As described at the time, Windows 10 is available in various editions that differ from each other by the presence or absence of some features. However, the two main versions are two, the Home version and the Pro version.
Those with the Home edition may wish to switch to Windows 10 Pro, so that they can take advantage of the tools of the Professional edition.
This type of upgrade of Windows 10 from Home to Pro is possible, free of charge, if you already have a valid (and regularly purchased) product code of Windows 7 Professional or Windows 8 Pro.
READ ALSO: Switch from Windows 32 bit to Windows 10 64 bit, for free
What are the differences between the Windows 10 Home and Pro editions "> differences between Windows 10 Pro and Home .
For example, what's more about the Pro version than the Home version is the Bitlocker data encryption function and the ability to be able to postpone updates without automatically installing them immediately.
The Pro version is also capable of creating virtual machines through a utility called Hyper-V .
With virtual machines it is possible to emulate other operating systems within Windows.
To find out what type of Windows 10 you have on your computer, open Settings from the Start menu, go to System> Information and check what is written next to the Edition label.
There are 3 ways to switch from Windows 10 Home to Windows 10 Pro.
1) By purchasing the update
From the Settings, go to the Update and security section and then on the Activation menu, click to go to the Store and buy the Pro version.
To purchase from the Microsoft site you will need a registered account and a PayPal account or a credit card.
Unless special and special needs, buying Windows 10 Pro to replace the Home edition is not at all convenient and is not recommended.
2) Use an existing Windows 7 or 8 product key
This is somewhat the trick reason for this article.
With the November update of Windows 10, in fact, Microsoft has added the possibility of validating Windows even with an old product key of a previous Windows 7 or Windows 8.1 computer.
So if you already had a Pro license key, just go to Settings> Update and security> Activation and click the button to change the product key.
The code must be entered without dashes.
Since, most likely, the code change will fail if you are using Windows 10 Home and want to switch to the Pro edition, Microsoft itself suggests, in a post on its official forum, to use the generic code first:
VK7JG-NPHTM-C97JM-9MPGT-3V66T
After entering this code, Windows 10 updates to the Pro version.
Subsequently, you can go to the Activation menu from the Settings, change the product key, enter the valid one that was from Windows 7 or Windows 8.1 and validate the license.
Remember that volume licensing codes are not valid and that the procedure only works with the Windows 10 1511 build, i.e. the November 2015 update.
3) Clean installation
Of course, you can always install Windows 10 from scratch and use the product key of a previously purchased copy of Windows 7 and Windows 8 to validate the license.
As explained in the guide to make a clean new installation of Windows 10, you can use the Media Creation Tool made available by Microsoft to create a USB stick or an installation DVD.
In this case, however, there is one more step to do because the installation tool recognizes the current version of Windows 10 so if you are using the Home, the Home will remain.
You will therefore need to download this EICFG.zip file first.
Create the installation USB stick with the media creation tool.
Open the USB stick from Windows Explorer to see the files inside it.
Extract the EICFG.zip file and copy all the files to the Sources folder of the USB stick.
By starting the USB stick computer now, you should be able to choose the edition to install and then select Windows 10 Pro.
I have not personally tried this procedure, so I cannot give guarantees on its effectiveness.
