Interesting digital activation tests

cereberus · Jul 27, 2021

I have several activated PRO Hyper-V vms.

I also have an activated Home VM.

Tonight I was attaching a W11 Home VHD to test if you could still get HyperV in Home. However, I attached the VHD to a Pro VM by mistake, and I noticed it was activated!

I tested it on another Pro VM - same result.

I then tried it other way round i.e. putting a Pro VHDX on my Home VM and it failed to activate.

I did another test and created a Home SL installation and attached it to my Home VM and it also activated! It also activated when connected to Pro!

By the way, I have never had a Home SL licence!

So, as far as I can tell, if you have a Pro digital licence, it will let you run Home or Home SL as well (no real point in doing this but interesting none the less)

However, if you have a Home digital licence, it will not activate PRO. I presume same is true if I had a Home SL licence which I presume would not activate Home or Pro.

It kind of makes sense that it would work like this but never "discovered" this before!!

johnlgalt · Jul 27, 2021

@Kari found pretty much the same thing:

~~removed - not working~~

cereberus · Jul 27, 2021

johnlgalt said:
@Kari found pretty much the same thing:

https://www.elevenforum.com/t/windows-digital-license-a-product-key-generator.456/#post-10163

link is not working

johnlgalt · Jul 27, 2021

Apologies. I'll see if Kari can reproduce it here.

EDIT - I've asked him to post it here.

cereberus · Jul 27, 2021

johnlgalt said:
Apologies. I'll see if Kari can reproduce it here.

EDIT - I've asked him to post it here.

Thanks

johnlgalt · Jul 27, 2021

Welp, we can't have a reproduction of it - because this is actually a violation of the Microsoft EULA.

Quite possibly also why it can't be seen either. Who knows?

Bree · Jul 27, 2021

cereberus said:
Tonight I was attaching a W11 Home VHD to test if you could still get HyperV in Home. However, I attached the VHD to a Pro VM by mistake, and I noticed it was activated!

I have seen others report that W10 Home will activate on a PC with an existing digital licence for Pro. A permitted 'downgrade' option, perhaps?

cereberus · Jul 27, 2021

johnlgalt said:
Welp, we can't have a reproduction of it - because this is actually a violation of the Microsoft EULA.

Quite possibly also why it can't be seen either. Who knows?

No worries.

If you read the EULA, it is not actually that specific re. editions. I It just says you need a licence and only one installation on machine, and I was compliant with that.

In the end, this is more of an oddity than any practical use. If you have a valid Pro digital licence, you can upgrade legitimately the Home version by entering Pro generic key.

I did another test and installed 10 Pro on my 10 Pro N VM (@Kari kindly gave me an 8 Pro N licence a few years ago when I was unemployed for a long period) and I upgraded it to 10 Pro N.

In the past, it never activated if you installed 10 Pro normal version but tonight it did! Perhaps MS is quietly relaxing the restrictions - maybe to get more takeup on upgrading to W11?

Ghot · Jul 27, 2021

Microsoft wants everyone on every device, to be running Windows 11.

Friend: Hey man, lemme borrow your LED flashlight.

Me: Sorry bro... I can't do that, it's running Windows 11 at the moment.

badrobot · Jul 27, 2021

cereberus said:
No worries.

If you read the EULA, it is not actually that specific re. editions. I It just says you need a licence and only one installation on machine, and I was compliant with that.

In the end, this is more of an oddity than any practical use. If you have a valid Pro digital licence, you can upgrade legitimately the Home version by entering Pro generic key.

I did another test and installed 10 Pro on my 10 Pro N VM (@Kari kindly gave me an 8 Pro N licence a few years ago when I was unemployed for a long period) and I upgraded it to 10 Pro N.

In the past, it never activated if you installed 10 Pro normal version but tonight it did! Perhaps MS is quietly relaxing the restrictions - maybe to get more takeup on upgrading to W11?

Or maybe it is because the key you had is now a digital license? Once you log in to your microsoft account., it will get activated. Just be careful with your activation tests. Unusual and repetitive activation can lock your account out.

Bree · Jul 27, 2021

Bree said:
I have seen others report that W10 Home will activate on a PC with an existing digital licence for Pro. A permitted 'downgrade' option, perhaps?

@cereberus, I have just tested clean-installing Windows 10 Home (skipping entering a key) on a physical PC that only has a digital licence For Windows 10 Pro. I can confirm that a Pro digital licence does indeed activate an install that has the generic Home key, it's not just because yours was in a VM. As W11 uses the same licencing, the same should apply to activating your 11 Home from an 11 Pro digital licence.

Kari · Jul 27, 2021

It seems that a Windows digital license for a specific edition is also valid for any lesser edition. Need to test this, activating Education or Enterprise, and cheking if that license is also valid for Pro and Home...

Kari · Jul 27, 2021

My theory was wrong.

I imported an activated Windows 10 Enterprise Hyper-V VM:

... then wiped the disk and installed Windows 11 PRO. It was not activated:

Kari

Bree · Jul 27, 2021

Kari said:
... then wiped the disk and installed Windows 11 PRO. It was not activated:

You did skip entering a key and installed with the generic 3V66T Pro key? My 10 Home that activated off a 10 Pro digital licence in post #11 had the generic Home key.

Kari · Jul 27, 2021

Bree said:
You did skip entering a key and installed with the generic 3V66T Pro key? My 10 Home that activated off a 10 Pro digital licence in post #11 had the generic Home key.

Yes. Used the key VK7JG-NPHTM-C97JM-9MPGT-3V66T.

Bree · Jul 27, 2021

Kari said:
Yes. Used the key VK7JG-NPHTM-C97JM-9MPGT-3V66T.

Perhaps then it's only the Core (Home) edition that's allowed to activate from any higher digital licence?

johnlgalt · Jul 27, 2021

That would depend.

I suspect Enterprise won't come down to consumer license because they are different. But will Enterprise allow a downgrade to Pro for Workstations?

And we know Pro and validate Home. How about Ed Pro validating Ed?

And with Win11, Will Enterprise multi-session allow Enterprise, and maybe also Pro for Workstations? Will Home allow for Home single language (that should be a given, right?) Will IoT Enterprise allow for anything?

And where would Team fit in, under Enterprise?

Kari · Jul 27, 2021

johnlgalt said:
And where would Team fit in, under Enterprise?

Team edition is just a normal Enterprise, with some added tools for Surface Hub.

I think this will only work for consumer editions (SL, Home, Pro). I am now testing this by installing HOME for dual boot on VM with activated PRO, and see if it also activated.

Kari

johnlgalt · Jul 27, 2021

That was my inclination as well - but a confirmation through testing would be nice lol.

Consumer licenses are much different than the enterprise stuff, in my limited understanding of them, so, to me, it makes sense that SL, Home and Pro are the only ones that it works for. But I threw the other examples out there as a "What if ...?"

Kari · Jul 27, 2021

OK, that test was a success.

Scenario:

An activated Windows 11 PRO Hyper-V VM. Added another VHD, deployed W11 Home on it, and added it to Windows boot menu. The Home edition was automatically activated, although the machine previously only had Pro license.

I think that logic behind this is, that if the machine has digital license for the "best" consumer edition, which is PRO, both lesser editions (SL & HOME) are included in that license.

Kari

Interesting digital activation tests

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