That means you can reinstall that edition of Windows on that hardware anytime, without the need for a product key. This scenario still worked on many machines even in early Microsoft first made this option available in Windows 10 version Since then, they have simplified the process dramatically.
If you buy a new PC with Windows 10 Home installed. Some vendors offer an upgrade option as part of the purchase, but many PCs sold in the retail channel are preloaded with Home edition. If so, the upgrade takes just a few minutes. After entering the product key, follow the prompts to perform the upgrade. After the upgrade completes, you should see a Success notification. Then, follow the steps that apply to your product key scenario. Select Change product key , and then enter the character Windows 11 Pro product key.
Under Upgrade your edition of Windows , select Open Store. Get help with Windows activation errors. Activate Windows. Important: The following steps apply only to devices currently running an activated copy of Windows 10 Home. Under Upgrade your edition of Windows , select Change product key. Under Upgrade your edition of Windows , select Go to the Store.
Table of contents. Activation Overview. Check the Activation screen again to confirm that you're now running Windows 10 Pro. After you've successfully performed a Home-to-Pro upgrade, you can file that product key away.
Your upgrade is now a digital license, attached to your unique hardware. If you perform a reinstallation of Windows, Microsoft's activation servers will recognize the hardware and activate Windows 10 automatically. I have tested this scenario multiple times on hardware that originally shipped with Windows Home and was upgraded to Windows 10 Pro.
After the upgrade was complete, I used a bootable USB flash drive containing Windows 10 setup files to reinstall a clean copy of Windows 10 Pro, skipping the option to enter a product key as part of setup, as shown below. When prompted, be sure to choose Windows 10 Pro as the edition to install.
The system was properly activated, because Microsoft's servers recognized the hardware and used the digital license. Looking for technical information about Windows 10 releases, new features, known issues, troubleshooting, and tech support? Start here. The one gotcha in this series of scenarios comes when you have a system that includes digital licenses for both Windows 10 Home and Windows 10 Pro. In that scenario, you can inadvertently restore Windows 10 Home. This happened recently when I used a recovery image to reinstall Windows 10 on a Surface Pro PC that had originally shipped with Windows 10 Home and had been upgraded to Windows 10 Pro.
Not surprisingly, using the recovery image gave me an installation of Windows 10 Home. Scharon Harding has a special affinity for gaming peripherals especially monitors , laptops and virtual reality. Previously, she covered business technology, including hardware, software, cyber security, cloud and other IT happenings, at Channelnomics, with bylines at CRN UK.
Tom's Hardware Tom's Hardware. Scharon Harding opens in new tab. Topics Software. See all comments I bought a key on ebay and it turned out to be a VL key volume.
Which works but shouldn't be sold. I contacted the seller and he refunded me. Very good breakdown of the ways to activate Windows Most people don't even realize you can still use a windows 7 key to activate, only after you get into windows, and not during the setup process. I believe this will probably stop working Jan 1, , when Microsoft stops support for windows 7.
One thing that I was hoping for some explanation on key activations, I have seen how some Youtuber's have tied their windows 10 keys to their Microsoft account.
Then they only need a handfull of keys, like one for each motherboard vendor, and during setup, then sign into their Microsoft account, and select the key that corresponds to the motherboard their are reviewing. So they can move the keys around, and as long as it was the same brand of motherboard it would activate for that computer, and no longer be active on the old system. Any thoughts on how this works?
Any limitations on how many moves, is this method valid for years so you would never have to buy another key if you stayed with one particular favorite motherboard vendor?
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Windows 10 home to pro cost free. How to upgrade from Windows 10 Home to Pro for free
You've got a new PC running Windows 10 Home. You want to upgrade to Windows 10 Pro. Here's how to get that upgrade for free. For a new system, Windows 10 Home costs $, while Windows 10 Pro is $ Microsoft is only offering free upgrades to the equivalent version of Windows Upgrading from Windows 10 Home to Pro will usually cost.
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- How to Upgrade Windows 10 Home to Windows 10 Pro?
Or perhaps you have a shrink-wrapped retail copy of Windows 7 Professional or Ultimate, where the license associated with the product key is no longer in use. Group Policy meanwhile allows you to restrict access to any number of Windows features and configure any setting within the operating system. On the list of available updates, search Windows 10, and press Enter.
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