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[EDIT: SUCCESS!! This post is obsolete. See my post below for the procedure which successfully allowed me to transform an Installation of Windows 10 Enterprise Evaluation (Build 10.0.14393) into a valid activated installation of Windows 10 Professional build 10.0.14393 -- WITHOUT losing apps, files, or settings. Applying the procedure described in the present tutorial to the Enterprise Evaluation edition (and not the full enterprise edition) fails, because it is not possible to enter a valid Win 10 Pro key to change the product key of an EnterpriseEval install.]
Does this work to downgrade the Windows 10 Enterprise Evaluation (Build 10.0.14393)? I have a retail Windows 10 Pro key.
(Context: My mother's machine was completely hosed by the anniversary update. It would not boot, and I could not recreate the recovery environment. Following some advice I saw online, I downloaded the Enterprise Evaluation .iso; but the procedure I tried with that also failed. Desperate to give her a working machine, I burned a DVD from the Enterprise Evaluation .iso and installed it. It allowed me to save files, but not apps. But now, of course, it has the watermark in the bottom right corner which states that the "Windows Licence valid for 90 days". I would LOVE to be able to turn this into a Pro install without losing everything (again). Do I have a chance?
UPDATE: As a test, I tried to do it myself on a VirtualBox VM. First I installed the Enterprise Evaluation, then I tried to enter my retail product key. "that key doesn't work". Same for the generic key. I also tried a trickl suggested elsewhere, which was to change the ProductID and Name in the registry, and then do a repair install of WIn 10 Pro. in this case, the upgrade would only allow me to choose to keep "nothing". The reason was very cryptic:
"you cant keep windows settings, personal files and apps because your current version of windows might be installed in a unsupported directory."
THe 'current' windows install was a fresh clean install of the enterprise evaluation edition. If i knew what non-standard directory is used for its install, i could set restore it to the standard one and keep my files and apps. Oh well.
Last edited by sbpetrack; 09 Nov 2016 at 19:22. Reason: tried an experiemnetn and want to post the results