Windows 10: Accidentally upgraded to Windows 10 Pro from Home, can't go back?

Hi, earlier on today I read an article saying how you can update your Windows to Professional edition for free. I entered the key they provided and it did upgrade me to Pro. However, my windows now says I need to activate Windows. I obviously thought that the activation was part of the whole thing. I want to revert back to the Home edition but I do not have the key for it because I automatically upgraded my Windows 7 to 10 when it first came out. Is there anyway I can revert back to Home and have an activated Windows account? I also have no backups available solely because I have nowhere to store them.

:)

 

Downgrade from Windows 10 Pro to Windows 10 Home

I recently upgraded my really old Windows 7 Starter laptop via USB because it could not run the upgrade program. I accidentally upgraded it to Windows 10 Pro, and I have a product key for Windows 10 Home. I can't go back to Windows 7 because I did a clean
install. How can I just downgrade to Windows 10 Home without loosing any data?

 

Accidentally upgraded to Windows 10 Pro from Home, can't go back?

Hi, earlier on today I read an article saying how you can update your Windows to Professional edition for free. I entered the key they provided and it did upgrade me to Pro. However, my windows now says I need to activate Windows. I obviously thought that
the activation was part of the whole thing. I want to revert back to the Home edition but I do not have the key for it because I automatically upgraded my Windows 7 to 10 when it first came out. Is there anyway I can revert back to Home and have an activated
Windows account? I also have no backups available solely because I have nowhere to store them.

***Post moved by the moderator to the appropriate forum category.***

 

If you have not done a disk cleanup since the upgrade to Pro, please look at this tutorial for how to rollback to the previous version.

Go Back to the Previous Version of Windows in Windows 10 Windows 10 Installation Upgrade Tutorials

And a note: I do not know where you got that "key", but there are many dubious sites for such purposes. They are usually nothing but trouble. If all else fails, you will need to do a clean install. But try the rollback first.

And find a way to do proper backups, they are your insurance. Just giving some advice.

 

Welcome to TenForums @Esmonde

If you upgraded from W7 Home to W10 Home then you have a digital licence for Home stored on Microsoft's activation servers so a generic Home key will do, your windows will activate automatically once it is switched back to Home.

You can change back from Pro to Home by following @Kari's instructions in this post.
How do I change from windows 10 pro to windows 10 home?

At step 8 you can use the generic Windows 10 Home key: TX9XD-98N7V-6WMQ6-BX7FG-H8Q99

 

Hey, I have done the steps and have installed back to Windows 10 Home, but it stills says I have to activate my windows. I definitely upgraded from Windows 7 to Windows 10 when it first came out without a key. Now I have lost a few apps and my windows has gone back to default *Sad. Have I done something wrong or did I miss something? I used a Windows 10 ISO and the generic W10 Home key provided but it still says I need to activate. Please respond.

 

Would he be able to get his OEM key with ShowKeyPlus - Windows 10 Forums and enter that?

Or is there maybe some confusion between activate and verify? They are different.

 

When I use 'ShowKeyPlus' it says "OEM Key not present in firmware" ??

Also another big problem is that before I went back to W10 Home I had roughly 100gb left on my C drive (my only drive). And now I have roughly the same amount but no apps and I have lost GB's worth of steam games but the total amount of GB left in my C drive is basically untouched??

EDIT: I have just noticed that I have 3 new files in my C drive "Windows", "Windows.old" and "Windows10Upgrade". In the 'Windows.old' folder there are all my files, steam games etc. Can I just use this file or transfer this file over to me new file? I'm so confused.

 

Stop.

If you have the Windows.old, that is the old system prior to upgrade that is created by Windows during the upgrade process. That is what I was referring to in post #2, the Recovery and Rollback link I posted.

Accidentally upgraded to Windows 10 Pro from Home, can't go back? - Windows 10 Forums

This is what you want to try to do. Rollback to previous. Do Not do any disk cleanup until this is all solved or you will loose it. Do Not mess with that folder. Do the tutorial.

 

Windows 7 PC's don't store the key in the BIOS. All that's there is an OEM identifier, a SLIC table. No key is stored though. Showkey will most times get the key if you run it on a PC that was upgraded from 7 to 10. The 7 key is stored in the registry. Once you clean install 10 its gone though. The upgrade from Home to Pro likely erases it too.

 

What happens when you try to activate 10 Home now? Open a command Prompt (admin) and try running slmgr /ato

 

I have rolled back to W10 Pro edition and all my files are the same. However, in the recovery tab the only options are 'Reset this PC', 'Advanced start-up' or 'more recovery options'. I have also tried to just enter the W10 Home key into the activation tab but that doesn't work.

Is there a way I can go back to W10 Home and try to activate it using the method provided by alphanumeric?

 

You would have to do a "change product code" and switch to 10 Home to do the slmgr /ato and activate 10 Home. I've had similar activation issues happen when doing the "change product code". The other option is to go to the activation screen in settings and then clicking on the "activation troubleshooter". That's worked for me at least once. That option is only there if activation fails though.
Settings > Update & security > Activation.

 

When trying to switch back to Home edition the key I enter in the change product code doesn't work ("The product key that you entered didn't work. Check the product key and try again, or enter a different one. (0xc004f050)). The key I am entering was provided earlier on in the post (TX9XD-98N7V-6WMQ6-BX7FG-H8Q99).

When I troubleshoot it says "We can't activate your copy of Windows. Make sure you have an internet connection..."

If I can get back to W10 Home then I should be able to activate it, maybe it's not working now because I am on a different W10 edition than what I should be?

 

Ok, I've gone from Pro to Education and back to Pro via change product key. I've gone from Home to Pro with a change key too, can't remember if I've ever tried to go back to Home from Pro though. I'll try it latter on though on my spare desktop PC. We just painted the room it was in so its all unplugged at the moment. Once the paint dries a bit I'll hook it all up and see if it will let me go to Home with key change and get back to you. I don't want to mess with my main PC. I have a couple of downloads on the go at the moment.