Method of buying Home to Pro Upgrade that gets a Re-usable Key?

Hi all. I'm sure it's not new information, but the Microsoft store in the UK has just told me that they will sell a Win 10 Home to Pro upgrade (if I can find it on the site, it's far from obvious where it's offered - clearly not high on their priority list), but not provide a product key with it. I've just bought a new Asus notebook with Win 10 Home installed as OEM.

Meaning that getting clean install of Win 10 Pro on it requires first clean installing WIn 10 Home using the OEM key and then buying the upgrade to Pro.

Which still isn't much use since without a key for Pro I'd have to buy the upgrade yet again in say 12m if I did another clean install for maintenance purposes. I couldn't install the Pro on another PC if I bought one either.

It seems very harsh of Microsoft to force an existing Win 10 Home customer to buy either a highly compromised upgrade which makes no sense at all, or failing that the full Pro licence at double the price (around £200) to get the Pro key. Especially given all the free upgrades sloshing about in 2015.

Does anybody know of a way around this?

Thanks

You currently have a Windows 10 Home OEM license. That means it is for that computer only. If you UPGRADE that computer to Windows 10 Pro by purchasing an UPGRADE for it at the reduced price of an upgrade instead of a full version, then that upgrade is also OEM and for that computer only.

The good news is that you only have to purchase the upgrade once. Once you do the upgrade, that computer is licensed for Windows 10 Pro for the life of that computer and you can re-install Windows 10 Pro at any time in the future on the same computer without having to purchase it again.

If you want the ability to move the Windows 10 Pro to another computer in the future, then you need to purchase the full retail Windows 10 Pro.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/...ng-home-to-pro

There are several vendors other than Microsoft that you can purchase a Windows 10 Pro product key from, you just have to google Windows 10 Pro product key. I cannot comment on the reputation of any of the sellers you might see on google.

Not sure what a "highly compromised upgrade" means.

MS is phasing out the 'product key' in favour of a licensing system based on the hardware (i.e Motherboard) that Windows 10 is installed upon, and stored by MS online on their activation server system.

They want you to register this by linking it to your Microsoft Account (MSA) then use your MSA if you need to transfer your retail product to replacement hardware.

You buy a retail license, install the OS software onto your new hardware, log on with your MSA, and there should be an automatic Activation. Then you can log off the MSA if you wish, and the hardware remains activated.

If not automatic, you use your phone as in the cases of activation not happening in the past.

I don't think MS has worked out all the bugs yet - like removing digital license activation from hardware that has been deprecated by the user.

Which you could see as a bonus...

Ta for coming back so quickly guys. I meant compromised F in that I'd understood from MS support this morning that it wasn't possible to re-install the upgrade on the same computer. It's not so bad LCDR if the computer is in fact licensed for life - I only need a single machine licence anyway. The guy I spoke to talked about my losing the upgrade in the event that it needed re-intstalling on the notebook/if the notebook needed work - and pushed the full retail Pro pretty hard.

Sounds like I'd better call MS support again and double check it in case there's some difference (doubt it) on the UK site. Alternatively perhaps I misunderstood.

It'd be nice if the licence would transfer to another PC, but I suppose that could open the way to abuse. Although it'd seem (?) that registering the new computer on the relevant MSA and cancelling the old should get around that. That would disable the old computer though, which might be problematical too.

Ta for the link, but that key site looks a little on the adventurous side for me TO. :) I'm happy to pay for an upgrade - it's just that I was bothered (as I thought) that the OEM Home on the Asus was essentially allocated no value/credit (if a full retail Pro licence had to be bought), and especially at the suggestion that the Pro upgrade could not be re-installed.

Hi A. I guess that's the advantage of buying the full retail copy of Pro and getting the key for it. I think (after some thought) that I'll go that route rather than the Pro upgrade to keep it simple.

To the earlier stuff. I called MS Store UK tech support again just now and asked about he limitations of the Pro Upgrade - got a guy who wasn't rushing.

He confirmed that the Pro Upgrade can be repeatedly clean re-installed. He pointed out though that a clean install will remove the Home key and/or other identifying information (?) from the computer, and advised setting up an MS account. That way there would be a record of purchases. It'd still require re-insalling the OEM licensed copy of Home first though. (hope I got that right)

He also confirmed that the Upgrade is non -transferable to other computers.

ondablade said:

He confirmed that the Pro Upgrade can be repeatedly clean re-installed. He pointed out though that a clean install will remove the Home key and/or other identifying information (?) from the computer, and advised setting up an MS account. That way there would be a record of purchases. It'd still require re-insalling the OEM licensed copy of Home first though. (hope I got that right)

And he got that one wrong too. First, if the computer came from the manufacturer with Windows 10 Home, the product key for Windows 10 Home is stored in UEFI and cannot be removed. A reinstall of Windows 10 will, by default, install the version it fingds a product key for in UEFI/BIOS and it will activate. The user must take active steps to get Windows 10 Pro to install if there is a product key for Home stored in UEFI/BIOS. Second, there are plenty of us members here, including myself, who upgraded our Windows 7 and 8 Home versions to Windows 10 Home and then subsequently upgraded to Windows 10 Pro later. Our computers, including mine, will activate via digital license on both Home and Pro versions.

Ho hum. Thanks guys. Seems like MS support may not be all that reliable.

Is getting past the Home key in the UEFI difficult, or just a matter of selecting one of whatever number of presented options?