Windows 11 Pro installed, machine has W11 Home key and won't accept a Pro key

idgat · Jun 17, 2022

Superfly said:
Changing the key to Win 8 RTM Professional OEM accepted the key but no upgrade - remained Home activated.

Changing the key to Microsoft Windows 7 Professional Retail did go the upgrade.

Did you reboot. IIRC, a W8.x upgrade key requires a reboot (?) ... Well, one of them does and given your experience, I suspect it's 8

Superfly · Jun 17, 2022

idgat said:
Did you reboot. IIRC, a W8.x upgrade key requires a reboot (?) ... Well, one of them does and given your experience, I suspect it's 8

No, I was expecting that blue popup "we are going to upgrade" thingy. Got the notification with the retail key, however.

Superfly · Jun 17, 2022

Superfly said:
Correct..

I Installed Home with a Microsoft Windows 8.1 RTM Core OEM:NONSLP key and it activated
View attachment 31658

Changing the key to Win 8 RTM Professional OEM accepted the key but no upgrade - remained Home activated.

Changing the key to Microsoft Windows 7 Professional Retail did go the upgrade.

I just did a clean install on the same VM and it activated automatically

Tekkie Boy · Jun 17, 2022

For an clean install on a PC with Home Key in Bios create an ei.cfg file with this content:

[EditionID]
Professional
[Channel]
Retail

There you can read more about the file and where to save it:

Windows Setup Edition Configuration and Product ID Files (EI.cfg and PID.txt)

docs.microsoft.com

Or install Windows Home, cut the Internet connection and then open the Setting and go to Activation and change the Product Key to the Generic Pro Key:
VK7JG-NPHTM-C97JM-9MPGT-3V66T

You will then get an error message. Ignore them and restart the computer.

The Windows Edtion should then have changed to Pro.

After that go back to change product key and change the key to the existing one to activate windows.

MaxLinuxOnWin11 · Sep 28, 2023

I am having this problem too, for some reason my digital activation to Windows 11 Pro broke when I tried to use Reset this PC in Windows 11, then upon reloading windows 11 and logging into my email account, it said windows 11 was un-activated and the digital license that was connected my outlook email was gone, I was able to install windows 11 home and reconnect it but then my Windows 11 Pro digital license would not connect or work again, this sounds like the problem that just happened to me yesterday, I had used reset this pc since my USB mouse was not powering on correctly something had gone wrong with my install of windows 11, when I reset it the mouse was working again, and not having the no power problem when booting up windows 11 on my Z690 AORUS desktop. There was a new option under Reset This pc, something to do with either reinstalling manufacturers apps or removing them like a yes or no settings, besides the download windows 11 instead of using the local copy of it. I only seen the download windows 11 option before, so far reset this pc has not readded that into it, so I don't know if that's why it deactivated my digital license to Windows 11 Pro , it was working fine for a more amount of time but now, that I had used my USB drive and reinstalled home and connected a digital license to home, it will not see that I even owned the access to pro on my desktop pc with the digital license for Windows 11 Pro, if it was not for needing xbox app access in windows , I would of switched to Fedora Silverblue or its kde version or using Opensuse Tumbleweed Micro on my newer desktop for my pc games since I know epic games launcer titles work somewhat under linux. some games like Fallout 76 keep me having to use windows on my pc, and a few other titles maybe star wars titles by EA games, and and I am not sure how well assassins creed ubisoft connect games work under linux, I haven't tried to play them much under linux, and I don't use my pc for school, just for the video games only these days. the lights on the computer case are one reason also I haven't used linux much, since I need access to masterplus software for controlling the front panel lights, I haven't tried to find linux software that can do this, and I don't think cooler master has any linux distro software that I am aware of, I was going to use a gigabyte case but the motherboard wouldn't fix correctly in that case, so its not being used at this time for any current desktop at home.