Upgrading Windows 10 Home to Pro?

ThrashZone said:

Hi,
I suppose all MS could say is invalid key enter a valid pro key :)
Which by the way has happened to me also after I changed my mother board

My Pc's already have a DL for Pro, so I can do the upgrade from Home to Pro with the 3V66T key. When I upgraded to Pro for Workstations though, I got a "checking activation" something like that prompt while it verified my MSDN key. Once my key checked out it upgraded without rebooting. Now, as far as I know, I can upgrade to Pro for Workstations with that Editions generic key. Or just reenter my MSDN key. Usually, I just install the Edition I want on that PC. But when I want to test stuff I may install Home. Then when I'm done poking around, I upgrade to pro etc with a change product code.

cereberus said:

I believe entering a 10 PRO oem key at change product key should work assuming key is valid (putting aside perennial discussion over legality of using oem keys) . Unfortunately many are scams.

What will work I am confident is to create a dual boot pc with 10 PRO (in a vhd is a good way), activate that, creating a digital licence, and then enter generic key.

I used generic key on Home a few minutes ago, and the error message did not say you could not use a generic key but it could not verify pc would activate, so if pc had a digital licence.

I will test this by installing Home in a vhd on a vm which has PRO activated and see what happens then.

I've done so many test installs that there are things I just can't test. Not on my real hardware anyway. Most of my PC's now have DL's for Home, Pro, Pro for Workstations, Education, and Enterprise. Everything except 10 SL. I should probably start messing with VM's. Maybe some day, lol.

Well, I just installed 10 Home 16299 as a dual boot in a VM that has Pro installed and activated, and I never have installed Home in this VM, and went to activation menu to try and see what happens if I enter a generic key, and it was activated as Home - that I do not understand!

Anyway, I entered generic key and it accepted it and did upgrade.

It did not accept it on a VM without a PRO digital licence.

So here is how to upgrade Home to Pro if it will not accept OEM licence to upgrade. Key steps only - not detail.

1) create a vhd

2) boot from media creation tool

3) press shift+f10 to get to command prompt

4) attach vhd and install 10 pro in vhd

5) activate 10 pro with oem key

6) reboot to Home

7) enter generic VK7JG-NPHTM-C97JM-9MPGT-3V66T key and Home will upgrade and activate

8) delete pro vhd from step 1, and remove boot entry (msconfig)/

I know this works (apart from step 5 as I do not have a pro oem key - only a retail one but I see no reason why it would not activate assuming key is valid.

Steve C said:

I bought a cheap key to upgrade from Home to Pro via Amazon so I could get my money back if it didn't work. The key worked and the Pro version is now activated with a digital licence linked to my MS account. Is the key I bought relevant anymore now I have the digital licence? I thought activation with the DL is done by monitoring the PC's hardware profile so how is the key relevant post the upgrade?

I'm not sure if its relevant, as in tracked, recorded etc? You can install without it now. Provided you install that same Edition, on that same hardware. You just skip entering a key and it will activate with the Digital License it already has.