Does upgrading to Professional free up your Home Basic license?

[goldbedr]

So I used my student email to get the $30 home basic windows 7 deal. I put it on my 64bit desktop, then asked Digital River if that same license could be used on a 32bit laptop as well. They said yes, and implied that it would work at the same time (My vista and XP keys have always worked on both at the same time) but this is not the case.

I am able to get Professional for cheap as well, so I was thinking of using that key to do the "anytime upgrade" thing and move my desktop to professional, and then use the original home basic key to activate my laptop install.

Does anyone see issues I'd run into here? I really, really want to avoid having to wipe my desktop at all. I know it would be simpler to just put the professional on the laptop, but I'd much rather have it on my almost newly built desktop.

 

[goldbedr]

Bump, hoping for an answer please!

 

[dkapke]

I'm not sure why Digital River would ever imply that, but as soon as you activated your key on the desktop, you'd have to jump through hoops to get it working on the laptop. An activation over the internet definitely wouldn't work as it would show as already being activated on a different computer.

Now, can you use that license on your laptop if you install Pro on your desktop? If you're doing the "anytime upgrade", no. That anytime upgrade is still using the same license key. In fact, to even do the anytime upgrade, you're providing MS with the current key. You're not getting a new key and therefore you're not going to be able to install it on another PC. It's still a Home Basic key and already registered. Anytime upgrades are done from within the OS (IIRC). You can do an upgrade from Basic with a Pro disk, but that's not an anytime upgrade.

If I misread this, though, and you're actually getting an entirely new license key for Pro (and the disk to go along with it), then yes, you could do it. You'll still have to call MS (activate over the phone) because you've already activated the key previously (I believe it's about 3 months, maybe 6, until you can do it over the internet again). It's pretty easy to do and takes about 5 minutes and you never actually talk to anyone.

I'm constantly "rearranging" installs on PCs based on what customers want and I've probably called the activation wizard a hundred times and not once has it been anything other than punching in the 54 digits, saying "one" to the "how many PCs is this copy of Windows installed on?" question, and keying in the key they give you to activate it. Again, though, you'll need to have a separate key (IE you're not doing an anytime upgrade from within the software).

Oh, and you definitely do NOT want to install the same key on two machines by activating one via calling MS. While it may work short term, I've tried it and, eventually, BOTH machines will fail the WGA check and say you need to reactivate and you'll be back at square one on BOTH machines.

Hope that helps.

 

[megamanx00]

^+1

Upgrading will kill the previous license, and in general just be a pain 😀.

 

[knotknut]

Windows 7 Enterprise free for 12 Months.

Download the Windows 7 Enterprise 90 day Trial
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/cc442495.aspx

In 89 days "rearm" for another 90 days. You should be good for 12 months total.
I am running Windows 7 Enterprise on a seperate HDD and into the second "rearm" as I type this post. The reason it is good for one year is because the Trial period for Enterprise is 90 days not 30days like all the other versions.

http://windowssecrets.com/2009/08/20/01-Use-any-version-of-Windows-7-free-for-120-days

This might not be your answer but it is FREE!

Edit: and Legal

 

[goldbedr]

I'm not sure why Digital River would ever imply that, but as soon as you activated your key on the desktop, you'd have to jump through hoops to get it working on the laptop. An activation over the internet definitely wouldn't work as it would show as already being activated on a different computer.

Now, can you use that license on your laptop if you install Pro on your desktop? If you're doing the "anytime upgrade", no. That anytime upgrade is still using the same license key. In fact, to even do the anytime upgrade, you're providing MS with the current key. You're not getting a new key and therefore you're not going to be able to install it on another PC. It's still a Home Basic key and already registered. Anytime upgrades are done from within the OS (IIRC). You can do an upgrade from Basic with a Pro disk, but that's not an anytime upgrade.

If I misread this, though, and you're actually getting an entirely new license key for Pro (and the disk to go along with it), then yes, you could do it. You'll still have to call MS (activate over the phone) because you've already activated the key previously (I believe it's about 3 months, maybe 6, until you can do it over the internet again). It's pretty easy to do and takes about 5 minutes and you never actually talk to anyone.

I'm constantly "rearranging" installs on PCs based on what customers want and I've probably called the activation wizard a hundred times and not once has it been anything other than punching in the 54 digits, saying "one" to the "how many PCs is this copy of Windows installed on?" question, and keying in the key they give you to activate it. Again, though, you'll need to have a separate key (IE you're not doing an anytime upgrade from within the software).

Oh, and you definitely do NOT want to install the same key on two machines by activating one via calling MS. While it may work short term, I've tried it and, eventually, BOTH machines will fail the WGA check and say you need to reactivate and you'll be back at square one on BOTH machines.

Hope that helps.

Thank you so much, that's exactly what I was looking for. I'm going to get a whole new Pro key, as I'm going to use the current student deal that is $60. I guess I can download that ISO or something and run that to update?

What is the number I'd call to reactivate the key after I've updated to pro using another one?

 

[sturm]

What is the number I'd call to reactivate the key after I've updated to pro using another one?

The number will come up during the activation. It depends on where you are at. It will step you through it.

 

[goldbedr]

Best answer selected by goldbedr.

 

[goldbedr]

I ended up buying the 70 dollar Pro version from the ultimate steal website since I still have an EDU email.

I tried burning the ISO and updating from there, but it told me to use the "anytime upgrade" option. I found within that menu a place to put in a new product key rather than selecting to pay and upgrade the key you already had. I put in the key for the pro version and it updated just fine.

I then went back to my laptop and used the phone activation to get that working, and now everything is great.

Thanks for the help!