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Windows 10 Pro Licenses Are Being Downgraded To Home

jiyeon
By jiyeon
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Some users - including myself - are experiencing a phenomenom where Windows 10 Pro license holders are given warnings about being downgraded to Home and being told furthermore to reactivate Windows 10.

 

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If you have a valid Windows 10 Pro license, you may be waking up to a puzzling notification asking you to activate your copy of Windows 10. That's because there's a strong chance it may have been accidentally downgraded to Windows 10 Home.

 

This arised from a Reddit thread after many users reported that their Windows was being deactivated and prompted them to reactivate, and the source apparently comes from a server-side bug from Microsoft's activation system.

 

Quote

The growing number of reports point to a server-side bug with Microsoft’s activation system. According to the users, the reactivation doesn’t seem to work and Microsoft’s bug would downgrade Windows 10 Pro to Home in some cases.

 

Luckily, Microsoft are already working on a fix, suppressing the panic that this strange oddity of activation has started. Those affected can only wait for a fix to arrive, whether that be through a Windows update or other method.

 

I myself have seen the "Your Windows key is expiring soon" message box, but my Windows is absolutely fine, and I'm using Windows 10 Pro. Lucky me! I personally feel like this won't last long, and those trying to activate will only need to wait two or three days at max to use Windows 10 in its entirety.

I am still admittedly kind of fearful that my Windows too will deactivate and are afraid of restarting my PC for that reason.

 

For now, I say do not panic, the activation server is probably just feeling down this week, someone will cheer it up in the coming days.

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Hmm....well I use Linux..soo....

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I had this exact same thing happen to me on an older Dell desktop I bought for $20 from a local high school this morning. Rebooted it and it went away so I didn't think anything of it xD

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how the actual fuck... you cant "upgrade" from home to pro, but you can DOWNGRADE from pro to home? The fuck?

 

tell ya what, i lose bitlocker because W10P goes W10H (for the lulz), i'm gonna be PISSED!!!

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Why does it even need to be reconfirmed every time?Have they done that with Win 7 and 8?

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FFS. Another MS problem just as I re-install Windows 10, because 1809 finally killed itself.

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Just now, MyName13 said:

Why does it even need to be reconfirmed every time?Have they done that with Win 7 and 8?

It shouldn't, i've never even heard of a W10P licence expiring...

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9 minutes ago, I-r0k said:

Hmm....well I use Linux..soo....

Hmm....well I use plebian Windows home..soo....

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4 minutes ago, knightslugger said:

how the actual fuck... you cant "upgrade" from home to pro, but you can DOWNGRADE from pro to home? The fuck?

 

tell ya what, i lose bitlocker because W10P goes W10H (for the lulz), i'm gonna be PISSED!!!

I thought you could upgrade from home to pro. 

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5 minutes ago, knightslugger said:

you cant "upgrade" from home to pro

Yes you can. I dont see why you think you cant. 

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Just now, Brooksie359 said:

I thought you could upgrade from home to pro. 

As I understood it, there are several modules that need to be installed at the time of installation that can't happen after the fact.

 

I suppose you could upgrade... after a nuke and pave.

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1 minute ago, knightslugger said:

As I understood it, there are several modules that need to be installed at the time of installation that can't happen after the fact.

 

I suppose you could upgrade... after a nuke and pave.

No?

 

You can just insert new product key and then it'll download some new files and you'll have Pro.

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1 minute ago, knightslugger said:

As I understood it, there are several modules that need to be installed at the time of installation that can't happen after the fact.

 

I suppose you could upgrade... after a nuke and pave.

I had heard that it was the opposite. Someone was describing it like it was a simple switch that needs to flipped on and you get access to those features. 

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Checked both my desktop and laptop. Still on 10 Pro.

 

What the hell, Microsoft. Why do you let these things happen?

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I wish this becomes a feature.

You can upgrade from Home to Pro, but can't downgrade from Pro to Home. Those that want to go back to Home from Pro, is force to do a clean install. With this downgrade bug, users can finally go from Pro back to Home, without the need to reinstall, which saves lots of time.

 

Also to be clear, this only affects Insiders who upgraded to the latest preview build 18277.

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10 minutes ago, NumLock21 said:

I wish this becomes a feature.

You can upgrade from Home to Pro, but can't downgrade from Pro to Home. Those that want to go back to Home from Pro, is force to do a clean install. With this downgrade bug, users can finally go from Pro back to Home, without the need to reinstall, which saves lots of time.

 

Also to be clear, this only affects Insiders who upgraded to the latest preview build 18277.

It affects people not in the insider program....

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25 minutes ago, AluminiumTech said:

No?

 

You can just insert new product key and then it'll download some new files and you'll have Pro.

Unless its changed you can go up the chain without reinstalling but not down. If you're running Pro and you want Home you have to reinstall (or at least you did upto 8.1 anyway) but as you said, you can upgrade Home to Pro and it just downloads some files.

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16 minutes ago, NumLock21 said:

I wish this becomes a feature.

You can upgrade from Home to Pro, but can't downgrade from Pro to Home. Those that want to go back to Home from Pro, is force to do a clean install. With this downgrade bug, users can finally go from Pro back to Home, without the need to reinstall, which saves lots of time.

 

Also to be clear, this only affects Insiders who upgraded to the latest preview build 18277.

The operating system isn't being downgraded, the license is. The OS is still Pro but for whatever reason MS's activation server is reporting the key as for Home.

 

I believe its impossible to downgrade Windows although Microsoft also said its impossible to swap from X86 to X64 when XP 64 released and within months hackers proved them to by lying.

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36 minutes ago, knightslugger said:

you cant "upgrade" from home to pro, but you can DOWNGRADE from pro to home?

No, you have it backwards.  You can upgrade from Home to Pro, the article is misleading in that people weren't actually being downgraded, they were just told that their license was for Home edition and they needed to reinstall.

31 minutes ago, Brooksie359 said:

I thought you could upgrade from home to pro. 

2 minutes ago, Master Disaster said:

Unless its changed you can go up the chain without reinstalling but not down. If you're running Pro and you want Home you have to reinstall (or at least you did upto 8.1 anyway) or as you said, you can upgrade Home to Pro and it just downloads some files.

Yep, exactly.  I've done it several times.  I have run into a few occasions where the upgrade wouldn't take properly, but it usually works.

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45 minutes ago, I-r0k said:

Hmm....well I use Linux..soo....

Man you must be so tired at the end of every day...running around telling all the people who use Windows that you're a Linux user must really take a toll on the body...

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Just now, Master Disaster said:

Microsoft also said its impossible to swap from X86 to X64 when XP 64 released and within months hackers proved them to by lying.

Wait, what?  XP Pro x64 was a different code base, built around Server 2003 x64.  I should know, I followed that almost from the start, and was using it full time once RC2 rolled around (didn't even wait for the final launch).  I was also extremely active on the PlanetAMD64 website during that time, and heard nothing of this.

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