How To Upgrade To Windows 10 Pro

If y'all purchase a new PC with Windows 10 Dwelling preinstalled, fix to be annoyed. This downward-market edition (maybe we should only telephone call information technology Windows for Cheapskates) doesn't have the features you lot need for getting existent work done: Remote Desktop server access, BitLocker disk encryption, group policy back up, and command over when updates become installed, merely for starters.

You could pay $99 for an upgrade, only before yous achieve for your wallet, consider a less expensive option.

Exercise you take an old product key from Windows 7 Pro, Windows 7 Ultimate, or Windows 8/8.1 Pro lying around? Those keys can be reused to enable an upgrade from Windows x Home to Windows 10 Pro, potentially saving you the upgrade fee. In fact, you can use a product key from whatever of these older Windows versions to perform a clean install or to upgrade to Pro.

In contempo versions of Windows 10, the upgrade from Home to Pro is quick and piece of cake.

Information technology's worth rummaging through your garage, storeroom, or electronic mail archives to come across if you can locate one of those sometime keys. Maybe you even so have a key for i of the heavily discounted upgrades to Windows 8 Pro that Microsoft offered in the first few months afterward that product'south ill-fated launch in 2012.

Or maybe you have a shrink-wrapped retail copy of Windows vii Professional person or Ultimate, where the license associated with the product fundamental is no longer in use.

Best of all, you only need to apply the older product primal i fourth dimension. After you consummate the upgrade from Windows 10 Dwelling house, the Windows ten Pro digital license is fastened to the specific hardware yous just upgraded, assuasive you to reinstall that edition of Windows on that hardware anytime, without the demand for a product primal.

This scenario worked during the early on Windows 10 upgrade plan, and after some testing and multiple reports from independent testers worldwide I can confirm that it still succeeds in 2021, more than five years subsequently.

Microsoft first made this option bachelor in Windows 10 version 1511. Since then, they have simplified the process dramatically.

I've been testing upgrade/activation scenarios on a broad variety of hardware over the years to see how things work. Here's the scoop.

UPGRADING A NEW PC FROM HOME TO PRO

Allow's say y'all purchase a new PC with Windows x Dwelling installed by the OEM. Some vendors offer an upgrade choice as office of the purchase, merely many PCs sold in the retail channel are preloaded with Home edition.

This could as well be the instance if you lot took reward of the free Windows ten upgrade offer on a PC running a Home edition of Windows vii or Windows 8.x.

In either case, the upgrade takes merely a few minutes. Showtime at Settings > Update & Security > Activation, where you should encounter a screen that looks something like this:

The Pro upgrade accepts product keys from older business organization (Pro/Ultimate) versions of Windows.

If you don't take a Pro product key and you want to purchase one, y'all can click Go To The Store and purchase the upgrade for $100. Easy.

Only if you lot have a product key for Windows 10 Pro, Windows 7 Professional person or Ultimate, or Windows 8/8.ane Pro, there's a less expensive choice: Click the Alter Product Central link and enter that 25-character key here.

Enter a production cardinal hither and and so follow the prompts.

After entering the production key, follow the prompts to perform the upgrade.

Y'all'll run into a succession of progress screens and your system will restart. After the upgrade completes, y'all should encounter a Success notification. Check the Activation screen again to confirm that you're now running Windows 10 Pro.

Make clean REINSTALL

After yous've successfully performed a Home-to-Pro upgrade, y'all tin file that product fundamental away. Your upgrade is at present a digital license, attached to your unique hardware. If you perform a reinstallation of Windows, Microsoft's activation servers will recognize the hardware and actuate Windows 10 automatically.

I take tested this scenario multiple times on hardware that originally shipped with Windows Home and was upgraded to Windows x Pro. After the upgrade was complete, I used a bootable USB flash bulldoze containing Windows x setup files to reinstall a clean copy of Windows 10 Pro, skipping the option to enter a product key equally function of setup, as shown below. When prompted, be certain to cull Windows 10 Pro every bit the edition to install.

If your PC already has a Pro license, don't enter a product fundamental when reinstalling.

When setup was consummate, I signed in and checked the activation condition (Settings > Update & Security > Activation). The system was properly activated, considering Microsoft's servers recognized the hardware and used the digital license.

CLEAN REINSTALL, WITH EDITION UPGRADE

The 1 gotcha in this series of scenarios comes when you have a arrangement that includes digital licenses for both Windows x Home and Windows ten Pro. In that scenario, you can inadvertently restore Windows x 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. Non surprisingly, using the recovery epitome gave me an installation of Windows x 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.

Go to Settings > Update & Security > Activation and click Change Production Key. Side by side, enter the default Windows x Pro product central:

VK7JG-NPHTM-C97JM-9MPGT-3V66T

Follow the prompts to upgrade from Domicile to Pro. Considering 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.

Any questions?

This article has been completely rewritten to incorporate developments in recent characteristic updates to Windows ten.