Windows 7 Universal Edition

Windows 7 Home Basic, Home Premium, Professional and Ultimate on ONE DVD? Yes it is very possible! Allow me to introduce you to Windows 7 Universal Edition! This one DVD you can create will allow you to test all retail versions of Windows 7 (on the 30 day activation grace of course) and save you the little extra money of buying a Windows 7 key by itself without paying more for the DVD media.

You will need the following System Requirements to run Windows 7

• Processor

1GHz or faster 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor

• Hard Disk

16GB available disk space (32-bit) / 20 GB (64-bit)

• Video Card

DirectX 9 graphics processor with WDDM 1.0 or later driver

• Memory

1GB RAM (32-bit) / 2GB RAM (64-bit)

The following equipment you will need is:

• 1 Blank DVD-R (You may need a few more if you screw up the process somehow)
• A computer capable of burning DVD-R’s with burning software such as Nero

Ok since we have our PC the well meets the Windows 7 requirements and that can burn this DVD-R with appropriate software we can begin.

• Step 1

You will need any Retail Windows 7 ISO from where ever you can find them just make sure they are either 32 Bit or 64 Bit that you wanted to install. For myself I got a 64 Bit Windows 7 Professional ISO from Windows 7 Hacker.

• Step 2

Once the download has finished you can verify the ISO if it’s a real legit version with the tool called Windows 7 ISO Verifier from istartedsomething.com. Open the program, select the ISO you have downloaded and wait a bit as it heads 100%

After this quick process will give you a message box saying if the ISO is legit or has been tampered with, now I got my ISO verified and it was legit but if yours wasn’t well you will have to find a more trusting source and try again.

• Step 3

Ok now to the part to create a Universal DVD there is a quite nifty tool called eicfg Removal Utility from beingmanan.com this tool will allow to remove the ei.cfg file in the ISO without the need to rebuild the ISO, once you unzip the utility run the program and select the ISO of Windows 7 you have there will be a message saying “ei.cfg removed”.

Note: I suggest you copy the ISO to another place in case anything happens or you want an untouched copy for some reason.

Got that done? Then let’s move on!

• Step 4

Now here’s the bit were some of us fail at burning the ISO so it can be booted up from the BIOS screen and yes I even admit I had a few stuff ups before I consulted Google and possibly YouTube for answers. We all have our Burning Software right? Well I’m going to use Nero 9 for this so sorry for the others who have other programs like PowerISO etc. but hey we all know “Google is your friend”

First we open up Nero Burning ROM and in the menu bar we click Recorder > Burn Image…

We now have an Explorer window now navigate to the ISO and open it, a window should come up with the burn settings such as Determine maximum speed, Verify written data ect…  default setting are fine so click Burn.

• Step 5

When that little hot freshly Windows 7 Universal Burned DVD pops out of the DVD drive it after the burning is finished restart with the DVD in the drive and when the BIOS appears it should say “Press any key to boot from DVD…” if it does not try pressing the key to boot from a device on the BIOS screen (it should say on the screen and what key mine said was “Boot From Device F12” if this does not appear try looking at your motherboards manual or OEM’s computer manual.

• Step 6

Windows 7 will start to load temporary files and the installer will appear fill in your Country, Time zone and Keyboard type details and click next you will get a whole new menu asking what version of windows 7 to install such as Ultimate, Professional, Home Premium and Home Basic. Choose the flavor you want and accept the EULA.

You just made Universal DVD of Windows 7 so you don’t have to waste AUD$300 – AUD $400 to buy whole new retail flavors of Windows 7 or save AUD$30 extra for a physical copy Windows 7 if you don’t have it yet! I have also heard that you can buy legit keys alone on eBay and such other places for as low as USD$9.85!

So all you really need to get is a key to use to activate either during the install or the activation grace which is 30 days to play around with Windows 7 but there is a way to extend the activation grace legally for up to 120 Days! Here it is!

Step 1: Click Start > All Programs > Accessories. Right-click Command Prompt and choose Run As Administrator.  Or Click start and type “cmd.exe” in the search box. Right click cmd.exe and choose Run As Administrator.

Step 2: Type the following command and press Enter: slmgr –rearm and click ok on the message saying “Command completed successfully. Please restart the system for the changes to take effect”.

Step 3: Restart Windows 7. Click Start > Control Panel > System and Security > System. It should say under Windows Activation “30 Days left for activation”. Or Click Start and type “winver.exe” in the search box and press Enter. It should say “Expires xx/xx/xx  xx:xx” Without the x’s of course!

Note: Can be used every 30 Days before expiry but the command can only be used 3 times before it stops working.

Before there is a question about Windows 7 Starter… Windows 7 Starter Edition is a 32 Bit OS not a 64 Bit so if you want Starter which nobody would you can get a 32 Bit ISO.

I give credit to all the sites who host these helpful files and information.