Upgrade From Windows 7 Home To Pro
Domain join, backup data to home/business network, Windows XP Mode are some of the features that differentiate Professional edition from the Home Premium edition.Many Home Premium edition users are upgrading to the Professional edition to get some of the advanced features available in Windows 7 Pro edition. Dec 1, 2016 - Can I use my USB stick with install media to upgrade without issue? Your Windows 10 Professional license is a digital entitlement.
Once you've decided you need to upgrade from Windows 10 Home to Pro, you have two methods to do so. One is to do a fresh install of Pro, while the other is to install Pro on top of Windows 10 Home. We'll focus on this second method here because your computer likely came installed with Home.
If you don't know which version of Windows you have, you can find it easily whether you're using Windows 10, 8, 7, Vista, or XP.
However, if you installed Home manually, for example on a PC you built yourself, you have the option to move the Home license elsewhere and install the Pro version in its place.
Our FAQ on product keys will tell you everything you need to know about moving Windows licenses between machines.
Upgrade Windows 10 Home to Pro via the Windows Store
If you haven't paid anything for the upgrade yet, and no one has handed you a copy of Pro, the most straightforward way to upgrade is using the Windows Store. In order to upgrade, take the following steps:
Upgrade Windows 7 Home To Pro With Product Key
First, make sure your PC doesn't have any pending updates.
Next, select the Start Menu, then select Settings.
Select Update & Security.
5. Select Go to the Store.
This will lead you to the Windows Store where you can purchase the upgrade by selecting the Buy button. Upgrading to Windows 10 Pro will cost you $99.
Log in with your Microsoft account, then enter your payment method. Windows will upgrade in no time flat.
Upgrade from Windows 10 Home to Pro via a License Key/Digital License
If you do have a copy of Windows 10 Pro, or maybe you found a retail copy of the upgrade for less than the $99.99 Microsoft charges, you'll have a Product Key (alternately called a license key) that enables Windows 10 Pro. You'll need it to replace your current license key. To do so: Trackpad not working windows 8.
If you've received a full copy of Windows Pro instead of an upgrade copy, you should be able to move that Home license to a new machine. You can do this if you installed Home yourself, but not to a copy of Home that came pre-installed on your PC. When you buy a new PC, you typically get a cheaper copy of Windows than if you bought it at retail, but it's bound to that particular PC.
Make sure you're up to date on any Windows Updates.
Navigate again to Start Menu > Settings > Updates and Security > Activation.
Under Activation, select Change product key.
Select Next. If your key is correct, the upgrade will start, and you'll soon get a message that Windows has been upgraded.
How to Transfer Your Windows 10 Pro Upgrade
Since you had a full operating system before this upgrade, you can remove it from its current machine and use it on another. You're effectively reinstalling your original license, which will make the upgrade available again. If you need to do this:
Look at the bottom of your Windows laptop, or on the top/side of a desktop tower. There might be a sticker there showing your original Windows product key; alternatively, it might be in the manuals and other material that came in your PC's box.
Enter the key in the Change product key dialog as noted above, and you'll effectively 'downgrade' to your old Home license.
Your upgrade license should now be freed up to be installed on another machine.
Try to do this while you're online, so Microsoft can register that you removed the Pro upgrade.
So most likely, if you bought your computer from Amazon or Best Buy or some other online website/store, the version of Windows that is included with the computer is going to be the basic version: Starter or Home or Home Premium. In the case of Windows 10, it’s just Windows 10 and not the Professional version.
Why would you want to upgrade to a higher edition? Well, the Professional or Ultimate versions of Windows basically have more features that power users might use like the ability to join a domain, Bitlocker encryption, remote desktop, Hyper-V virtualization and more. So if you have decided to make the move from Starter to Home Premium, Home to Professional, or Professional to Ultimate, how do you go about doing it?
In this article, I’ll show you how to upgrade your Windows edition in Windows 7, 8.1 and 10. Note that you can currently upgrade a 32-bit version to another 32-bit version and same for 64-bit, but you cannot upgrade from a 32-bit OS to 64-bit.
Upgrade Windows 10 to Higher Edition
For Windows 10, there are basically just three editions: Home, Professional and Enterprise. When you upgrade from Home to Professional, you can downgrade or revert back within 30 days unless you run Disk Cleanup and remove previous Windows installations. You only have 30 days because that’s how long Windows keeps the previous version of Windows before deleting it.
Also, for Windows 10, you can’t upgrade directly from Pro to Enterprise. You have to buy it directly from Microsoft and usually with a volume license. If you have Windows 7 or Windows 8.1 Enterprise, you can upgrade that to Windows 10 Enterprise.
To upgrade Windows 10, click on Start and then Settings.
Now click on System and then click on About. At the bottom, you will see a Change product key or upgrade your edition of Windows link.
This will take you to the Activation screen where you will see a Go to Store link at the bottom.
This will load the Windows Store app and allow you to purchase the upgrade for $99.99.
Once you buy it, Windows will start the process for upgrading Windows 10 Home to Pro. It takes just a few minutes and you’ll just have to restart your computer once after it has finished.
Upgrade Windows 8.1 to Higher Edition
As of October 2015, Microsoft no longer sells upgrade packs to Windows 8 or 8.1 Home to Windows 8 or 8.1 Pro. Basically, no one really uses Windows 8 anymore and therefore they are trying to get everyone upgraded to Windows 10.
If you try to go to Control Panel, Windows Update, click on Add features to Windows 8.1, and then click on I want to buy a product key online, you’ll get a message saying that no products were found in your region.
The only place you can get a Windows 8.1 Pro upgrade is from a third-party seller like Amazon for a whopping $137! That really doesn’t make a lot of sense considering you can upgrade Windows 8.1 to Windows 10 for free until July 29th, 2016. At that point, the Home edition will be $99 and Pro will be $199.
Note that Amazon only sells a keycard, which will contain the product key for Windows 8.1 Pro. To use it, you’ll follow the steps above, but choose I already have a product key to enter the new key.
Upgrade Windows 7 using Windows Anytime Upgrade
For Windows 7, once you upgrade to a higher edition, you really can’t revert back without some serious registry hacking, etc. This really shouldn’t be a big issue, but it’s good to know. Also, for Windows 7, you can upgrade from Home Premium to Ultimate without having to upgrade to Professional first. You can basically skip editions.
Click on Start, then type in anytime upgrade into the search box and click on Windows Anytime Upgrade to get started. Note that Windows Ultimate will not have this feature since it’s at the highest edition already.
Now just follow the instructions to upgrade to a new edition of Windows 7. First, click on Go online to choose the edition of Windows 7 that’s best for you.
In the same dialog, you’ll get a list of the different versions along with a nice table of features for each. This is also a great way to compare the different versions of Windows 7 and actually see what the differences are.
You can also click on the tabs across the top to see the features of each version separately. Once you buy a new version and have an upgrade key, click on Enter an upgrade key.
That’s pretty much it! After you enter your key, Microsoft will confirm it and all the new features of the higher edition will be available immediately! No need to download anything or install any extra software. Enjoy!