Unlocking Windows Upgrade Paths
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- Опубликовано: 30 июл 2024
- Today, I upgrade a bunch of Windows versions to versions they aren't intended to be upgraded to.
Do note that this isn't a comprehensive list, and that most of these aren't my own discoveries. If the ones that are labelled as my discoveries have been discovered before, tell me in the comments and I will leave a pinned comment with updated information.
Timestamps:
0:00 Intro
0:22 Windows NT 3.51 to Windows XP
3:43 Windows Me to Windows 2000
6:03 Windows XP to Windows Server 2003
10:12 Windows Server 2003 to Windows XP
13:38 Longhorn to Windows XP
16:44 Windows XP to Windows 7
20:56 Windows Vista to Windows 8
23:52 Windows 7 to Windows 11
28:25 Windows 8/8.1 to Windows 11
31:37 Windows 11 to Windows 10
34:53 Outro
Downloads/Resources:
WINNT35toXP and NT3.51 to XP BetaArchive thread: www.betaarchive.com/forum/vie...
nLite: www.nliteos.com/
Application Verifier 4.0: archive.org/details/applicati...
XP Conversion Pack: archive.org/details/xpconv
GImageX: www.autoitconsulting.com/site...
UpgradeMatrix.xml: pastebin.com/LzB9ZLc5
(Anything not listed here could potentially be used as a cracking tool, so those will not be provided)
Extra Credits:
NTDEV's 7 to 11 video: • Upgrading Windows 7 to...
NTDEV's 11 to 10 video: • Downgrading Windows 11...
My XP to 7 tweet (plus extras): / 1356303115998420993
My 7 to 11 tweet: / 1476203070279278592
My 8.x to 11 tweet: / 1444349105652879361
Pinky's channel: / channel 
Наука
Update 3/28/2022: Forgot to put the UpgradeMatrix.xml contents in the description, they should be there now.
Update 3/29/2022: MJD showed off an XP to 98/Me downgrade path, but this doesn't really count as a downgrade. It's like using the Go Back feature in 10/11 to restore your previous OS.
Also , actually you can upgrade from Windows Server 2003 to vista or upgrade from Windows XP to Server 2008
Yeah you can in theory, but no real point just slowly showing off how to switch SKUs and patching setup.exe with Application Verifier for the fourth/fifth time in a row.
@@SkyeWeeb ok
@@SkyeWeeb Does using WINNT from Windows 1.04 from the i386 folder in Windows XP (RTM) count?
Just run WINNT.exe from DOS and set the windir to the directory win1.04 is installed in. It's not really an upgrade, but it's the best you can do with anything below win95/nt3.51.
Great video! Waiting patiently for part 2!
Thanks MajorSky
Ayyy its wow
And now use this knowledge to make the shortest route while upgrading Windows NT 3.51 to Windows 11.
Very well explained !
This is cool i didn't know about these upgrade paths
8:21 seeing the windows xp logo just saying "Windows" without the xp part just feels so wrong to me I hate it so much
Nice video guys!
epic music choices
subbed!
Interesting thing i can see when you upgrade win8/8.1 to win11: it seems that the metro ui apps from win8 that got carried over behave the same in windowed mode as they do in very windows 10 builds (at least the titlebar does)
Now THAT'S Windows.
An upgrade from Windows 8.x to Windows 11 is possible if the VM meets Windows 11's system requirements. Some of the old Metro apps will be carried during the upgrade.
Actually, you can upgrade from Windows vista to 8 even you don’t run the application verifier
Upgrade NT 3.51 to XP, next XP to 7 and 7 to 11.
Upgrade NT 3.51 to 2000, next 2000 to XP, XP to Vista, Vista to 7, 7 to 10, 10 to 11.
The half of steps
Windows is practically an immersive sim. There alot of ways to use it
thats really weird that nt 3.51's file manager doesnt work under xp, if you upgrade from 3.1 (+ all the steps in between) to xp, itll work as well as a 16bit program does under XP
Much we need to take care of first...
How to upgrade windows longhorn 4074 x64 to Windows xp x64?Also what problems did you face when you try to do this?
Windows 10 LTSC 2019 to Windows Server 2019 upgrade?
Upgrading from Windows Vista build 5270 to Windows vista build 5342.2 and ended up with an error that said along the lines of "upgrade from a non-sysprep'd to a sysprep'd windows image is not supported"
Btw, change the value of Min to 5270 in upgrade.ini in sources.
Now I can upgrade from NT 3.51 to 11 in the worst way possible
If you ever do a part 2, you should try to figure out how to do Windows XP x64 to Windows Vista 64 bit. For some reason, you can't in place upgrade officially no matter what. Tried setting back the date, installing SP2, among other things, but nothing worked.
Vista's picky. It tends to hate anything thrown at it other than your run-of-the-mill x86 XP copy, and none of my magic works there. Server 2003 to 2008 x86 works, but x64 doesn't work there either. You MIGHT have some luck upgrading to WIndows 8 builds 7955 or 7963 in particular, since apparently there's a method to get it to upgrade XP x86 to 7963 using 7955's setup. You might be able to run 7955's setup in XP x64 if you spoof the version to 5.1.2600 SP3, but I haven't tried it myself. If it works, you could easily just upgrade that to 8.0 or 8.1 if you want to use a stable release.
@@SkyeWeeb Apparently colawin managed to do that by spoofing the os to XP SP2 (NOT SP3) by using NNN4NT5.
So technically it's possible to upgrade from XP 64.
Why Windows Server 2003 is NT 5.2 and not NT 5.1?
Does the last part also work downgrading the latest dev build of Windows 11 to latest stable build of Windows 11?
Probably
i think it should
some upgrade paths are kinda jank (like windows 10 to windows 7) or just straight impossible (like windows 10 to windows 2000)
These are called downgrades
Upgrading Windows 98 to Windows XP (SP3) is possible without the file copy bug, someone made a fix to it on BetaArchive.
And maybe it is possible to upgrade from Windows XP to 7 by using Windows 8 7955 setup with patched Windows 7 wim.
Tried upgrading fro windows vista build 5112 x64 to build 6002 x64 and ended up with an error saying you cannot upgrade with multiple users on (setup was also unable to check if bitlocker is there).
Note: used appverif to set HighVersionLie to:
Major: 5
Minor: 1
Build number: 2600
Service pack major: 3
Pretty sure that path just straight up can't work, but try setting the compatibility to 6.0.6000 instead of XP
@@SkyeWeeb crashes
Is it possible to "upgrade" to a lower edition of windows? Like from Windows Vista Ultimate to Windows 7 Starter?
You can't upgrade to or from Starter editions, but you can upgrade to lower editions by changing a few things in the registry. People upgraded Server 2008 R1 to 7 that way for example.
@@SkyeWeeb Do you know which keys to edit? I can't find info online
I'm pretty sure you would be able to upgrade Windows 7 Enterprise to Windows 11 Enterprise, as it's the only edition which is shared between 7 and 11
W7 Professional = W11 Pro
W7 Home Premium = W11 Home
W7 Ultimate = W11 Pro
So does this work on hardware windows 11 doesn't support?
Easiest way of bypassing that is just using a 10 setup with 11's install.wim
@@SkyeWeeb Ah, well, I planned on doing the brute force thing that you recommend for my next video, so I was just wondering what I should do to do that.
can you make a video re enable ie 11 on win 11?
Just install an older version of IEFrame.dll and get a build of IE from an older OS
You can do an alternative way by opening inetcpl.cpl, navigate to programs tab, click on manage add-ons and click on the help link on the manage window. It should take you to IE
Can you downgrade Windows 10 to Windows XP?
is it possible for a free upgrade from win 7 to win 8.1?
Yeah, just do the same method as 7 to 11, minus using 10's setup files since there's no stupid system requirements
@@SkyeWeeb no but will there be a free upgrade or the windows 8.1 will still stay unactivated?
@@SkyeWeeb also do I have to modify the pastebin or still copy everything?
@@SkyeWeeb bro i tried it out , it is somehow asking me for product key at setup
Yes, its posible, i tried using the Windows 8 Setup and adding some modifications from the of the file UpgradeMatrix of Windows 8 WIM image into the file UpgradeMatrix from Windows 8.1 WIM image, and worked succesfully all programs and settings were migrated except the Windows Activation