Windows 10 Home To Pro Upgrade For Microsoft 365 Business

[Mohammed Huberty]

Im upgrading a user from home to pro in a client environment that I manage through partner center. When I look in CSP, it gives me 2 options, but one is significantly cheaper than the other. Can someone explain the differences between "Windows 11 Home to Pro Upgrade for Microsoft 365 Business" and "Windows 11 Pro Upgrade?" I've attached the descriptions below for reference.

All the features of Windows 11 Home plus enterprise-grade security, powerful management tools like BitLocker device encryption, and enhanced productivity with remote desktop. Licensed for 1 PC or Mac. This offer is for customers with a Microsoft 365 Business subscription and upgrades a Windows 11 Home device to Windows 11 Pro for the purposes of deploying Microsoft 365 Business. NOTE: Not all devices running Windows 10 are eligible to receive a Windows 11 upgrade. See the Windows 11 device specifications for upgrade requirements and supported features. Certain features require additional hardware. Installing Windows 11 media on a PC that does not meet the Windows 11 minimum system requirements is not recommended and may result in compatibility issues. If you proceed with installing Windows 11 on a PC that does not meet the requirements, that PC will no longer be supported and won't be entitled to receive updates. Damages to the PC due to lack of compatibility aren't covered under the manufacturer warranty.

Windows 11 Pro Upgrade License Windows 11 Pro is designed for small and medium businesses and enables you to manage your devices and apps, protect your business data, facilitate remote and mobile scenarios, and take advantage of the cloud technologies for your organization. Windows 11 Pro has enterprise-grade security to help protect your data, and it's simple to set up and manage for multiple users. It works across your devices so you can stay mobile and integrates seamlessly with Office 365* -- connecting your team to maximize productivity. * Subscription sold separately The Windows Pro upgrade license is recommended if you want to: - Upgrade Windows 7/8/8.1/10 to Windows 10 Pro or Windows 11 Pro NOTE: See the Windows 11 device specifications for upgrade requirements and supported features. Certain features require additional hardware. Installing Windows 11 media on a PC that does not meet the Windows 11 minimum system requirements is not recommended and may result in compatibility issues. If you proceed with installing Windows 11 on a PC that does not meet the requirements, that PC will no longer be supported and won't be entitled to receive updates. Damages to the PC due to lack of compatibility aren't covered under the manufacturer warranty.

In the past, Microsoft allowed Cloud Solution Providers to offer Windows 10 Pro Upgrades through their program. This allowed users with Windows 10 Home editions to upgrade to Windows 10 Pro using licenses obtained through CSPs. The process generally involved the CSP purchasing and assigning Windows 10 Pro licenses to the customer's Microsoft account, which would then enable the user to upgrade their system.

Purchase Windows 10 Pro Licenses: Purchase the necessary number of Windows 10 Pro licenses from the CSP. The CSP will usually provide you with a unique license key or other information to perform the upgrade.

Activation: After the upgrade, your system should be running Windows 10 Pro. Make sure to check the activation status in the Activation settings to ensure that the upgrade was successful and the license is properly activated.

I know that I can sign in with a personal Microsoft account (or create a local account), upgrade windows, join the device to AD and then switch to logging in with a corporate account. I would like to know:

In the OOBE, you can press SHIFT-F10 to open a console. I believe that Changepk.exe can be used to upgrade from Home to Pro given the right key. Will this work from the command line in the OOBE? It would save a lot of faff with unnecessary local accounts.

Once you hit the login screen, press F10 to open CMD. Technically you can open CMD while it's installing Updates but I don't recommend this because it will restart without warning and might interrupt the following process.

I wanted to add a note to the above answer. For many, they will have to press shift+f10 and maybe shift+fn+f10 to get the CMD to pop up. I don't have enough points to comment on amazing answer by Baa.

I want to thank you. I work for a small business. Well, not super small anymore, we have 80 employees now. But we were only 4 3 years ago. I buy computers mostly from Costco on sale and so they always have Windows Home. I have had to go through the steps of creating either a MS account user or local user in setup and then do the migration to Pro inside of windows. I had to install a bunch of software first too. Your trick really saved me a ton of time. I am so grateful!!! I am going to be using this trick for years to come. I setup 5-10 computers a month. We have pro keys but honestly it was more work entering them than your quick trick. I built an Azure active directory and use intune to keep all the computers organized. Your method instantly adds the new computer to my dashboard. This process took so much work before.

Each Windows release for almost as long as the operating system has existed has come in multiple editions. Back in the day, things were actually extremely complex, with Windows Vista having editions like Starter, Home Basic, Home Premium, Professional, and Ultimate. But thankfully, things got much simpler in recent years, and Windows 11 mostly comes in just a few flavors, those being Home, Pro, Pro for Workstations, and Enterprise (plus some IoT editions and Windows 11 SE, which are a different breed).

Of these editions, the only ones most people will ever have to deal with are Home and Pro, since the other SKUs aren't really available in consumer laptops. And there are a few differences between these two editions in terms of features and hardware support, so it's worth looking into what they offer to see what suits you the best.

Before anything else, the major difference between Windows 11 Home and Pro is pricing. If you want to buy a Windows 11 license, the Home edition will cost $139.99, while Pro will cost $199.99. However, most laptops will just come with either one preinstalled. If you have Windows 11 Home and you want to upgrade to Pro, that will cost you $99.99.

It's also important to know that, for most people, Windows 11 Home will do pretty much anything you need it to do. As the name implies, the Pro edition is meant for professionals, usually people using their devices for work, and specifically within a company. There are some additional features on this front, but if you're just buying a PC for personal use, Windows 11 Home is fine.

With the initial release of Windows 11, the first major difference between the Home and Pro editions was that Windows 11 Home didn't let you set up the PC with a local account, while Windows 11 Pro did. However, Microsoft has since changed this so that a Microsoft account is still required when setting up a Windows 11 Pro device for home use. You can forgo a Microsoft account when setting the device up for work or school use, whiich assumes you're using an account from your school or organization. Alternatively, you can use a workaround to bypass a Microsoft account on both Home and Pro editions.

Another difference that will be noticeable for business users is that Windows 11 Home PCs can't be joined to Active Directory. Active Directory solutions are necessary for managing business devices, such as configuring access to certain resources, deploying apps, etc. That also includes Windows 11 features like Group Policy. Those are all professional tools, so they don't make sense for most Windows 11 Home users.

The next major difference between Home and Pro editions of Windows 11 is support for virtualization features in Windows. Windows 11 Home doesn't support Hyper-V ( at least not officially, though you can enable it) or Windows Sandbox. Plus, while it can be used as a Remote Desktop client, it can't be a host, so you can't access a Windows 11 Home PC remotely using Microsoft Remote Desktop. However, you can use third-party tools like TeamViewer for similar purposes.

Meanwhile, Windows 11 Pro supports all of these features. Hyper-V is a virtualization tool built into Windows, which means you can create virtual machines with it. If you want to try a different operating system like Linux, or you need to use an older version of Windows, you can do it using Hyper-V. Virtual machines don't make changes to your host PC, so you can do it all risk-free. Again, there are third-party apps, such as VMware Workstation Player, that let you do this on Home editions.

Windows Sandbox is an extension of this idea, but instead of running other operating systems, it just creates a clean copy of the OS you're running. With Windows Sandbox, you can quickly install and try a potentially risky app and see if it's dangerous before actually installing it on your machine. Windows Sandbox resets every time you open it, so it's always a fresh start for testing.

As business users often deal with especially sensitive information, there are also some extra security features in Windows 11 Pro. First, there's support for BitLocker encryption. This feature encrypts data stored on your hard drive so no one else can access it. Even if your computer is stolen, your files are protected from users other than yourself. While Windows 11 Home comes with generic device encryption powered by BitLocker technology, Windows 11 Pro lets you encrypt or decrypt specific drives, and it has more options when encrypting a drive.

Windows 11 Pro also comes with Windows Information Protection, or WIP. This is a data loss prevention tool, which can help prevent data from leaking from within a company. Using WIP policies, companies can prevent users from forwarding content outside of the company, for example. Since it's built right into Windows, WIP offers a more hassle-free experience compared to third-party solutions. WIP can also separate personal and business data on a device, so if the PC is lost or stolen, business data can be deleted remotely without affecting personal data on it.

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