Windows 11 is now available in two different editions i.e. Home and Pro. While the Home edition is self-sufficient to perform all tasks that you normally think of, there are certain features you might miss. The commonly missing features on the Home edition are Group Policy, BitLocker, Remote Desktop, etc. If you require any of these features running on your computer, you must upgrade your Windows 11 Home to the Pro edition.
In this post, we have come up with two different ways by which you can perform this task and they are using either Setting or purchasing a new license on Microsoft Store. Let’s explore both these methods in detail –
Upgrade Windows 11 Home to Pro Edition
To change your current edition of Windows 11 to Pro from Home, try either of the below methods –
1] Through Windows Settings
You may upgrade the Windows 11 Home edition to Pro simply by changing the product key on Settings > Activation. Here’s how can you do that –
Note: Since you are going to alter the system files, we suggest creating a restore point on your PC. This is quite useful in cases where anything wrong occurs during the Windows update.
- Press Win + I to launch Settings.
- Select System and then Activation on the right pane.
- Click to expand “Upgrade your edition of Windows“.
- Click “Change product key” and enter the appropriate 25-digit key.
- Hit Next to save this configuration and let the system upgrade to the Pro edition automatically.
2] Purchase the Pro edition product key and activate it using Microsoft Store
In case you don’t have the right product key to Windows 11 Pro edition, you may buy it from Microsoft Store. Here’s how to proceed –
- Right-click on the Windows icon and select Settings.
- Click System > Activation.
- Under the “upgrade your edition of Windows” section, hit Open Store next to “Upgrade in the Microsoft app”.
- The system will redirect you to the Microsoft Store.
- Microsoft Store will automatically detect your location and quote a price at which you can get Windows 11 license.
- When the Store app launches, click the Buy button.
- Keep on following the on-screen instructions that appear next.
- Once you are done purchasing the Windows 11 Pro Edition, you will receive a genuine product key.
- The same is linked to your Microsoft account in the form of a Digital License.
After you have purchased Windows 11 Pro edition license, you may re-follow the above steps to activate your copy of Windows.
How to Get the “Choose your Edition” option while installing Windows
These days, when you try to do the clean installation of Windows 11 or 10 using bootable media, an important feature gets missing. That feature is “choose your edition” such as – Home, Pro, Enterprise, or others. That’s the reason why users end up installing Windows 11 Home version on their devices.
It would be better to enable this feature on the installation media itself if you are planning to fresh install Windows 11. To do so, use these steps –
- Right-click anywhere on the desktop and select New > Text Document.
- Copy/paste the following into the notepad.
[Channel]
_Default
[VL]
0
- Go to File and press Ctrl + Shift + S keys altogether.
- Use the “Save as type” drop-down menu to select All files and name this file
ei.cfg.
- Now that you have created this file, copy and paste it inside the Sources folder found on the bootable media.
That’s it, restart your PC and try performing the clean installation. This time, you will surely get the option to choose among Windows 11/10 different editions.
