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I have purchased a Windows 7 Home ISO from Microsoft and installed it on a computer. Now, what I would like to do is use that same ISO to install Windows 7 Starter onto a netbook using the Windows 7 Starter product key that it came with.

Before I take the steps to remove Ubuntu from the netbook and attempt to install Windows 7 Starter with the netbook's product key using the Windows 7 Home ISO/DVD, is it possible?

I'll be more likely to accept an answer if it's definitive and experience-based or includes a link to some online documentation / article.

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Yes it is possible if you remove a single file from the windows 7 installation medium.

I have a legal copy of windows 7 ultimate. I put the installation files from that DVD on a USB pen drive. (Microsoft offers a utility to do this). This is quite handy for netbooks which do not have a DVD drive.

I then removed the file ei.cfg.

The result is that the windows installer no longer knows which version to install and asks the user to select one.

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Needless to say you will need a legal key to install, and trying to use a key for a wrong version will fail.

Disclaimer: This was done with a windows 7 ultimate x86 disc from a MS conference. It worked for me. I did not test it with a win7 SP1 iso.

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