Best upgrade choice - Home>Pro

Trying to make the best choice for a clean install of Win11 Pro.

Lenovo IdeaPad Pro 5 with 11 Home OEM. Want to end up with Pro, but trying to figure out if I should do a clean install of Home and then upgrade to Pro, or just purchase the retail version of Pro. Basically, there is a $50 difference retail vs upgrade, but I don't know if the upgrade route is worth the hassle to save the money. Advice would be appreciated.

TIA

When you upgrade to Pro Windows basically just installs additional components on to Home, so if things are running smoothly just upgrading the license is fine and it will save you a lot of time.

You can open system settings, go to System > Activation
Click the 'Change' button next to 'Change product key'
Enter your pro key and follow the prompts

That's about it

neemobeer said:

When you upgrade to Pro Windows basically just installs additional components on to Home, so if things are running smoothly just upgrading the license is fine and it will save you a lot of time.

You can open system settings, go to System > Activation
Click the 'Change' button next to 'Change product key'
Enter your pro key and follow the prompts

That's about it

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Thanks. Thing is, I am doing a clean install in any event, so the time is expensive. If the upgrade simply adds/unlocks specific features, then it seems the less expensive route ends up with the same result. Seems that then the upgrade is locked to this specific machine, cannot be moved to another, whereas the retail version could be reinstalled on another machine without issues... or am I missing something here?

I don't understand the hesitation here. the cost should be the same. You just need a pro key. Either replace the key or download the Pro ISO free.

You can get a retail license for Windows 11 Pro from Stack Social for $30, the Home license is $13. I run Pro on all the machines, there's no downside that I'm aware of with Pro, and it adds some features I use that are not included in the Home version.

badrobot said:

I don't understand the hesitation here. the cost should be the same. You just need a pro key. Either replace the key or download the Pro ISO free.

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Key Takeaways for OEM Licenses:

• Permanent Binding: Once activated, the OEM key is locked to the motherboard/BIOS of that PC.
• Motherboard Upgrades: If you replace the motherboard, the license is considered dead and cannot be transferred, essentially acting as a new PC.
• Retail vs. OEM: Only Retail versions of Windows (purchased separately from Microsoft or a store) are transferable to new machines.

Tranas said:

Key Takeaways for OEM Licenses:

• Permanent Binding: Once activated, the OEM key is locked to the motherboard/BIOS of that PC.
• Motherboard Upgrades: If you replace the motherboard, the license is considered dead and cannot be transferred, essentially acting as a new PC.
• Retail vs. OEM: Only Retail versions of Windows (purchased separately from Microsoft or a store) are transferable to new machines.

Click to expand...

What do you need the OEM key for anyway if you want to run Pro on the same machine? Are you planning to go back to Home version? You can get a $10 pro key if you need another one.

Tranas said:

Key Takeaways for OEM Licenses:

• Permanent Binding: Once activated, the OEM key is locked to the motherboard/BIOS of that PC.
• Motherboard Upgrades: If you replace the motherboard, the license is considered dead and cannot be transferred, essentially acting as a new PC.
• Retail vs. OEM: Only Retail versions of Windows (purchased separately from Microsoft or a store) are transferable to new machines.

Click to expand...

FWIW, Stack Social has retail licenses.

gunrunnerjohn said:

FWIW, Stack Social has retail licenses.

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Yep. That seems like the logical choice. Thanks.

gunrunnerjohn said:

FWIW, Stack Social has retail licenses.

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Well, those folks seem bogus at best. They are not interested in selling the 'product' via credit card, as the purchase can be contested via the bank. Giant red flag as they likely get their activation keys de-activated by Microsoft. Will find legit retail source. Thanks anyway...

badrobot said:

What do you need the OEM key for anyway if you want to run Pro on the same machine? Are you planning to go back to Home version? You can get a $10 pro key if you need another one.

Click to expand...

Because you are upgrading the OEM key. As you can see, Microsoft locks the key to the MB - it never becomes 'Retail'. No mystery.

gunrunnerjohn said:

You can get a retail license for Windows 11 Pro from Stack Social for $30, the Home license is $13. I run Pro on all the machines, there's no downside that I'm aware of with Pro, and it adds some features I use that are not included in the Home version.

View attachment 170557

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It is hard to tell if the license for Windows 11 you buy online are Retail of OEM since they don't say either way.

I looked carefully at the listings for Windows 11 on Stack Social for both sellers of Windows 11 Home and Pro.
Both of them said "Max number of device(s): 1 (non-transferable). To me that means OEM.

The only thing that bothers me is some sellers say that the software has to be installed within 30 days. What's up with that?

You have to be careful which link you click on Stack Social because the prices sometime jump around

Seller #1
Windows 11 Home $29.99
Windows 11 Pro $29.99

Seller #2
Windows 11 Home $12.97
Windows 11 Pro $12.97

Tranas said:

Well, those folks seem bogus at best. They are not interested in selling the 'product' via credit card, as the purchase can be contested via the bank. Giant red flag as they likely get their activation keys de-activated by Microsoft. Will find legit retail source. Thanks anyway...

Click to expand...

First off, they are NOT bogus. Last year, I bought one of the Win11 Pro keys from Stack Social for the $12.97 price using PayPal and I got a retail key. I asked before I purchased it, hard to go wrong for $13. Note the display below. I'm still using it on my video controller mini-computer, and it still updates and runs just fine.


Even PC-Mag featured this deal!

Get Windows 11 Pro for $12.97 Before this Exclusive Sale Code Run Out​

The deal still exists, Stack Social Windows 11 Pro for $12.97. You'll also see that they accept PayPal, which is money you can take back if it's not as represented!

You should do a little more research before declaring that a business is run by crooks.

Tranas said:

Well, those folks seem bogus at best. They are not interested in selling the 'product' via credit card, as the purchase can be contested via the bank. Giant red flag as they likely get their activation keys de-activated by Microsoft. Will find legit retail source. Thanks anyway...

Click to expand...

They may be grey market but those keys actually work (99% of the time). I never use credit card on those kind of sites anyway. I use Paypal. It's actually faster to make a dispute via Paypal than through credit card companies.

You could buy Windows directly from Microsoft and know for sure it is legitimate.

Microsoft online store (download or USB)
Windows 11 Home - $139.00
Windows 11 Pro - $199.99

Anywhere else you really don't know for sure. You could stick with big online sellers like Amazon or Newegg. I guess you can trust them.

I doubt Microsoft discounts software sold by retailers. In other words software sold by authorize sellers more than likely sells for about the same price that Microsoft sells it for. For example, I expect the following to be legitimate.

Newegg.com / Sold by Newegg
Windows 11 Home: OEM DVD $119.99 | Retail USB $129.00
Windows 11 Pro: OEM DVD $146.76 | Retail USB $199.99

Nore, I have not heard of Microsoft selling Windows on DVDs. Anyone else doing so is more than likely OK as long as the Product Key is valid.

I have read speculation about where all the cheap Windows keys are coming from. Nothing ever definitive. No matter how much talk there is I have never heard of Microsoft ever trying to stop any of it.

BTW, a Windows key said to be Retail means nothing. There are two kinds of retail keys. Ones sold by authorized sellers and those given to computer professionals. Microsoft sells Visual Studio Subscriptions (formerly MSDN) to computer professionals. These subscribers are given retail keys to most of their software including Windows. They are supposed to only be used for testing purposes. However, I am sure that many of these keys have "escaped" into the wild. Note unlike regular retail keys they can be used more than once to activate software. Their agreements with Microsoft say they are not to give these keys to anyone else.

Unscrupulous, online sellers could get hold of these Visual Studio keys and sell each key multiple times. As long as they don't get greedy and limit how many times they are probably OK. If they are activated too many times they will probably trigger the activation servers. That will lead to the keys being blocked from further activation.

I have reasonable confidence that Stack Social is legit, I can't imagine PC Mag featuring them like that if they were bogus. I've never seen a report that any Stack Social sale was a problem. I'm sure some reference does exist to a problem, but there aren't many. There are a host of other places that are less trustworthy, I know that Groupon was offering it for a similar price and so was BCDKEY. I'd much rather deal with Stack Social, I would trust them more.

MisterEd said:

BTW, a Windows key said to be Retail means nothing. There are two kinds of retail keys. Ones sold by authorized sellers and those given to computer professionals. Microsoft sells Visual Studio Subscriptions (formerly MSDN) to computer professionals. These subscribers are given retail keys to most of their software including Windows. They are supposed to only be used for testing purposes. However, I am sure that many of these keys have "escaped" into the wild. Note unlike regular retail keys they can be used more than once to activate software. Their agreements with Microsoft say they are not to give these keys to anyone else.

Unscrupulous, online sellers could get hold of these Visual Studio keys and sell each key multiple times. As long as they don't get greedy and limit how many times they are probably OK. If they are activated too many times they will probably trigger the activation servers. That will lead to the keys being blocked from further activation.

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I was a Microsoft MVP for a number of years, and we got keys to virtually everything that Microsoft produced. You could get ten keys for each software package, all the key issuing was done on-line.

If the Stack Social key is not legit, my video computer that's using it doesn't realize it and hasn't for almost a year!

gunrunnerjohn said:

I have reasonable confidence that Stack Social is legit, I can't imagine PC Mag featuring them like that if they were bogus. I've never seen a report that any Stack Social sale was a problem. I'm sure some reference does exist to a problem, but there aren't many. There are a host of other places that are less trustworthy, I know that Groupon was offering it for a similar price and so was BCDKEY. I'd much rather deal with Stack Social, I would trust them more.

Click to expand...

The trust is not where the keys come from but what the seller does if the key they sell you does not activate the software. A trustworthy seller simply replaces it without question.

The third party grey market keys are legitimate. There are surplus keys that have never been activated.

MisterEd said:

The trust is not where the keys come from but what the seller does if the key they sell you does not activate the software. A trustworthy seller simply replaces it without question.

Click to expand...

I'm sure that Stack Social would do just that, but I've had no reason to test that option.