Windows licence recovery after reinstall

NavyLCDR said:

An OEM product key cannot be used to upgrade Windows 10/11 Home to Pro directly by simply changing the product key. Which makes perfect sense, why would an OEM or System Builder ever need to upgrade from Home to Pro? However, the workaround is simple. Disconnect the computer from the internet, change the product key to the generic for Pro. Windows will upgrade to Pro but not activate. After the upgrade is done, then you can change the product key to the OEM Pro product key and it will activate.

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I upgraded a laptop that came with Windows 11 Home:
ShowKeyPlus showed the the Windows 11 Pro key I bought as "Windows 10 RTM Professional OEMM". I had to do the steps you said with one difference. I never disconnected from the Internet. Can you explain that?

I upgraded a laptop that came with Windows 10 Home:
ShowKeyPlus showed the the Windows 10 Pro key I bought as "Windows 10 RTM Professional Retail". Maybe that was why I was able to do an Anytime Upgrade and avoid having to do any workaround.

I'm confused about this whole thing -- You can install W11 clean without any sort of license if you install via dism /Apply image from a Windows Iso.

If it's a brand new install and you havent had W10 / W8 /W7 before it won't be activated but after installing and finishing the setup just go to change product key. Enter the key you got.

W8 / W8.1 / W7 and W10 still updates to W11 if your hardware is "compatible" -- at least it was still working last week.

If you have any of these just upgrade. After that if you want to install clean just re-install - activation should be fine.

My own view on some of these really cheap Windows licenses is that you'd be better off sourcing a legit version of W7/W8/W8.1 or even W10 - and upgrade from those -- cheaper and will be legit. Some of these "retail cheap keys" are created in China and elsewhere either using keys obtained via MSDN type of subscriptions or by some ingenious "keygen" creating software - and often Ms blocks these keys after a whiled. Same with latest versions of Office -- although some are lucky with those and they still update OK.

Anybody buying really cheap software whether its photoshop, Windows, Office etc -- motto should always be "Caveat Emptor". For some even if it works for 12 months they might consider it worth it. It's your risk though.

Remember though if you upgrade from an earlier version of Windows you can only use the same edition e.g W8.1 Home -> W11 Home.

Cheers
jimbo

NavyLCDR said:

An OEM product key cannot be used to upgrade Windows 10/11 Home to Pro directly by simply changing the product key. Which makes perfect sense, why would an OEM or System Builder ever need to upgrade from Home to Pro? However, the workaround is simple. Disconnect the computer from the internet, change the product key to the generic for Pro. Windows will upgrade to Pro but not activate. After the upgrade is done, then you can change the product key to the OEM Pro product key and it will activate.

Click to expand...

Hmmm.. I can't recall the tests I did.. but anyhow.. an OEM:COA (System Builder as e.g.._) has to have a sticker...yeah?

Superfly said:

Hmmm.. I can't recall the tests I did.. but anyhow.. an OEM:COA (System Builder as e.g.._) has to have a sticker...yeah?

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Not if you purchase an OEM key online that is delivered in email. Also, starting with Windows 8, new computers with factory installed Windows had a full OEM product key stored in BIOS and only had Windows logo stickers on them, with no printed product keys.

So I tested this, but I was stupid because I got ten and eleven forums mixed up. So here is the result for Windows 10, latest version. Until I get back to checking with Windows 11, I would assume that it would be the same for Windows 11. First, I am starting with a fully up-to-date Windows 10 Home:



Next, while connected to the internet, I tried changing the product key to the generic for Windows 10 Pro:



Then I tried a Windows 10 Pro OEM product key, still while connected to the internet:



Disconnected from the internet and tried the same product key above, with the same results. Then, I changed the product key to the generic for Windows 10 Pro, not connected to the internet and it upgraded, but did not activate:



Then I connected to the internet and checked, still not activated:



Finally, while connected to the internet I changed the product key to the Windows 10 Pro OEM product key, and it activated:



This is the way Windows 10 has always worked, and the way that Windows 11 has worked for me in the past, and I don't see any indication anywhere that Windows 11 has changed, but I have not verified it on Windows 11 recently.

I just checked the above with Windows 11 and got exactly the same results, except for the last attempt to activate with the OEM product key, I got this, which is expected:


I forgot to clear the product key off the previous VM before I deleted it. So I had to resort to using an old Windows 7 Pro OEM key to get activated:



Note that because it was a Windows 7 Product Key, when Windows 11 activated it automatically switched to the generic product key, but stayed on the OEM channel. To move to the retail channel, just change the generic OEM key with the generic key for Windows 10/11 Retail.