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Windows 10 pro upgrade cost canada free
Please at least read the OP’s question before you reply with worthless information and waste everyone’s time. If you’ve nothing to offer, it might be better not to reply at all. Choose where you want to search below Search Search the Community. Search the community and support articles Windows Windows 10 Search Community member.
This thread is locked. You can follow the question or vote as helpful, but you cannot reply to this thread. Some vendors offer an upgrade option as part of the purchase, but many PCs sold in the retail channel are preloaded with Home edition. This could also be the case if you took advantage of the free Windows 10 upgrade offer on a PC running a Home edition of Windows 7 or Windows 8. In either case, the upgrade takes just a few minutes.
You’ll see a succession of progress screens and your system will restart. After the upgrade completes, you should see a Success notification. Check the Activation screen again to confirm that you’re now running Windows 10 Pro. After you’ve successfully performed a Home-to-Pro upgrade, you can file that product key away. Your upgrade is now a digital license, attached to your unique hardware. If you perform a reinstallation of Windows, Microsoft’s activation servers will recognize the hardware and activate Windows 10 automatically.
I have tested this scenario multiple times on hardware that originally shipped with Windows Home and was upgraded to Windows 10 Pro. After the upgrade was complete, I used a bootable USB flash drive containing Windows 10 setup files to reinstall a clean copy of Windows 10 Pro, skipping the option to enter a product key as part of setup, as shown below.
When prompted, be sure to choose Windows 10 Pro as the edition to install. The system was properly activated, because Microsoft’s servers recognized the hardware and used the digital license.
Looking for technical information about Windows 10 releases, new features, known issues, troubleshooting, and tech support? Hi, Thank you for posting the query on Microsoft Community. I suggest you to try the steps provided below and check if it helps. Thanks for your feedback. How satisfied are you with this reply? Thanks for your feedback, it helps us improve the site. This site in other languages x. It typically takes about an hour, depending on your hardware.
Having an SSD as your system drive is the best way to speed up the process. If you know you’ll want to upgrade to Windows 10 on more than one PC, or if you just want more flexibility in the event that the instant upgrade fails, choose the second option and save the installation files to a USB drive or as an ISO file. The download takes a little time but when it’s complete, you can run the Windows Setup program manually to install Windows 10 on any PC running any supported Windows version sorry, this won’t work with PCs running Windows Vista or Windows XP.
The exact steps depend on which download option you chose:. Then just follow the prompts to complete the upgrade to Windows All your apps and data files will be available. The digital license is associated with that specific device, which means you can reformat the disk and perform a clean installation of the same edition of Windows 10 anytime. If you’re thinking of upgrading your old system drive to an SSD, perform the upgrade to Windows 10 on the old hardware; after confirming that the new Windows 10 version is properly activated, install the SSD and then either restore from a backup image or boot from the USB flash drive to do a clean install.
You won’t need a product key, and activation is automatic. And now the big question: If you avail yourself of this upgrade to Windows 10, is the resulting license valid? The entire “free upgrade” offer was always accompanied by language that was, to put it politely, a bit squishy.
And the language around the end of that offer was similarly vague. That’s very odd language. The free upgrade through the Get Windows 10 app ended on July 29, Likewise, the discussion of product keys says a key will be necessary “for this tool to work” not true but doesn’t say a word about licensing. And unlike the weaselly “Genuine Windows” label on older upgrades, the activation screens for a Windows 10 upgrade specifically confirm the existence of a “digital license.
Upgrade Windows Home to Windows Pro
Linux is a viable option, but most prefer Windows because it runs all their favorite software, including the latest games. This is profoundly unfair to PC builders, because large OEMs such as Dell and Lenovo likely pay a tiny fraction of that to put Windows on prebuilt systems though these costs are not made public. No matter how or whether you pay for it, you can download Windows 10 opens in new tab or download Windows 11 opens in new tab for free from Microsoft. And, in fact, you should only download it from Microsoft, as grabbing it from any other site or from a P2P network could give you malware.
Microsoft offers a free media creation tool, which grabs the latest code from the Internet and then burns itself to a USB Flash drive or outputs a Windows 10 or Windows 11 ISO file you can write to a drive yourself. Once that’s done, you can boot from your installation media and start the process. During installation, Microsoft asks you to enter a Windows 10 or 11 product key. If you are still on Windows 7 or 8, you can upgrade to Windows 10 for free.
If you have an old, retail non-OEM copy of Windows 7, 8 or 10 you are no longer using on another PC, you can likely use the product key when you do a fresh install of Windows on your new PC. If you need help finding the product key on your old computer, there are several ways to find it, but using Magical Jelly Bean Keyfinder , a free download, is probably the easiest.
Note that if the product key comes from a prebuilt computer that came from the factory with Windows on it, it has an OEM key that may not work on a different new PC. Feel free to try it, though, because if it works you have Windows 10 or 11 for free. The good news is that you only have two serious disadvantages from not activating Windows 10 or However, if you are using a Microsoft account that syncs with another computer on which you have custom wallpaper, that wallpaper will appear on your unactivated Windows.
But come on; does anyone actually do that? Other than those inconveniences, unactivated Windows should work just fine and receive automatic updates too. You can see if your school is eligible and download your free Windows 11 key here. These are all OEM keys and likely can’t be used on another computer after you activate them on the first one.
Now, let’s address the elephant in the room. While we can’t vouch for all of them, websites selling cheap Windows 10 or 11 keys are likely offering legitimate codes. Kinguin has more than three dozen merchants worldwide selling Windows keys. It’s just another marketplace. So we tried calling the number and waited on hold for a few minutes. We thought activating via phone would be an automated process where we just punched in the key and got an approval code, but instead we got a live representative who immediately asked for our Microsoft account ID.
However, both sites play host to a number of third-party sellers whose product keys may or may not be legit. The easiest but most expensive way to get Windows is to buy your key directly from Microsoft. You can get these either as downloads or on USB drives. If you have an old Windows key you can carry over from a previous build, that’s your best option and effectively gives you Windows 10 or Windows 11 for free.
If you don’t have a key on hand, you need to decide whether you’re comfortable using an unactivated version of Windows 10 or 11, which limits your customization options, has an ugly watermark and leaves you ineligible for Microsoft support.
Many would argue that downloading Windows without paying for or already owning a product key is ethically wrong. That said, Microsoft has made this process easier over various Windows iterations and lessened the limitations and nagging that happens when you don’t activate.
We’ve even seen well-known vendors and Microsoft partners do press presentations with watermarks on their desktop. Scharon Harding has a special affinity for gaming peripherals especially monitors , laptops and virtual reality. Previously, she covered business technology, including hardware, software, cyber security, cloud and other IT happenings, at Channelnomics, with bylines at CRN UK. Tom’s Hardware Tom’s Hardware.
Scharon Harding opens in new tab. Topics Software. See all comments I bought a key on ebay and it turned out to be a VL key volume. Which works but shouldn’t be sold. I contacted the seller and he refunded me. Very good breakdown of the ways to activate Windows Most people don’t even realize you can still use a windows 7 key to activate, only after you get into windows, and not during the setup process. I believe this will probably stop working Jan 1, , when Microsoft stops support for windows 7.
One thing that I was hoping for some explanation on key activations, I have seen how some Youtuber’s have tied their windows 10 keys to their Microsoft account. Then they only need a handfull of keys, like one for each motherboard vendor, and during setup, then sign into their Microsoft account, and select the key that corresponds to the motherboard their are reviewing.
So they can move the keys around, and as long as it was the same brand of motherboard it would activate for that computer, and no longer be active on the old system. Any thoughts on how this works? Any limitations on how many moves, is this method valid for years so you would never have to buy another key if you stayed with one particular favorite motherboard vendor? On the forums, we see MANY tales of woe concerning aftermarket, 3rd-party, or otherwise dicey Windows keys.
Of course, using an old version’s key essentially amounts to a free upgrade, which once upon a time was often provided by software vendors, so if you can use that method, great.
Any attempt to connect to www. Sorry, not getting my business. Thanks for this article. I’ve been struggling with the idea of buying another copy of Windows 10 for my media machine. It’s a PC built from old parts and is currently running Linux. Has anyone had a good experience with this?
Wait a sec TH is legitimizing kinquin? While they might activate today there is no guarantee they will activate a month from now or whenever you decide to reinstall windows from scratch. This article is causing multiple conniptions among the Moderation team. There are very good reasons why, although tolerated from a couple of well-known sources like Kinguin, none of us ever encourage people to obtain keys this way. It isn’t illegal, so we don’t sanction for it, but like I said, the tales of woe are too numerous to go unnoticed.
At least the article makes no mention of “activators,” which in most cases do represent outright piracy, not to mention the viruses and malware with which they are often laden. Discussions of those are not allowed and are deleted, and sometimes offenders knuckles get rapped with a hammer.
Yes, doing this definitely constitutes a “Do at your own risk”. If money is tight, run Win 10 unlicensed, until you can a get known legit key from someone like Newegg.
Microsoft allows this, so it is perfectly fine to so, and you don’t have to risk losing your hard earned cash. Access to all personalization options; Microsoft support access; Equivalent to Windows 10 Enterprise; Free.
– How to Upgrade From Windows 10 Home to Windows 10 Pro | Digital Trends
When you walk into a store or pop over to Microsoft’s website, handing over that $ for Windows 10 Home (or $ for Windows 10 Pro) gets you. Looking to upgrade from Home to Pro on a Windows 10 PC? Shop now. CAD $ Choose your configuration. Download. Learn how to get Windows 10 Home and Pro for your PC or Mac. This guide from Microsoft can help you take advantage of all that Windows 10 has to offer.