[SOLVED] How To Upgrade From Windows Home To Pro?

[Appletax]

Solution: PID.txt placed inside the USB installer's Sources folder.

Windows 10/11 installer sees the product key and automatically chooses the correct version and uses the key and activates.


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Got a new Lenovo Legion 5 Pro with Windows 10 Home.

I want to do a clean install of Windows 11 Pro.

How do I go from Home to Pro?

When installing Windows 11, it will find my Windows 10 Home product key in the UEFI and only allow me to install Home.

Even if I had a Windows Pro key, how would I go about using it during a clean install? The installer will only let me install what the UEFI says I have, to my knowledge.

I am guessing that there's no way to change the UEFI to store the Pro product key.

How do I pay for Pro for a good price? Microsoft Store = $99 - yikes!

I do have an unused retail Windows 10 Pro product key I purchased a long time for over $180 that I never used.

 

[britechguy]

There are probably several different ways you could do this.

For myself, I would just update my Windows 10 Home instance to Windows 10 Pro using the key you already have and going to Settings, Update & Security, Activation Pane, and activating the Change product key link. Many people do not know this, including many techs, but there is absolutely no difference in what gets installed on the machine for Windows 10 Home versus Windows 10 Pro. All of the components for Pro are a part of a Home instance. It is the license key that determines whether a whole bunch of "switches" that enable the Pro features get flipped. And when you use the Change product key link, and provide a valid Pro key, the process it undertakes is flipping all those switches. You need not even be connected to the internet when you do it and you'll still end up having Windows 10 Pro when it completes (though there may still be certain Windows Updates that will apply afterward that would otherwise have been snagged as part of the Home to Pro edition change process).

I have zero doubt that the upgrade process from Windows 10 to Windows 11 is going to use whatever the current Windows 10 edition happens to be to determine what the Windows 11 edition will be when the upgrade has completed. And I also have almost zero doubt that Windows 11, like Windows 10, will have a digital entitlement stored on Microsoft's servers tied to the motherboard on the system, and were you to do a completely clean reinstall that would be used to determine the edition of Windows 11. If you had Pro, you should get Pro again on a completely clean reinstall.

Addendum: The computer I'm typing from is an HP 15-ba011cy that came from the factory with Windows 10 Home. I upgraded it to Pro using the method I outlined above quite a while back. I do use a Microsoft Account-linked Windows 10 account. If I open Settings, Update & Security, Activation Pane, next to the Edition label it reads, "Windows 10 Pro," and Activation label, it reads as follows: "Windows is activated with a digital license linked to your Microsoft Account." That suggests two things to me:
1. Were I to do a completely clean reinstall, and use the Microsoft Account linked to the Windows 10 User ID I create at the start of installation, that the Windows 10 installer should find that digital license and apply it accordingly so that Windows 10 Pro would be installed.
2. The license is probably classed as what used to be called a retail license. There would be no reason to link a Windows license to a Microsoft Account if that license could not be transferred to other hardware if the machine it's currently on were to be wiped or be turned into a Linux box, etc. It implies that the license is transferable. Microsoft has so muddied the water with regard to licensing that I have no idea what to call transferable versus non-transferable licenses in what used to be conventional Microsoft terminology.

 

[sapphirescales]

I am guessing that there's no way to change the UEFI to store the Pro product key.

No, but if you edit the EI.cfg file on your Windows 11 flash drive, you can manually choose which version it will install and it will disregard the key in the BIOS.

https://www.askvg.com/fix-cant-select-windows-10-pro-edition-during-clean-installation/

 

[johnrobert]

Simply change product key with valid pro serial can even be a Windows 7 pro serial

 

[Appletax]

Solution: PID.txt placed inside the USB installer's Sources folder.

Windows 10/11 installer sees the product key and automatically chooses the correct version and uses the key and activates.