Buy a laptop with home and upgrade to pro?

Hi all

I need to buy a W11 laptop for my mom. If I buy her one with W11 home, can I up that to Pro (OEM) at some point?

question would be that does she need the pro features? Not likely yet you can install pro but believe you need a pro key.

The answer is yes.

you certainly can upgrade it, but the question really is whether it's worth the money to do the upgrade. Pro doesn't bring that much more to the table for the majority of people.

I bought a new Notebook Oct. 2021 with Win10 Pro, included the free Win11 Pro Upgrade, many are still being advertised that way. If it comes with Home it will upgrade to home, same for Pro. It's the embedded key on OEM computers [beginning with Win8] that determines what is activated but I've done some Win10 upgrading to Pro by entering a Win7 or Win8/8.1 Pro key. Haven't been blessed with having to do it on a Custom or self-built machine yet.

pparks1 said:

you certainly can upgrade it, but the question really is whether it's worth the money to do the upgrade. Pro doesn't bring that much more to the table for the majority of people.

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I would tend to trust the OP on that matter; they already to know that they would prefer Pro. Also, it's really a matter of what your specific needs are. Other than for setting up a test VM, I have not used Home on any system in a least a decade. If I get a machine with Home on it, it gets upgraded to Pro within a matter of the first few minutes in my possession

hsehestedt said:

I would tend to trust the OP on that matter; they already to know that they would prefer Pro. Also, it's really a matter of what your specific needs are. Other than for setting up a test VM, I have not used Home on any system in a least a decade. If I get a machine with Home on it, it gets upgraded to Pro within a matter of the first few minutes in my possession

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Oh, for sure, they have to make the final call. But I think many people just hear the word Pro and assume it must be the far better version and want to get on that to make sure they aren't missing anything. But if they aren't joining domain, and they aren't running Hyper-V, aren't going to mess with group policy, or they don't need to RDP into the box, they may not need it.

riffwraith said:

I need to buy a W11 laptop for my mom. If I buy her one with W11 home, can I up that to Pro (OEM) at some point?

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Yes. You just need to purchase Pro. The upgrade from Home to Pro just installs the Pro features, keeping all your installed apps and files.


But is it worth the expense? I have several Win11 laptops, both Home and Pro. There's little to choose between them for most things, not unless you really need Hyper-V or Bitlocker encryption.

Bree said:

Yes. You just need to purchase Pro. The upgrade from Home to Pro just installs the Pro features, keeping all your installed apps and files.

Upgrade Windows 11 Home to Windows 11 Pro

This tutorial will show you how to upgrade from Windows 11 Home to Windows 11 Pro without losing anything. You can directly upgrade your device from Windows 11 Home to the Windows 11 Pro edition without losing anything. Upgrading to Windows 11 Pro will include features only in the Pro edition...

www.elevenforum.com

But is it worth the expense? I have several Win11 laptops, both Home and Pro. There's little to choose between them for most things, not unless you really need Hyper-V or Bitlocker encryption.

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Or Remote Desktop Server - but that can be enabled on Home using RDP Wrapper. Hyper-V can also be enabled on Home as well.

Or group policy editor - that is pretty much exclusive to Pro and methods of enabling group police on Home don't work very well.

riffwraith said:

Hi all

I need to buy a W11 laptop for my mom. If I buy her one with W11 home, can I up that to Pro (OEM) at some point?

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Not wishing to be patronising but your average mum does not really need to use Pro features.

Why do you suggest upgrading to Pro which is possible but maybe an unnecessary expense?

Just to add, even tho many places will sell you a standalone OEM key, its not valid/legal/legit. OEM is meant to go with a computer, RETAIL is the stand alone key

You can change an OEM license to retail simply by changing the product key to the retail generic product key for the edition of Windows 10/11 installed. You change a Retail License to OEM by changing the product key to the OEM generic product key for the edition of Windows 10/11.

Also:
$6

Thanks all!

I have decided to buy a W11 Pro laptop for my mom.

Cheers.

I know you are all trying to help, but I don't like when everyone is start objecting over the OPs question. I have a post of my own, how to play UHD videos in an old 3rd gen i7 with nVidia GTX 1050 Ti and everyone was like "forget it, everyone uses streaming now". Please! I prefer when a poster gives a solution to the original question without criticizing.

Back in topic, yes his mom probably won't tell the difference whether she is using Windows XP or Windows 11 Pro for Workstations, as long as she covers her needs without lags, but we all prefer to have the best, regardless if we use all the features. It is like asking why buy an expensive car when you can use a cheap second hand? It is a matter of preference. Yes, you can upgrade from Home to Pro at any time, you just provide a valid Windows 7 Professional or Windows 8/8/1/10 Pro key. In fact if you already have a valid Pro key, you can even buy the computer without OS, if possible, or with Linux which will be cheaper and then format the disk and install Windows 11 Pro using that key. I would go that route to save a few bucks more. You can download the official Windows 11 ISO at Microsoft's site and use the Pro key to activate:


No need to use any tool, just scroll down to the third option, download the ISO directly. You can then burn to a DVD or use Rufus to create a bootable USB flash drive. If you don't know how to burn the DVD or create the USB, download the Media Creation Tool that can download the ISO and do it for you.

spapakons said:

Back in topic, yes his mom probably won't tell the difference whether she is using Windows XP or Windows 11 Pro for Workstations, as long as she covers her needs without lags, but we all prefer to have the best, regardless if we use all the features. It is like asking why buy an expensive car when you can use a cheap second hand? It is a matter of preference.

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Hopefully you didn't read my response as criticism, I said that you could upgrade, but did say the real question is whether it's worth it. It was legitimately a question that I think some don't necessarily think about.

As you stated above, we all prefer to have the best. At the same time, we all have to live within a certain budget. And if the features that Pro brings are completely unused by somebody, that upgrade money could perhaps be spent better elsewhere. Maybe a nicer monitor, a new keyboard, more memory, slightly larger capacity storage drive, etc. I think some people feel that Pro is better optimized, or runs faster, or provides more frames per second in a game....things that most users would benefit from. I think the most beneficial feature for a home user is the ability to RDP into the machine. This can help somebody with remote support if other tools aren't available. The rest of the Pro features like joining a domain....aren't going to be needed unless you have an IT person living in the house and running the network.

My situation? I have a network in my house with several computers but I don't have to Map any one of them, instead I use a NAS drive and any computer whether Wired or Wireless/Wi-Fi can be used to Map that drive to access stored data. None of the Pro features are required as I have both Pro and Home versions of Windows. I got started using the Pro versions back over 20 years ago when I worked in a computer shop, stay with it to be able to answer questions that may arise.

riffwraith said:

Thanks all!

I have decided to buy a W11 Pro laptop for my mom.

Cheers.

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Good decision. I was going to suggest that, but was waiting to get to the end of the thread. Most likely buying pro at the outset is cheaper than adding pro later.

Wynona said:

Good decision. I was going to suggest that, but was waiting to get to the end of the thread. Most likely buying pro at the outset is cheaper than adding pro later.

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Ditto. I haven't made an outright purchase of Win10 or Win11, mostly was able to do Upgrades from Win7 and Win8/8.1 or using Product Keys from the discontinued Microsoft Partners program. My last desktop and Notebook came with Win10 and the free license for Win11.

Something you didn't mention is that laptops with Windows 11 Pro usually have faster hardware than those with Windows 11 Home to justify the price difference. So buying a Pro laptop doesn't only gives you all the Pro features but also better performance. Again if you already have a Pro key you can buy a Home laptop or one without OS installed to save some money and use the Pro key to upgrade or install Windows 11 Pro.

To the original question yes you can upgrade easily. Just need a key. There are various ways to do that. But another reason to go with Pro and probably a good argument is remote access. Perhaps OP needs to remote into his mothers computer for any IT support. I know there are 3rd party options like Team Viewer, but perhaps they preferred the WIndows native solution? But looks like OP purchased a laptop with Pro so I guess that answers that. Cheers.