. Makes sense right? That way MS only has to make 1 DVD image for each architecture (e.g. x86 vs x64)...and just change the ei.cfg for each. ...now, modifying your ei.cfg file from your legit full-install DVD to have it install any version you want is most likely illegal, as you break the license agreement (and the key you paid for will not work anymore, as it is not valid across the different versions of Windows 7 (e.g.: Starter or Professional or Home Premium keys will not activate Ultimate, and vice-versa))...but that has never stopped anyone before.
Modifying ei.cfg to automatically select any version is perfecfly fine! You just wouldn't be able to activate it if you install a version that doesn't correspond to your product key. There is no magical lock-out mechanism that will prevent the key from working in the future if you happen to try activating it on the wrong version. It certainly is not a matter of legality when the version to be installed is determined by a tiny config file no more than 50 bytes in size! So go ahead and change the ei.cfg file to whatever version you want, but if you can make an answer file for yourself, you don't necessarily need ei.cfg. There is a command you can enter in the autounattend.xml answer file that will select whichever version you want and another command that will install the key for you. In this case, the ei.cfg file becomes redundant.