Solved downgrade via a disk image?

hansie · Aug 6, 2022

I have a disk-image with win11 home, now I am running win11 pro.
If I want to downgrade is restoring the disk-image enough??

Regards
Hans

wiganken · Aug 6, 2022

You will have bought a new licence for the Win11 Pro version so the licence for the Win11 Home version is still valid. I therefore imagine that you will be able to reinstall Win 11 Home from the disk image but create another image first for Win11 Pro. That way you will have images for both and able to swap back if you want to.

Caveat - You will lose any user files you created in Win11 Pro so backup these first so that you can copy them to Win11 Home version.

hansie · Aug 6, 2022

I understand, thank you!!

NavyLCDR · Aug 6, 2022

wiganken said:
You will have bought a new licence for the Win11 Pro version

How did you draw that conclusion from the information provided?

glasskuter · Aug 6, 2022

You can downgrade using the disk image IF the image was made of that machine when it was licensed with Windows 11 Home installed.

It's a shame to pay for a Pro license and not use it though. Pro has a lot of benefits. Once you restore the image of 11 verify that it is activated,

You can go to your MS account and verify the device and the correct operating system are registered to your account. Manage devices used with your Microsoft account

hansie · Aug 7, 2022

Thank you for your answer. Regarding: "It's a shame to pay for a Pro license and not use it though. Pro has a lot of benefits."
I payed for the upgrade to get bitlocker. Not knowing that bitlocker takes 20 hour for locking a drive. Hours more for usb sticks etc. It can be a nice product (bitlocker) but it is a disappointment. Besides that: I am using windows insider preview, with the new pro version I have experienced three times that all my drives are changed into read only (so my pc is useless). Of course when I rolled back it works nice again, till the next update (after a few days). Reported it in the feedback. For the rest.....I do not see so much extra in the pro version, I am using. It was realy for the bitlocker I did. That realy toke me days of my life. Sorry.
Anyway, thanks for al the answers!

BrianInEngland · Aug 7, 2022

hansie said:
Thank you for your answer. Regarding: "It's a shame to pay for a Pro license and not use it though. Pro has a lot of benefits."
I payed for the upgrade to get bitlocker. Not knowing that bitlocker takes 20 hour for locking a drive. Hours more for usb sticks etc. It can be a nice product (bitlocker) but it is a disappointment. Besides that: I am using windows insider preview, with the new pro version I have experienced three times that all my drives are changed into read only (so my pc is useless). Of course when I rolled back it works nice again, till the next update (after a few days). Reported it in the feedback. For the rest.....I do not see so much extra in the pro version, I am using. It was realy for the bitlocker I did. That realy toke me days of my life. Sorry.
Anyway, thanks for al the answers!

Why not just keep Pro but not use BitLocker? It's not a requirement to encrypt drives, Pro does have other advantages

hansie · Aug 7, 2022

I get those nasty harddiks lockups, suddenly out of the blue. ok....with pro I get:
Group policy: I already had this in Home (via, via)
Connect other computer: I am using teamviewer
Sandbox: I have alternative program.
I was really using Pro for bitlocker.....
Thank you very much for caring.
Regards
Hans

wiganken · Aug 7, 2022

@NavyLCDR - In answer to your question: - I know the OP can't have used the 'upgrade' path from 'Win11 Home' to 'Win11 Pro' since it isn't possible (is it?) so he must have 'aquired' a new 'Win11 Pro' licence and I assume he did not get it free. This is why I said "You will have bought a new licence for the Win11 Pro version".

Rightly or wrongly that is my reasoning.

hansie · Aug 7, 2022

I have upgrade the home to pro for 99US$. Via the activation screen in Windows

Bree · Aug 7, 2022

hansie said:
Regarding: "It's a shame to pay for a Pro license and not use it though. Pro has a lot of benefits."
I payed for the upgrade to get bitlocker. .... It can be a nice product (bitlocker) but it is a disappointment.

There are two reasons I bought a Pro upgrade for one of my Win10 machines, and neither of then are Bitlocker. The same can be said for my Win11 machines. I avoid using Bitlocker on all of them.

The first and foremost benefit of Pro (for me) is to be able to use Hyper-V virtual machines. The second benefit is the Group Policy editor, in particular the policy to have Windows Update notify me of new updates, but not to download and install until I tell it to.

hansie said:
Besides that: I am using windows insider preview, with the new pro version I have experienced three times that all my drives are changed into read only (so my pc is useless).

That's not a common fault. I'm running the Insider Release Preview of W11 Pro on one of my machines without any issues.

glasskuter · Aug 7, 2022

Unlike a lot of others here, I have strong feelings against bitlocker. I have turned it off in control panel, services, group policy, and in the registry. Overkill...Yes it is. I just wanted to make sure there was no way in hell it could get turned on. If one needs it, the concept of bitlocking drives can be a good one, but it has caused havoc for some. I wanted to make sure I wasn't one of them.

BrianInEngland · Aug 7, 2022

glasskuter said:
Unlike a lot of others here, I have strong feelings against bitlocker. I have turned it off in control panel, services, group policy, and in the registry. Overkill...Yes it is. I just wanted to make sure there was no way in hell it could get turned on. If one needs it, the concept of bitlocking drives can be a good one, but it has caused havoc for some. I wanted to make sure I wasn't one of them.

I never use BitLocker either