Free upgrade from Windows 10 pro to 11 Pro using 10 Pro license
Getting a license key for a Windows 11 Home to Pro upgrade
Avoid the Windows 10/11 Home to Pro upgrade on the Microsoft Store, as it gets you far less rights than an actual Pro key
Getting a license key for a Windows 11 Home to Pro upgrade
How much does it cost to upgrade from Windows 10 to Windows 11?
How will I know when the upgrade is available for my Windows 10 PC?
Is Windows 11 a Windows 10 replacement?
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Hi,
I'm Rodrigo and I'll help you.
If you have a Windows 10 Pro and decide to upgrade to Windows 11, your license will be upgraded to a Windows 11 Pro license.
There will be no license errors after the upgrade.
Okay,
Thank you for your reply.
My concern about the Windows update is that if the operating system is unable to read the license after updating from Windows 10 to 11, then what to do? I have to reinstall Windows 10 again.
Hello Adrian Knelsen
Welcome to the Microsoft Community!
Thank you for your feedback. I understand that this issue is causing you distress. I noticed that you said that you would like to purchase a Windows 11 Pro license key, but unfortunately you can only upgrade by means of a digital license, you can click on the link below to see the detailed steps.
Upgrade Windows Home to Windows Pro - Microsoft Support
Also, regarding your question about the upgrade price, if you buy a brand new windows pro, the price is $199, and if you upgrade from home edition to pro, the price should be $99, you can click on the link below to check it out.
Buy and Download Windows 11 Pro | Microsoft
You are better off choosing to upgrade to the Pro version if you want to do so by purchasing a digital license from the Microsoft Store.
Best regards
Brian - MSFT |Microsoft Community Support Specialist
Hi Brian, thanks for your reply.
The discrepancy in price is just because I'm in Canada, talking about these purchases in CAD.
I understand what you're saying, my question in the long run is if I can buy a Windows 11 Pro license key for $99 USD rather than $199 USD. A specific type of Windows 11 Pro license key that is for the purpose of upgrading from home to pro.
Regards,
Purchasing this upgrade does not give you a Windows 10/11 Pro key outright, but instead merely gives you a "digital license" to Pro attached to your Microsoft account. Unfortunately, this severely complicates reinstalls, and worse, at least in my case, Microsoft straight up lost my digital license attached to my account.
I purchased a full-priced Windows 10 Home retail license from the Microsoft Store back in 2016, for which I received a Windows 10 home key that I used across a couple of machines over the years. Last year, I decided to upgrade my license to Windows 10 Pro, and purchased the $100 upgrade off the Microsoft store. The upgrade worked, and I was running Windows 10 Pro successfully.
2 days ago, my Windows suddenly was no longer activated. I tried to reactivate it in Activation settings (using my old Home key, logging into my Microsoft account that I used to purchase the Pro upgrade, and claiming that I changed my hardware). Today, I spent north of 3 hours with Activation Support on the phone, and having them do remote support (where they tried numerous command line tricks), and 3 separate support techs were unable to activate my Windows 10 Pro again (even though they acknowledged that they could see my account had purchased the Pro upgrade). We tried downgrading to Home and using the generic 10 Pro key to upgrade back to Pro with no luck either. I also attempted a clean install of Home and upgrading that to Pro, and deactivating all my machines on my Microsoft account, but with no dice. It seems the Pro upgrade I had purchase was straight up lost.
I eventually gave up and just bought a Windows 11 Pro retail license outright and used that to activate my machine. I suppose that frees up my old Windows 10 Home retail key for another machine, but I just straight up lost the $100 I paid for the Pro upgrade on that.
I suppose the lesson is to either buy a retail Pro license outright (either originally, or if you plan to upgrade from Home), as you will receive an actual product key that transfers across machines. Despite costing more in the end (Home retail + Pro upgrade is $240, while buying retail Pro in the first place is $200), the Pro upgrade gets you far less rights, including the apparent inability to transfer your Pro upgrade to another machine even if you're upgrading a retail Home key, and you run the very real risk of Microsoft losing your upgrade rights as they did with me (even though I didn't change my hardware). Lesson learned I suppose.