Product key transfer

[RogerEve]

Great new HP PC! Backed up existing hard disk so a copy of new Windows saved before I transferred all system and data and programs from my old PC by restoring a backup.  All works fine.

Old PC had Windows 10 Home and no remote desktop. So restored disk does not have the remote feature.

I'd like to upgrade using the product key from the Windows 10 that came with the new machine.  I understand from another forum that this will upgrade  and I will be able to use the remote desktop feature.

Please advise me how I upgrade by transferring the licence.

Thanks

[Dudefoxlive]

I do not understand what you are trying to do here?  you are trying to use the product key from the new machine to install on the old machine to upgrade it from Windows 10 home to pro?  If so then no you can't.  The product keys are programmed into the UEFI/BIOS of the machine and are not transferiable.  you will need to purchase a Windows 10 Pro product key from somewhere for the old machine if you want to upgrade it.

[mdklassen]

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@RogerEve wrote:

Great new HP PC! Backed up existing hard disk so a copy of new Windows saved before I transferred all system and data and programs from my old PC by restoring a backup.  All works fine.

Old PC had Windows 10 Home and no remote desktop. So restored disk does not have the remote feature.

I'd like to upgrade using the product key from the Windows 10 that came with the new machine. 

I understand from another forum that this will upgrade and I will be able to use the remote desktop feature.

Please advise me how I upgrade by transferring the licence.

Thanks

---

I am not sure what you are trying to do, on either computer.

What version of Windows 10 came with the new computer -- "Home" or "Professional" ?

Did you backup "everything" on the old computer, and then restore it onto the new computer, over-writing the factory-installed version of Windows?

[The new computer probably had a "hidden" System Recovery partition, in order to reload the factory-installed version of Windows.  Did you delete that partition when you did the "restore" ?]

See: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/store/p/microsoft-remote-desktop/9wzdncrfj3ps

for "free" software that does "Microsoft Remote Desktop".

See: https://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/turn-on-remote-desktop-in-windows-vista/

for the statement:

This means that you can initiate a Remote Desktop connection from pretty much any PC running Windows, but you can only connect to PCs running a Pro or Enterprise edition.

Of course, if you are running a Home edition of Windows on a PC to which you want to make a connection, you can always use a third-party service like TeamViewer, or even Chrome.

So, there is "alternative" software, and it is free software.

Do you want to use Remote Desktop to connect to another computer, or do you want to use Remote Desktop to connect to your computer?  This is "server" versus "client" mode.

On the old computer, you can run the "anytime upgrade" from Home to Pro, but this is not a free upgrade -- you'll have to make a purchase through the Microsoft Store.

[RogerEve]

First thank you for your patience.

The new HP now has Windows 10 Home running which was restored from a backup taken from the old machine. This did overwrite  what was on initially on the boot drive  C:  -  the active partition on drive C is now Windows home from old machine.  There is a  second partition of 71MB is efi sys on this disk.

The new machine has a second 2TB disk which has a 13.74 GB recovery partition.  As reported by Windows disk manager.

I would like to upgrade the current installationon  new HP machine to Professional without interfering with anything else.  This is to be able to access the New HP remotely. Using new HP as server  I have been using Chrome Remote Desktop for some years but there are certain Apps that will not accept remote keyboard or mouse input hence the desire to try for something better.

I have retained a backup copy of the original installation from the new HP on a removable hard disk.

 "The product keys are programmed into the UEFI/BIOS of the machine and are not transferiable.  "

I want to upgrade windows to Professional on the machine (Professional was installed on the New HP machine as part of original installation).  From what has been suggested, the UEFI/BIOS will be programmed so there should be  no problem.

How do I proceed with the upgrade?

Thanks once again to all support

[mdklassen]

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@RogerEve wrote:

I want to upgrade windows to Professional on the machine (Professional was installed on the New HP machine as part of original installation). 

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From: HP Pavilion Desktop - 570-p059na PC Product Specifications

Software

Titles That Shipped with PC

Software Category: Operating System
Software Title: Microsoft Windows 10 Home (64-bit)

So, are you sure that the new PC came with "Professional" ???

Also:

Hard Drives

128 GB PCIe NVMe M.2 Solid State Drive

• Size: 128 GB
• Interface: M.2
• Type: Solid State

3 TB

• Size: 3 TB
• Interface: SATA
• Rotational Speed: 5400 RPM

[Dudefoxlive]

You can try to update Windows 10 to pro by going to settings, update & security, Activation.  Click upgrade to Windows 10 pro option and see if it will allow you to upgrade the install to Windows 10 Pro for free.  If the machine came with Windows 10 Pro preinstalled from HP this may be possible but may not be possible.

[RogerEve · Accepted solution]

You were right to question it.

Windows Home only:-(

Thannks for all the help and suggestions for alternatives.

This is clearly the way to go.

[Dudefoxlive]

You can purchase a Windows 10 Pro from MS and upgrade the machine to Windows 10 Pro but it is going to cost about 100$.  you can get a key from sites scdkey.com but you will need to reinstall windows manually to install pro.  Considering that the machine came with windows 10 home preinstalled it is going to have the key pre-programmed into the UEFI/BIOS.  there is an option to change the key in the activation section of settings but it is not garenteed to work.