Windows 10: Windows Key for Education Throws Error in Pro

Hey,


I have a Windows 10 Education key I got through my college. When I set up my new PC I chose Windows 10 Pro on accident. It, as expected, says Windows has no product key. From what I've researched online, simply putting the key I have should change it to Education without any problems, but I keep getting this error:


"The product key you entered didn't work. Check the product key and try again, or enter a different one. 0xc004f050."


Any help would be appreciated! Thanks!

:)

 

How can I convert Windows 10 Pro Education to Pro OEM?

Hi,

To assist you better, kindly provide us more details by answering the following questions:

• Is Windows 10 Pro Education Pre-installed on your computer?
  
• Have you upgraded your computer from Windows 10 Pro to Windows 10 Pro Education? If so, do you still have the product key for Windows 10 Pro?

Meanwhile, you may refer to the steps under Roll back Windows 10 Pro Education to Windows 10 Pro section of this
article.

Should you need further assistance, feel free to get back to us.

 

Windows 10 Education Pro

I've not had an opportunity to test Pro Education edition yet but I am running normal Education on a Hyper-V virtual machine and on dual boot with Pro on a laptop. Basically Education is exactly as Enterprise, meant for domain or Azure AD use. Main differences when compared to Pro are missing Cortana and no possibility to use Microsoft account as initial user account when setting up Windows, although when selecting initial user as local domain user a normal local account will be created which can then be switched to a Microsoft account instead of joining a domain.

Native Windows apps in Windows 10 Education edition are the same than in Pro edition, Cortana being the only exception.

If you already have setup Windows 10 Pro on your machines with a customised image I can see no benefits in doing the job again deploying an almost similar OS. This is of course only my personal subjective opinion based on what I know at the moment; I have no knowledge or insight about what additional features (see highlighted part in quote below) Pro Education might be and if they would be reason enough to upgrade to Pro Education.

Quote from https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/...tion-customers:

 

Win10 Pro Education

Sorry, there is no upgrade path from Education to Professional. You would have to do a clean install of Windows 10 Pro.

Quoting Andre's post from
https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/for...

Windows 10 Education is an academic edition of Windows 10 used in schools. Features like Cortana are removed because of the environment it is used in.

Windows 10 Pro Education builds on the commercial version of Windows 10 Pro and provides important management controls needed in schools. Windows 10 Pro Education is effectively a variant of Windows 10 Pro that provides education-specific default settings,
including the removal of Cortana1. These default settings disable tips, tricks and suggestions & Windows Store suggestions.

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/edu/windows...

If you want to downgrade to the Windows 10 Pro edition, you will need to perform a clean install and you will need a unique product key to install it. The Windows 10 Pro Edu or Windows 10 Education key will not activate Windows 10 Pro.

If you don't have a license for Windows 10 Pro, you will either need to request it from the institution you got Windows 10 Education; or you will have to purchase a license for Pro, then perform a clean install.

This article explains how to do a clean install:

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/for...