What's the correct upgrade path to Win10 Pro please?

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Hi

I have a 6 year old home-built desktop PC which I am about to rebuild with a few new components. It has run several flavours of Win7 then upgraded courtesy of Microsoft to 64-bit Windows 10 Home. All properly licensed. I am replacing the CPU and mobo, and moving the current C drive to a secondary disk and using a new SSD as the system disk. Is there a straightforward (and affordable) upgrade path to Windows 10 Pro on the renewed PC, or am I better off simply purchasing a new Pro license (which will cost me about $NZ 320)?

TIA

Cheers
T

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That would depend on the specifics of your original Windows 7 licensing paperwork, I believe.

If you had a retail license it should be transferable, and then in-place upgradeable from W10 Home to W10 Pro for whatever that price is over there. If you had an OEM license, then it depends on the definition of “same computer” and…

Then again I wouldn’t know about the pricing over there. It’s not a given that the Home to Pro upgrade would save you all that much, even if you are eligible.

You should be able to buy a new OEM Pro license with a new motherboard, at least, and over here that’s not much more than the Home to Pro in-place upgrade. But then it again wouldn’t be transferable.

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Thanks. I’m sitting looking at a box labelled Windows 7 Home Premium which must have been my original license.

I want a clean install on the SSD when I rebuild the machine, so it looks like my options are either to (1) purchase a new 10 Pro and install that (clearly this is the simplest and cleanest option), or (2) purchase a Home to Pro upgrade and install that on the existing HDD now, then reinstall it clean on the SSD in due course. I presume if I have a valid license key I can do a reinstall on a new disk?

The first option will cost me $NZ320, looks like Microsoft will charge me $NZ209 to upgrade through the store.

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aquatarkus wrote:

Is there a straightforward (and affordable) upgrade path to Windows 10 Pro on the renewed PC, or am I better off simply purchasing a new Pro license (which will cost me about $NZ 320)?

If You had a Windows 7 Pro license you could (maybe) use the license to activate Windows 10 Pro. If the license won’t be accepted you can call Microsoft for activation code.

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Why do you want W10 Pro? The main reason for Pro – update deferral – is now available in 1903 home.

cheers, Paul

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aquatarkus

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I think you might be right. Well that saves me some $$

 

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Paul T wrote:

The main reason for Pro – update deferral – is now available in 1903 home.

Pause really, not deferral.

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I’ve given up trying to remember which to use when!

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b

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Meh. I still think the non-crippled permissions system would be sufficient reason to go Pro for many… and for many others, the ability to join a domain.

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wavy

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I’ve not had any of the pro features since I upgraded to Win 10 however long ago that became possible, so I probably can survive without them.

Features of Pro that might be useful to me: sandbox and virtualisation. Paused updates would save me some hassle but I’ve just learned that’s in Home now. I wondered if RDP might be useful – I often have to sort out my mother’s laptop remotely but I currently use QuickAssist and that’s been adequate.

This is a single-user machine so I haven’t been bitten by permissions really, although I do hate the lying “another user has this file open” dialog when I try to delete folders which Have Not Been Accessed For Years. I doubt if that’s a Home/Pro issue though.

 

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Sandbox: Sandboxie
Virtualization: VirtualBox / VMware player
RDP: TeamViewer

cheers, Paul

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Paul T.  In addition to TeamViewer, there is also AnyDesk.  TeamViewer sometimes kicks Free users off because it thinks commercial use is going on.  AnyDesk Free has been working well for me since.

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Rick Corbett, Dave

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Plus you can control various settings via Group Policy.

Windows 10 Pro 64 bit 20H2

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