Windows 11 Pro Activation Issue - New Laptop

mccnavy · Dec 31, 2023

Please just point me to a previous thread if this has already been answered already. I just received a new HP laptop for my wife and set it up yesterday. I believe it initially showed activated with Windows 11 Pro...as advertised and purchased. However, it came with 22H2 and wasn't picking up 23H2 in Windows Update nor the standalone Update Catalog installer. I decided to do an in-place upgrade with an ISO and while it worked to update to 23H2, somehow I lost Windows activation. I ran the troubleshooter and it says it can find a Home digital license but that I need to purchase a Pro key. I've reached out to the seller (Amazon) to see if they can give me a new key...my assumption is that for my configuration HP puts Home OEM keys in the BIOS and either they or the final seller upgrade them to Pro depending on configuration? Hardware-wise, machine is good so I don't want to return...nor do I want to go through the pain of de-bloating and installing everything again. I assume my options are either to use the registry file on this site to downgrade to Home and do another in-place upgrade, hope that the seller will give me a new key that I can just enter under the "change product key" option, or buy my own key...If I do the latter, since I already have Pro installed, I could buy an OEM (not Retail) key...cheaper...and use that to activate, correct? Thanks for help in advance.

James · Dec 31, 2023

Are you sure you did a Pro in-place upgrade? Nowadays, the windows activation keys are a digital licence attached to your PC which should therefore be permanent.

What happens if you open command prompt as admin and then paste
wmic path SoftwareLicensingService get OA3xOriginalProductKey?

tecknot · Dec 31, 2023

Off topic...

Hi @James. Do you have a command for getting the current Product Key?

Kind regards,

tecknot

mccnavy · Dec 31, 2023

James said:
Are you sure you did a Pro in-place upgrade? Nowadays, the windows activation keys are a digital licence attached to your PC which should therefore be permanent.

What happens if you open command prompt as admin and then paste wmic path SoftwareLicensingService get OA3xOriginalProductKey?

A key did pop up after entering the command...the issue "I think" is that laptop originally probably came with a Home digital license and either HP or the ultimate seller updated to Pro....I could be wrong. I suspect that the key being shown is for Home...somehow whatever Pro key was used in the image has been lost or corrupted or something. I just tried to contact HP and the online support was worthless.

SIW2 · Dec 31, 2023

you could try entering the generic pro key and see if that prompts it to check online again
VK7JG-NPHTM-C97JM-9MPGT-3V66T

BobOmb · Dec 31, 2023

James said:
What happens if you open command prompt as admin and then paste wmic path SoftwareLicensingService get OA3xOriginalProductKey?

Out of curiosity, is there a way to get the edition of that key pragmatically? Or is that all we get?

Winuser · Dec 31, 2023

If the command you ran says Windows 11 Home then the laptop shipped with Windows 11 Home. If it was upgraded to Pro it was done by whoever you bought it from. I could be wrong bought I think the laptop was activated with Win 11 Home and not Pro. If it was updated to and activated with a pro key you need to contact the seller.

Bree · Dec 31, 2023

BobOmb said:
Out of curiosity, is there a way to get the edition of that key pragmatically? Or is that all we get?

Yes. That is one of the options available in ShowKeyPlus. It can read and display your installed key, and any OEM key in your bios. You can also check any key, just type it in and it can tell you the Windows version (7, 8, 10/11) and edition (Core (aka Home), Pro, etc.).

ShowKeyPlus - Windows 10 Help Forums

I have converted the vbs to .Net for speed and backward compatibility with Win 8.0. Should be fine on WTP, but please report any bugs (This is a quite

www.tenforums.com

SIW2 · Dec 31, 2023

If the op is not mistaken and it was Pro activated, then there should be a record of that on ms activation servers.

Unless it was activated using a key from an earlier os > free upgrade. There have been problems reported activating after reinstall in that scenario.

Supposedly ms is aware of the problem but I dont know what they can do to fix it now.

Has the op tried the suggestion in my earlier post?

you could try entering the generic pro key and see if that prompts it to check online again
VK7JG-NPHTM-C97JM-9MPGT-3V66T

kiwiaz · Dec 31, 2023

SIW2 said:
Unless it was activated using a key from an earlier os > free upgrade. There have been problems reported activating after reinstall in that scenario.

Supposedly ms is aware of the problem but I dont know what they can do to fix it now.

Good point. We know MS has disallowed many legitimate keys from earlier versions and so far, doing nothing to rectify it.

James · Jan 1, 2024

tecknot said:
Off topic...

Hi @James. Do you have a command for getting the current Product Key?

Kind regards,

tecknot

Of what I have tried using this command, it gives me my current product key.

James · Jan 1, 2024

BobOmb said:
Out of curiosity, is there a way to get the edition of that key pragmatically? Or is that all we get?

Yes. Using ShowKeyPlus:

ShowKeyPlus - Windows 10 Help Forums

I have converted the vbs to .Net for speed and backward compatibility with Win 8.0. Should be fine on WTP, but please report any bugs (This is a quite

www.tenforums.com

..
@mccnavy

Please can you try downloading the software from above link and entering the product key found through the prior command. Please screenshot what is shown. (But not the product key of course.)

cereberus · Jan 1, 2024

SIW2 said:
If the op is not mistaken and it was Pro activated, then there should be a record of that on ms activation servers.

Unless it was activated using a key from an earlier os > free upgrade. There have been problems reported activating after reinstall in that scenario.

Supposedly ms is aware of the problem but I dont know what they can do to fix it now.

Has the op tried the suggestion in my earlier post?

It could be a dodgy volume licence key activation - common scam.

@mccnavy

run following from an admin command prompt

Code:

slmgr /dlv

and tell us what it says on line highlighted in yellow:

mccnavy · Jan 1, 2024

Thanks all for the help and advice. I ended up buying a license yesterday and it worked (slmgr /dlv shows it was a retail key)....my wife would be using this laptop for work so I wanted to get it up and running. I also let the Amazon seller know...either they can give me a key that I could upgrade my laptop from Home to Pro, or I may just ask them for partial refund/reimbursement for the key I purchased yeterday. We'll see.

I also downloaded ShowKeyPlus as recommended.

ShowKeyPlus is showing the Windows 11 Pro key I entered yesterday...as expected. Under upgrades it shows (2)...I believe the first is for 22H2 that was originally installed and the second is likely the 23H2 update/upgrade I did that erased the previous Win 11 Pro key (or whatever happened). For the firmware key, it says "Win10 RTMCore OEM/DM."

For comparison...I also installed ShowKeyPlus on my six-year old desktop that originally had Win 10 and I upgraded to Win 11. It shows 24 upgrades...almost a complete history of major Win 10 and Win 11 upgrades/updates. Interesting.

Winuser · Jan 1, 2024

mccnavy said:
Thanks all for the help and advice. I ended up buying a license yesterday and it worked (slmgr /dlv shows it was a retail key)....my wife would be using this laptop for work so I wanted to get it up and running. I also let the Amazon seller know...either they can give me a key that I could upgrade my laptop from Home to Pro, or I may just ask them for partial refund/reimbursement for the key I purchased yeterday. We'll see.

I also downloaded ShowKeyPlus as recommended.

ShowKeyPlus is showing the Windows 11 Pro key I entered yesterday...as expected. Under upgrades it shows (2)...I believe the first is for 22H2 that was originally installed and the second is likely the 23H2 update/upgrade I did that erased the previous Win 11 Pro key (or whatever happened). For the firmware key, it says "Win10 RTMCore OEM/DM."

For comparison...I also installed ShowKeyPlus on my six-year old desktop that originally had Win 10 and I upgraded to Win 11. It shows 24 upgrades...almost a complete history of major Win 10 and Win 11 upgrades/updates. Interesting.

Can you post a link to the laptop you purchased? I'd like to see how the seller listed it.

mccnavy · Jan 1, 2024

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CJ5C8YMM?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details&th=1

Hopefully this works.

Bree · Jan 1, 2024

mccnavy said:
It shows 24 upgrades...almost a complete history of major Win 10 and Win 11 upgrades/updates. Interesting.

Yes, the Windows 10 on my System One that got upgraded to 11 was migrated from my old Legacy/MBR laptop, so can trace it's upgrade history back to an original OEM Window 7.

There are other ways to read that upgrade history.

View Windows Upgrade History in Windows 10

How to View Windows Upgrade History in Windows 10

www.tenforums.com

Winuser · Jan 1, 2024

mccnavy said:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CJ5C8YMM?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details&th=1

Hopefully this works.

If that's the laptop you bought then ShowKeyPlus should show the Pro Key under OEM Key:. What key does it show? I wonder if the seller sent you the wrong laptop. I doubt that HP or the seller upgraded the laptop from the Home version to the Pro version.

SIW2 · Jan 1, 2024

For the firmware key, it says "Win10 RTMCore OEM/DM.

Not surprising.

If the laptop was aimed at the business market it would probably have pro. Laptops for the average punter are much more likely to come with a lower edititon.

If it was sold with Pro, the seller upgraded it.

Winuser · Jan 1, 2024

SIW2 said:
Not surprising.

If the laptop was aimed at the business market it would probably have pro. Laptops for the average punter are much more likely to come with a lower edititon.

If it was sold with Pro, the seller upgraded it.

I wonder if they used a MAK key to upgrade.