Win 10 Home to Pro

[jacktheripper88]

This actually miss the old days when upgrading from 7 home to 7 pro was just a matter of having the correct install media...

Have an Acer laptop that originally came loaded with Windows 10 home, I need to get it upgraded to 10 pro but none of the steps I've tried have worked so far. Every clean install has resulted in have 10 home.

So here has been my process so far:
1) Went into settings, hit change product key, activated using the OEM key for Pro I had purchased, activation is successful...... still shows Home. Tried restarting, tried updating, still stuck with home.

2) Got poking around online because I realized that it was pulling the key on the motherboard itself. Tried to preset the key using the PID.txt method, but found after the fresh install that the original home key was read once again. Tried the install again in legacy mode, same.

3) Looked and found a couple of ei.cfg phrases and tried adding them to the Sources folder and did a clean install again with this entry:
[Edition]
Professional
[Channel]
Retail
[VL]
0
This gave me the enterprise version of Windows 10 and did activate with the Pro key, but since this felt a little sketchy I installed again after editing the ei.cfg to:
[Edition]
Professional
[Channel]
OEM
But this brought me back to home again.

So I'm unsure what to try from this point for the ei.cfg file. Is there anything out there that allows you to rewrite the key that UEFI contains safely?

 

[RLGL]

Call Microsoft for support, there will not be a charge for installation issues.

 

[JackMDS]

Win 10 Activation system is different from Win 7.

A file of Data concerning few feature of the hardware using Win 10 is stored on Microsoft Activation server and after first Activation its used to Authenticate further Activations,

Every time you switch on the computer it connects to the server and on the server its find that the computer Hardware matches a Win 10 Home legal Activation file.

Assuming that you got a legal Key of Win 10 Pro.

You can try the following. For safe guard Back Up the Total Content of the Activated Win 10 Home to an external Drive (using the type of program like Acronis True Image, or something similar).

Log to Microsoft Site and create a Boot USB with Win 10 Pro.

Use the USB to do a Clean Boot installation of Win 10 Pro (Win 10 Home would be erased but since you back it up you will be able to go back to it if needed).

Skip the insertion of Win 10 Pro Key. When done you would have a new Installation of Not Activated Win 10 Pro.

When done you would have a functional None Activated Win 10 Pro.

In the setting go to the Activation Menu and ask it to change the key. Type in the New legal key that you bought for Win 10 Pro, and try to Activate.

There is strong probability it will Not Activate immediately, Be patient sometime it can take 48 hours until it is done.

If after 48 hours it did not activate call Microsoft Activation support.

 

[jacktheripper88]

Got it to activate, turns out the software distributor my employer purchased the key from had screwed up and sent us a key for Win 10 enterprise.

 

[BarkingGhostar]

Win 10 Activation system is different from Win 7.

A file of Data concerning few feature of the hardware using Win 10 is stored on Microsoft Activation server and after first Activation its used to Authenticate further Activations,

Every time you switch on the computer it connects to the server and on the server its find that the computer Hardware matches a Win 10 Home legal Activation file.

And what happens when the Windows 10 device is offline with no connection to the Internet? Is there some sort of countdown clock?

 

[bbhaag]

And what happens when the Windows 10 device is offline with no connection to the Internet? Is there some sort of countdown clock?

No, Windows still works normally. It has been awhile since I had no internet connection but if I remember right Windows there is nothing major that happens without a connection.