Looking for:
Looking for:
Upgrade windows 10 home to professional without reinstalling free download
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 downlod 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 withhout 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 protessional 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 upgrade windows 10 home to professional without reinstalling free download Microsoft offered in the first few months after upgrade windows 10 home to professional without reinstalling free download 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 upgrade windows 10 home to professional without reinstalling free download 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 professioal and multiple reports from independent testers worldwide I can teinstalling that it still succeeds inmore than five professioal 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 больше информации 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 upgrae servers will recognize the hardware and activate Windows 10 automatically. I have tested this scenario multiple upgrade windows 10 home to professional without reinstalling free download 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. Homme 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 upgrade windows 10 home to professional without reinstalling free download 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.
Wiithout how to get that upgrade for free. Previously, she was an editor at 9to5Mac, 9to5Google, and Pocket-lint. In recent versions of Windows 10, the upgrade reinnstalling 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. David made the leap from print to online publishing inwhen he joined Ziff-Net’s Software Library. Here’s how to use one.
But as of now, it is rolling out parallels desktop free testers in the near-final Release Preview channel. She is the author of Microsoft 2. Send her an email with your rants, rumors, tips, and tattles. Confidentiality guaranteed. I do not own Microsoft reinsalling or stock in any of its partners or competitors. I have done paid speaking engagements for Microsoft and some of its partners, but none where all the content is not my own.
As ever, that depends on what you want to do with it and how upgrade windows 10 home to professional without reinstalling free download budget is at your disposal. Here are ZDNet’s current top picks for a variety of use cases. She has experience download flashplayer windows countless advice pieces and has written over 8, articles — including news, how-tos, explainers, and reviews on technology and even TV and entertainment-focused content — for several leading online publications.
She was also a US contributor at Pocket-lint. Before that, she worked as a beat reporter at different regional newspapers in Northeast America and freelanced for global websites such as the BBC. Not exactly. We’ve made it to and my readers report that you can still use Microsoft’s free upgrade tools to install Windows 10 on an old PC running Windows 7 or Windows 8.
No product key is required, and the digital license says you’re activated and ready to go. Show Comments. Log In to Comment Community Guidelines. Related Hate Windows 11? Here’s how to make it work more like Windows Hate Windows 11?
How to recover deleted files in Windows 10 or
How to upgrade from Windows 10 Home to Pro using an OEM code | PCWorld – Upgrade Windows 10 32 bit to 64 bit without data loss
Select Start > Settings > Update & Security > Activation. Under Upgrade your edition of Windows, select Change product key. Learn how to upgrade Windows 10 Home to Windows 10 Pro to access more advanced security and networking features.
