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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.

If that happens to you, don’t bother searching for the product key you used to upgrade. Instead, use Microsoft’s generic product key to force the upgrade. Next, enter the default Windows 10 Pro product key:.

Follow the prompts to upgrade from Home to Pro. Because your hardware already has a digital license for the Pro edition, it will activate automatically. That generic product key isn’t magical, of course. If your hardware doesn’t already have a Pro license, you’ll get an activation error and you’ll need to supply a proper product key or pay for an upgrade.

Upgrade to Microsoft Edge to take advantage of the latest features, security updates, and technical support. With Windows 10, you can quickly upgrade from one edition of Windows 10 to another, provided the upgrade path is supported. For information on what edition of Windows 10 is right for you, see Compare Windows 10 Editions. For a comprehensive list of all possible upgrade paths to Windows 10, see Windows 10 upgrade paths. Downgrading the edition of Windows is discussed in the License expiration section on this page.

The following table shows the methods and paths available to change the edition of Windows 10 that is running on your computer.

Although it isn’t displayed yet in the table, edition upgrade is also possible using edition upgrade policy in Microsoft Configuration Manager. Use Windows Configuration Designer to create a provisioning package to upgrade a desktop edition.

You can run the changepk. You can also upgrade using slmgr. Best Ergonomic Mice. Photography Lighting Kits. Best Smart Sprinkler Controllers. Reader Favorites Best Linux Laptops. Best Wi-Fi Routers. Awesome PC Accessories. Best Wireless Earbuds. Best Smartwatches. Best Oculus Quest 2 Accessories. Best Home Theater Systems. Browse All News Articles. Chevrolet Blazer EV.

Thunderbird for Android. Telegram Premium. File Explorer Tabs in Windows Google Maps Air Quality. Microsoft first made this option available in Windows 10 version Since then, they have simplified the process dramatically. Here’s the scoop. Some vendors offer an upgrade option as part of the purchase, but many PCs sold in the retail channel are preloaded with Home edition. This could also be the case if you took advantage of the free Windows 10 upgrade offer on a PC running a Home edition of Windows 7 or Windows 8.

In either case, the upgrade takes just a few minutes. You’ll see a succession of progress screens and your system will restart. After the upgrade completes, you should see a Success notification.

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.

 
 

How to upgrade from Windows 10 Home to Pro for free | ZDNET

 

Microsoft’s free upgrade offer for Windows 10 ended more than five years ago, but no one told the people upgrare run the Windows activation gree. As a result, you посетить страницу still upgrade to Windows 10 from Windows 7 or Windows 8. That upgrade became more important than ever when support for Windows 7 officially ended in January And it turned out to be a great relief to household budgets when the pandemic made working from home or going to school via remote sessions suddenly popular.

In the past two years, millions of people enrerprise taken old PCs out of storage and winfows up to speed quickly, thanks to these free upgrades. You windows 10 home to enterprise upgrade free also still upgrade Windows 10 Home to Windows 10 Pro by using a product key from a previous business bome of Windows 7, 8, or 8.

For details, see “How to upgrade from Windows 10 Home to Pro without hassles. Every technique I describe in this article works the same for Windows 11 as well, although most older PCs will be blocked from upgrading to Microsoft’s newest operating system by the stringent Windows 11 hardware compatibility requirements.

For those PCs, Windows 10 u;grade a viable option until at least October In this post, I’ll cover the basics of how upgrave install Windows 10 as an upgrade on older hardware.

I’ll also talk wimdows the licensing issues involved, which are as always confusing. I wrote and published the first version of this post in earlyshortly after Microsoft’s windwos free upgrade offer ended. When I downloaded the Windows 10 upgrade tool and ran it on an old Windows 7 PC, I fully expected that the upgrade would fail activation and I’d be asked dree a product key. For the past five-plus years, I have repeated those steps on test PCs at regular intervals and confirmed that the free upgrade tool still works.

I continue to receive email messages regularly from readers offering firsthand reports that their free upgrades were successful, with no purchase or product key required. A small number of readers have reported that the upgrade fails because of a Setup error or a compatibility block.

For details on how to troubleshoot these errors, see “This free Windows 10 upgrade offer still works. Here’s why – and how to get it. Whether you’re looking for a tablet to stream videos or to replace your laptop, here are some compelling options. Before getting started, I recommend a few preliminary tasks that can head off potential problems:.

With those preliminaries out of the way, go to the Download Windows 10 webpage and click the Download now button. After the download completes, double-click the executable file to run the Media Creation Tool.

That option installs the most recent version of Windows It typically takes about an hour, depending on your hardware. Having an SSD as your system drive is upgradr best way to speed up the process.

If you know you’ll want to upgrade to Windows 10 on more than windows 10 home to enterprise upgrade free PC, or if you just want more flexibility in the event that the instant upgrade fails, choose the second option and save the installation files to a Winsows drive frwe as an ISO file. The download takes a little time but when it’s complete, you can run the Windows Setup program manually to install Windows 10 on any PC running any supported Windows version sorry, this won’t windows 10 home to enterprise upgrade free with PCs running Windows Vista or Windows XP.

The exact steps depend on which download option you chose:. Then just follow the prompts to complete the upgrade to Windows All your apps and data files will be available. The digital license is associated with that specific device, which means you can reformat the disk and perform a clean installation of the same edition of Windows 10 anytime.

If you’re thinking of upgrading your old system drive to an SSD, perform the upgrade to Enterprize 10 on the old hardware; after confirming that the new Windows 10 version is properly activated, install the SSD and then either restore from a backup image or boot from the USB flash drive to do a clean install. You won’t need a product key, and activation is automatic. And now the big upgrxde If you avail yourself of this upgrade to Windows 10, is the resulting license valid?

The entire “free upgrade” offer was always accompanied by language windows 10 home to enterprise upgrade free was, to put it politely, a bit squishy. Entegprise the language around the end of that offer was similarly vague. That’s very odd language. The free upgrade through windows 10 home to enterprise upgrade free Get Windows 10 app ended on July 29, Likewise, the discussion of product keys says a key will be necessary “for this tool to work” not true but doesn’t say a word about licensing.

And unlike the weaselly winows Windows” label on older upgrades, the activation screens for a Windows 10 upgrade specifically confirm the existence of a “digital license. Anyway, the free upgrade offer was extended briefly, windoss least for people who use assistive technologies.

The FAQ on a separate page even called it a “free upgrade enterlrise extension” and pointedly noted that it was not limited to specific assistive technologies. Нажмите сюда regularly use the Magnifier utility in Windows, which is indisputably an assistive technology. Of course, I’m not a upgfade, and this column isn’t legal advice. But I will say that I am personally confident in the activation status of any PC upgraded using the tool on that page during the eligibility period.

This extension was, I think, a very large nod and a wink, windoes to make it easy for those who wanted a Windows 10 upgrade to still get it while placating the OEM partners who were none too happy about the year-long emphasis on upgrades rather than new PC sales.

Alas, I say “was,” because entterprise extension which was itself extended officially ended on Jan. The page that formerly ran an Upgrade Assistant now returns an error message. The /21743.txt question now is whether Microsoft will ever turn off the code on its activation servers that dispenses digital licenses after an upgrade from an earlier Windows version. I’ve continued to test that scenario, and I can confirm, long after the end of support for Windows 7, that it still works.

I continue windows 10 home to enterprise upgrade free hear from readers sharing their experiences. If you’ve used this technique on a PC, send a note to rree at realworldwindows dot com to let me know how it went for you.

Note: This article was originally published in January It has been updated multiple times since then to reflect the most current information. Home Business Enterprise Software. Microsoft’s much-hyped free upgrade offer for Windows 10 ended years ago, right? Not exactly. One digital license, no product key required. You can upgrade directly using this tool, or create separate media.

Ed Bott’s 10 windows 10 home to enterprise upgrade free popular Windows 10 tips. The wording here is remarkably vague. Show Comments. Log In to Comment Community Guidelines. Related How upgrase create and manage Windows accounts for your family. How to create and manage Windows 10 home to enterprise upgrade free accounts for your family.

Hackers are still finding – and using – flaws in Internet Explorer. Windows 11’s screenshot tool gets a screen recorder.

 

Upgrade Windows Home to Windows Pro.

 

Looking for a new Windows 10 laptop that won’t break the bank? These affordable options are available now. If you purchase a new PC with Windows 10 Home preinstalled, prepare to be annoyed. This down-market edition maybe we should just call it Windows for Cheapskates doesn’t have the features you need for getting real work done: Remote Desktop server access, BitLocker disk encryption, group policy support, and control over when updates get installed, just for starters.

Those keys can be reused to enable an upgrade from Windows 10 Home to Windows 10 Pro, potentially saving you the upgrade fee. In fact, you can use a product key from any of these older Windows versions to perform a clean install or to upgrade to Pro. It’s worth rummaging through your garage, storeroom, or email archives to see if you can locate one of those old keys. Maybe you still have a key for one of the heavily discounted upgrades to Windows 8 Pro that Microsoft offered in the first few months after that product’s ill-fated launch in 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.

Best of all, you only need to use the older product key one time. After you complete the upgrade from Windows 10 Home, the Windows 10 Pro digital license is attached to the specific hardware you just upgraded, allowing you to reinstall that edition of Windows on that hardware anytime, without the need for a product key. This scenario worked during the early Windows 10 upgrade program, and after some testing and multiple reports from independent testers worldwide I can confirm that it still succeeds in , more than five years later.

Microsoft first made this option available in Windows 10 version Since then, they have simplified the process dramatically. Here’s the scoop. Some vendors offer an upgrade option as part of the purchase, but many PCs sold in the retail channel are preloaded with Home edition.

This could also be the case if you took advantage of the free Windows 10 upgrade offer on a PC running a Home edition of Windows 7 or Windows 8. In either case, the upgrade takes just a few minutes. You’ll see a succession of progress screens and your system will restart. After the upgrade completes, you should see a Success notification. 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. If that happens to you, don’t bother searching for the product key you used to upgrade.

Instead, use Microsoft’s generic product key to force the upgrade. Next, enter the default Windows 10 Pro product key:. Follow the prompts to upgrade from Home to Pro. Because your hardware already has a digital license for the Pro edition, it will activate automatically. That generic product key isn’t magical, of course.

If your hardware doesn’t already have a Pro license, you’ll get an activation error and you’ll need to supply a proper product key or pay for an upgrade. This article has been completely rewritten to incorporate developments in recent feature updates to Windows 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. ZDNet Recommends. In recent versions of Windows 10, the upgrade from Home to Pro is quick and easy. Enter a product key here and then follow the prompts. If your PC already has a Pro license, don’t enter a product key when reinstalling. Windows 10 Here’s how you can still get a free Windows 10 upgrade Is your Windows license legal? Should you even care? The top Windows laptops compared How to manage your security questions for a local Windows account.

Show Comments. Log In to Comment Community Guidelines. Add Your Comment. Related How to manage your security questions for a local Windows account.

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