Upgrading windows 10 HOME to windows 10 PRO

[Jkutyna]

Ok, I've been round and round with Microsoft and they are saying I need to take this up with HP.  Of course there is no help chat I can get through or a phone number for help.  I bought a 2in1 laptop and chose the slow platter drive and thus windows10 home as a throwaway because HP doesn't offer the option to have no HD and no operating system for some reason.  My intention was always to buy a 2tb Samsung m.2 drive and install that along with windows 10 on that drive, being that HP doesn't offer SSD's or HDs up to that size.   Soooo, I ordered the SSD and a full version of windows 10 Pro to install onto it concurrently while waiting on the laptop to get delivered.   I get the laptop, pull out the 1tb HD with the HP ghetto install of win10HOME.   I install the SSD, and install windows10 via the USB method.   Only to find out that windows claims I have home installed on the new SSD for some reason and it WILL NOT ACCEPT MY FULL WIN10PRO LICENSE TO UPGRADE.   It claims that the microsoft servers have my laptop saved as a win10Home computer, and that was done by HP, even though I requested that they not put ANY operating system on the machine.    M$ says I need to pay 99$ for the home->Pro UPGRADE to be able to make my laptop the PRO version, and I can no longer RETURN the 150$ Full Pro license that I bought as it's been opened, but I cannot install that either as HP screwed my laptop up.   I am stuck but not about to pay for yet a THIRD windows10 license for this laptop just to get what I want.  Bad enough HP forced me to purchase the home version to put on it at the factory.     I have wiped the SSD from scratch multiple times over the weekend and cannot for anything get PRO to install.  At no point will activation or upgrade accept my 25-character code for the full installation version.   I need help.

[WAWood]

@Jkutyna

Your PC came with Win10 HOME preinstalled, and because of that, the product key encoded into the UEFI firmware of the motherboard was for HOME.

Now, when you are trying to activate Pro, my guess is that something is seeing the existing product key in the firmware and since that is Home, it's forcing that activation.

As far as I know, there is no way to change that product key, and since you can't upgrade an OEM Home version to a Retail Pro version, you can't do that either.

I'm not here to defend HP, but they did not "screw up" your PC with a "ghetto version" of Win10; instead, they factory-installed the OS that came with it, and YOU are the one messing it up trying to change that, instead of ordering a business-class PC with Pro preinstalled.

[Jkutyna]

Pardon on that but by ghetto version of windows, I mean one supplied by a retailer and not microsoft itself.  In the past, all the vendors would give you is a rebuild disk, not the actual Windows Install disk.  When you buy Windows, you should be able to install that on any machine you own, though one device only.   This was true at least in the PAST.  You could install your windows 7 version on your desktop, then remove it from the desktop and install it on a laptop instead, it was YOUR windows 7 license to do with as you please.  Now though, Windows has put an end to that and each license key is matched up permanently to the MAC address of each mainboard, so the licenses are one time use.   The term ghetto windows license refers to a copy of windows given to you by a vendor which you cannot use to install on another machine, which denies the owner the full rights of that license.    Unfortunately for us as consumers these days, that is now a moot point as the moment HP installed a version of Windows at the factory, the microsoft servers have that recorded and that's what gets installed each and every time you try to rebuild that machine.

I will be effectively putting enterprise on here at this point and just save that 150$ win10pro license for some other machine I will have to build inevitably at some point.

[WAWood]

@Jkutyna

As far as I recall, the MS licensing rules for different Windows versions have not changed as far back as Win7, and maybe, prior.

A Retail license was "owned" by the purchaser, who then had the legal right to "move" the license from one PC to another without getting MS's permission.  The only restriction was that it could not be used on more than one PC at a time.

An OEM license was "owned" by the PC, not by the purchaser; thus, you could not legally move it from one PC to another.

A System Builder's license (similare to OEM), was a cheaper version of Retail, for which you were supposed to provide "proof" that you were building a PC for someone else -- but the stores selling these licenses didn't bother to check that, they only wanted the money for the sale.

What was different with Win10 is that MS gave it away, hundreds of millions of copies, as an Upgrade to an earlier OS, most often to Win7, and in doing so, they basically attached an OEM-like license to each Upgraded PC.  The terms of the license even clearly stipulate the "life of the device".  So, like OEM, you can't move that license from one PC to another. Furthermore, MS considers the motherboard to be the identifier of the "device"; so, if you change motherboards, you have to buy a new license.  But in this respect, it functions like an OEM license, as that is embedded into the firmware of the PC's motherboard.

And, in terms of "ghetto licenses", the OEMs don't actually give you those licenses; instead, they keep them, as they tie them to the motherboards of their PCs; instead, they only let you use those licenses.