[SOLVED] Win 10 Reupgrade

[glennd]

I'm a bit lost with what to do. I have 3 OEM machines that shipped with Win 10 Home and the shop upgraded to Pro before delivering. Now I find I want to N&P. What's the procedure to get back to Pro?

 

[phaZed]

If the machines were UEFI then the bios keys should have been updated and you can simply install Pro and it will activate. Otherwise, the OEM license key sticker for pro should be affixed to the box.

 

[glennd]

If the machines were UEFI then the bios keys should have been updated and you can simply install Pro and it will activate. Otherwise, the OEM license key sticker for pro should be affixed to the box.

no stickers. the UEFI evidently still has the home key in it. I thought the bios got updated when a new key is activated in the machine. eg. upgrade to pro. apparently this is not necessarily so. i have to go through the upgrade each time I nuke it.

 

[Porthos]

i have to go through the upgrade each time I nuke it.

Load pro from an image and it will activate online.

 

[Sky-Knight]

The UEFI will most definitely NOT be upgraded, if you reinstall you'll end up with Home on it. If you did the anytime upgrade, those keys are "invalid" and cannot be used again for a nuke and pave. You bought a ONE TIME upgrade. Go check the fine print, and be annoyed. I've done this dance with Microsoft... ended up buying OEM 10 Pro stickers, and put an ei.cfg file in the sources folder on your Win10 USB key. The contents of the file are thus:

[Channel]
_Default
[VL]
0

This will force the USB key to allow you to select an edition, and manually input a key. If you have a keyfinder and the machine hasn't failed, I've had success in using the recovered key for the reinstall. But if you didn't have that ahead of time... have fun buying a new copy of 10 pro.

Though I have heard that if you can log the store in with the account used to buy the upgrade, you can do the upgrade again... I have yet to be able to experience this joy because these units always find me after the fact. But I think the official process is supposed to be install home, do upgrade. Anyway a quick tweak to the install media and a recovered key will get you Pro right at the start, I've done that many times. You have to do this if you have an OEM 10 pro sticker you got after the fact because the auto install is home, and OEMs cannot upgrade installs. So you need a way to force the installer to pro to use the key you bought.

 

[glennd]

Load pro from an image and it will activate online.

That doesn't seem to be an option. At no point in the process am I consulted as to which edition I want.

This will force the USB key to allow you to select an edition,

I'll give this a shot, thanks.

 

[Porthos]

That doesn't seem to be an option.

I have separate home and pro images I set up in HyperV. I have not used the installer in ages.

 

[ohio_grad_06]

If you have said keys, you legally purchased the license imo. Can you not install home edition then use this method to bump it up to pro?

https://betanews.com/2015/12/21/upgrade-from-windows-10-home-to-pro-using-this-product-key/

Then supply your old product key? Would that be allowed?

 

[Porthos]

Then supply your old product key? Would that be allowed?

That works too, You might have to use the generic pro key and activate with the correct key after the upgrade.

 

[glennd]

So here's the outcome. I created UEFI bootable thumb drives using Rufus and the windows ISO downloaded from Microsoft. I created the ei.cfg file in the x64 sources directory as @Sky-Knight mentioned earlier. I booted the machines to the thumb drives. It now offers which edition to install. I selected Pro. It did not prompt for the activation key. Went through the rest of the installation procedure as per normal. When the desktop finally appears I check the Settings -> Security -> Activation status and the edition is Pro, activated with a digital license.

@Porthos was also correct but it required the ei.cfg file in order to have that option available.

 

[Sky-Knight]

Oh.... yes that would make sense because the hardware ID is in the activation server!

Also, my rant was mostly based on Fall Anniversary, which was the last release of Win10 I had to install this way. It is nice to know that Microsoft is improving things with each release, that's one less thing to worry about. As long as your mobo doesn't croak, reinstall should be easy now.

Now, if only they'd make the earth shattering step to make the edition selection an OPTION you can CLICK ON without having to add a stupid text file to the USB drive...

Further note, the machine I'm typing to you on was Windows 8.0 Pro via action pack, upgraded to 8.1, then went through the Windows 10 free upgrade to Win10 Pro. This morning I reinstalled the platform with a stock Fall Creators media, and because there is no key in this BIOS the selection list came up, I picked pro... pushed the button for I don't have a key, and it just slid in, activated and went on with its day.

So all in all, I think MS may actually finally have a working installer. Anyway, glad my blind stumbling helped you.