Icon Fame Journal.

Juicy entertainment chatter with tabloid flavor.

updates

How to upgrade to windows 10 enterprise (without reinstalling windows)

By Daniel Kim

Last Updated : November 15, 2017

Category : Windows 10

System Requirements for Windows 10 Enterprise – If you want to upgrade your operating system to Windows 10 on your PC or tablet, you will need minimum hardware. In this short post you will get to know about the system requirements for Windows 10 Enterprise Edition. The important point to note here is Windows 10 Home users will receive updates from Windows Update automatically when it’s available. Windows 10 Pro and Windows 10 Enterprise users will have the ability to postpone updates. The amount of time that Windows 10 Pro users can postpone updates is limited. If your PC or tablet is currently running Windows 7 SP1 or Windows 8.1 Update, you can check to see if it meets the Windows 10 requirements by using ‘Check my PC’ in the Get Windows 10 app.

Windows will uninstall your application and enable Windows Defender if your antimalware subscription is not active. Microsoft Cortana which is most talked about is only available on Windows 10 for the United States, United Kingdom, China, France, Italy, Germany, and Spain for now. This may be made available to rest of the countries very soon.

System Requirements for Windows 10 Enterprise

Windows 10 Enterprise works great on the same hardware that powers Windows 8.1:

Processor: 1 GHz or faster or SoC
RAM: 1 GB (32-bit) or 2 GB (64-bit)
Free hard disk space: 16 GB (32-bit) or 20 GB (64-bit)
Graphics card: DirectX 9 or later with WDDM 1.0 driver
Display: 800×600

Few additional requirements :-
1) The upgrade-ability of a device has factors beyond the system specification. This includes driver and firmware support, application compatibility, and feature support, regardless of whether or not the device meets the minimum system specification for Windows 10.

2) Windows Hello requires specialized illuminated infrared camera for facial recognition or iris detection or a fingerprint reader that supports the Window Biometric Framework.

3) Two factor authentication requires the use of a PIN, biometrics (fingerprint reader or illuminated infrared camera), or a phone with Wi-Fi or Bluetooth capabilities.

4) To use touch, you need a tablet or a monitor that supports multi-touch.

5) Secure boot requires firmware that supports UEFI v2.3.1 Errata B and has the Microsoft Windows Certification Authority in the UEFI signature database.

6) BitLocker requires either Trusted Platform Module (TPM) 1.2, TPM 2.0 or a USB flash drive.

7) Client Hyper-V requires a 64-bit system with second level address translation (SLAT) capabilities and additional 2 GB of RAM.

8) Miracast requires a display adapter which supports Windows Display Driver Model (WDDM) 1.3, and a Wi-Fi adapter that supports Wi-Fi Direct.

9) Wi-Fi Direct Printing requires a Wi-Fi adapter that supports Wi-Fi Direct and a device that supports Wi-Fi Direct Printing.

10) To install a 64-bit OS on a 64-bit PC, your processor needs to support CMPXCHG16b, PrefetchW, and LAHF/SAHF.

11) InstantGo works only with computers designed for Connected Standby.

12) Device encryption requires a PC with InstantGo and TPM 2.0.

13) A Microsoft account is required for some features, and Internet access (ISP) fees might apply.

Upgrade Editions

If you are planning to upgrade your operating system to Windows 10 then the good news is Microsoft offers upgrading like-to-like editions of Windows. For instance, if you are using Windows 7 Home Premium, you’ll upgrade to Windows 10 Home.

Windows 10 Product Lifecycle

Lastly I want to mention that every Windows product has a lifecycle. The lifecycle begins when a product is released and ends when it’s no longer supported. Let’s take a look at the Windows client OS lifecycle.

Chris Hoffman is Editor-in-Chief of How-To Geek. He’s written about technology for over a decade and was a PCWorld columnist for two years. Chris has written for The New York Times, been interviewed as a technology expert on TV stations like Miami’s NBC 6, and had his work covered by news outlets like the BBC. Since 2011, Chris has written over 2,000 articles that have been read nearly one billion times—and that’s just here at How-To Geek. Read more.

How to upgrade to windows 10 enterprise (without reinstalling windows)

Windows 10 Enterprise offers quite a few exclusive features that aren’t available in the Professional edition of Windows. You can get these features without reinstalling Windows, and without even having an Enterprise disc. In fact, you don’t even need your own Windows 10 Enterprise key to perform this upgrade.

How This Works

Why not just buy a product key for Windows 10 Enterprise? Well, Microsoft doesn’t even sell those to us mere mortals! While Microsoft offers paid upgrades to Windows 10 Professional, the Enterprise and Education editions of Windows 10 are only available through volume licensing channels. Microsoft previously offered Windows 7 Ultimate, which contained all the same features as the Enterprise versions of Windows, but there’s nothing like that for Windows 10.

According to Microsoft’s documentation, it’s possible to use the DISM /online /Set-Edition: command to change to a new edition of Windows. However, this didn’t work for us with Windows 10 and we encountered error messages. But we realized there’s a better solution.

Most people don’t know this, but you can convert your existing Windows 10 Home or Professional system to Windows 10 Enterprise in just a few minutes–no disc necessary. You won’t lose any of your installed programs or files. To do this, you’ll need a product key, but there’s a bit of a loophole here: You don’t actually need a legitimate product key to use Windows 10, Enterprise or otherwise. To upgrade, you just need a key.

This process uses a KMS key from Microsoft’s website. These publicly-available keys are normally used in organizations with Key Management Servers. Use them without a Key Management Server and Windows 10 will upgrade to Enterprise–it just won’t be truly “activated”.

Update: Note that you cannot upgrade from Windows 10 Home directly to Windows 10 Enterprise with this method. However, you can upgrade from Windows 10 Professional to Windows 10 Enterprise, and you can also upgrade from Windows 10 Home to Windows 10 Professional. See Microsoft’s website for a list of supported upgrade paths.

And there’s the one downside to doing this: If you have a legitimate, activated Windows 10 system, the resulting Windows 10 installation won’t be activated and will show you a watermark telling you so. But that’s just about the only limitation you’ll encounter–the OS will otherwise work just fine, for as long as you like. If you have a Windows 10 virtual machine or secondary computer you want to test these Enterprise features on, this is an excellent solution.

This works even better if you do have a legitimate Windows 10 Enterprise product key through a business. Enter a legitimate product key and Windows 10 will upgrade to the Enterprise edition and become properly activated. This is a convenient solution for businesses, which can purchase computers that come with Home or Professional editions of Windows 10 and upgrade them without a reinstall.

Update: We received a report from a reader that, as of Windows 10’s 2004 update, you can’t downgrade to Windows 10 Professional or upgrade to the standard enterprise version if you’re using an Enterprise Evaluation Edition of Windows 10.

How to Upgrade to Windows 10 Enterprise

Rather than messing with DISM, you can do this entirely from Windows 10’s Settings app. To do so, open the Settings app from your Start menu, select “Update & Security,” and select “Activation.” Click the “Change Product Key” button here.

How to upgrade to windows 10 enterprise (without reinstalling windows)

You’ll be asked to enter a new product key. If you have a legitimate Windows 10 Enterprise product key, you can enter it now. But if you don’t, grab the KMS client setup key for Windows 10 Enterprise and Windows 10 will automatically convert itself to a Windows 10 Enterprise system. Remember, as this isn’t an valid key for activation, the resulting Windows 10 system won’t activate with Microsoft’s activation servers online. You may not want to do this on your primary Windows system.

Here’s the key you’ll need to enter for Windows 10 Enterprise:

The above Microsoft web page lists keys for other editions of Windows 10, so you could instead convert to Windows 10 Professional, Windows 10 Education, Windows 10 Enterprise 2015 LTSB (Long Term Servicing Branch), and other editions of Windows 10.

How to upgrade to windows 10 enterprise (without reinstalling windows)

After a moment, Windows 10 will offer to “Upgrade your edition of Windows.” Be sure to save your open files and close applications before continuing, as your computer will restart during this process.

How to upgrade to windows 10 enterprise (without reinstalling windows)

Windows 10 will reboot when the process is done. This process took us less than 20 minutes, even in a slower virtual machine.

After the process is complete, you can visit the Settings > Update & Security > Activation again. You’ll see that you’re now using Windows 10 Enterprise. All the Enterprise-only features will be available on your PC.

However, if you used a KMS key, your system will no longer be activated and Windows 10 will begin to inform you of this. That’s a fine trade-off for being able to try out these features in a virtual machine or on a secondary PC, but may not be convenient on your primary PC.

How to upgrade to windows 10 enterprise (without reinstalling windows)

Does Microsoft have a problem with this this? We don’t really know, but if they did, they could fix the problem in several ways, so it’s likely this is by design. It’s a convenient tip for developers, enthusiasts, and system administrators who want see what those extra features are all about.

Windows 10 Enterprise offers quite a few exclusive features that aren’t available in the Professional edition of Windows. You can get these features without reinstalling Windows, and without even having an Enterprise disc. In fact, you don’t even need your own Windows 10 Enterprise key to perform this upgrade.

How This Works

Why not just buy a product key for Windows 10 Enterprise? Well, Microsoft doesn’t even sell those to us mere mortals! While Microsoft offers paid upgrades to Windows 10 Professional, the Enterprise and Education editions of Windows 10 are only available through volume licensing channels. Microsoft previously offered Windows 7 Ultimate, which contained all the same features as the Enterprise versions of Windows, but there’s nothing like that for Windows 10.

According to Microsoft’s documentation, it’s possible to use the DISM /online /Set-Edition: command to change to a new edition of Windows. However, this didn’t work for us with Windows 10 and we encountered error messages. But we realized there’s a better solution.

Most people don’t know this, but you can convert your existing Windows 10 Home or Professional system to Windows 10 Enterprise in just a few minutes–no disc necessary. You won’t lose any of your installed programs or files. To do this, you’ll need a product key, but there’s a bit of a loophole here: You don’t actually need a legitimate product key to use Windows 10, Enterprise or otherwise. To upgrade, you just need a key.

And there’s the one downside to doing this: If you have a legitimate, activated Windows 10 system, the resulting Windows 10 installation won’t be activated and will show you a watermark telling you so. But that’s just about the only limitation you’ll encounter–the OS will otherwise work just fine, for as long as you like. If you have a Windows 10 virtual machine or secondary computer you want to test these Enterprise features on, this is an excellent solution.

This works even better if you do have a legitimate Windows 10 Enterprise product key through a business. Enter a legitimate product key and Windows 10 will upgrade to the Enterprise edition and become properly activated. This is a convenient solution for businesses, which can purchase computers that come with Home or Professional editions of Windows 10 and upgrade them without a reinstall.

How to Upgrade to Windows 10 Enterprise

Rather than messing with DISM, you can do this entirely from Windows 10’s Settings app. To do so, open the Settings app from your Start menu, select “Update & Security,” and select “Activation.” Click the “Change Product Key” button here.

How to upgrade to windows 10 enterprise (without reinstalling windows)

You’ll be asked to enter a new product key. If you have a legitimate Windows 10 Enterprise product key, you can enter it now. But if you don’t, grab the KMS client setup key for Windows 10 Enterprise and Windows 10 will automatically convert itself to a Windows 10 Enterprise system. Remember, as this isn’t an valid key for activation, the resulting Windows 10 system won’t activate with Microsoft’s activation servers online. You may not want to do this on your primary Windows system.

Here’s the key you’ll need to enter for Windows 10 Enterprise:

The above Microsoft web page lists keys for other editions of Windows 10, so you could instead convert to Windows 10 Professional, Windows 10 Education, Windows 10 Enterprise 2015 LTSB (Long Term Servicing Branch), and other editions of Windows 10.

How to upgrade to windows 10 enterprise (without reinstalling windows)

After a moment, Windows 10 will offer to “Upgrade your edition of Windows.” Be sure to save your open files and close applications before continuing, as your computer will restart during this process.

How to upgrade to windows 10 enterprise (without reinstalling windows)

Windows 10 will reboot when the process is done. This process took us less than 20 minutes, even in a slower virtual machine.

After the process is complete, you can visit the Settings > Update & Security > Activation again. You’ll see that you’re now using Windows 10 Enterprise. All the Enterprise-only features will be available on your PC.

However, if you used a KMS key, your system will no longer be activated and Windows 10 will begin to inform you of this. That’s a fine trade-off for being able to try out these features in a virtual machine or on a secondary PC, but may not be convenient on your primary PC.

How to upgrade to windows 10 enterprise (without reinstalling windows)

Does Microsoft have a problem with this this? We don’t really know, but if they did, they could fix the problem in several ways, so it’s likely this is by design. It’s a convenient tip for developers, enthusiasts, and system administrators who want see what those extra features are all about.

Quite often users and administrators ask if they can upgrade a lower Windows 10 edition (like Home or Pro) to a higher one (for example, Pro or Enterprise respectively). In this article we’ll show how to upgrade a Windows 10 edition without reinstalling OS, and keeping all apps, settings, and files.

You can get the current Windows 10 edition using this DISM command:
DISM /online /Get-CurrentEdition

In our example, it is Windows 10 Pro.
How to upgrade to windows 10 enterprise (without reinstalling windows)

Then display the list of editions you can upgrade your Windows 10 to:

DISM /online /Get-TargetEditions

How to upgrade to windows 10 enterprise (without reinstalling windows)

Upgrading Windows 10 from Pro to Enterprise Edition

In order to upgrade your Windows 10 edition from Professional to Enterprise, you must enter a valid product key. Specify the public KMS key for Windows 10 Enterprise (NPPR9-FWDCX-D2C8J-H872K-2YT43).

Let’s try to upgrade the edition using the command DISM /Set-Edition like we do to upgrade Windows Server edition.

DISM.exe /online /Set-Edition:Enterprise /AcceptEula /ProductKey:NPPR9-FWDCX-D2C8J-H872K-2YT43

The command returns the following error:

It means that online edition upgrade is not supported: you have to boot from the WinPE/WinRE media and upgrade your Windows 10 image offline. It is not very convenient.

The official Microsoft documentation suggests 4 ways to change Windows 10 edition:

    Manually by changing the product key in the Control Panel (Settings –> Update & Security –> Activation –> Change product key); How to upgrade to windows 10 enterprise (without reinstalling windows)

Let’s try to upgrade Win10 from Pro to Enterprise with this command:

Changepk.exe /ProductKey NPPR9-FWDCX-D2C8J-H872K-2YT43

In a couple of minutes your Windows 10 edition will be changed to Enterprise (you don’t need to confirm anything or restart your computer). Then just activate Windows online or on your KMS server.

How to upgrade to windows 10 enterprise (without reinstalling windows)

Upgrade from Windows 10 Home to Pro Edition

In the same way, you can upgrade your Windows 10 Home to Pro without any data loss or app reinstallation.

Check the current Windows edition:

Dism.exe /Online /Get-CurrentEdition

How to upgrade to windows 10 enterprise (without reinstalling windows)

Then display the list of editions you may upgrade your Windows 10 Home:

DISM /online /Get-TargetEditions

There is the Professional edition in the list.

How to upgrade to windows 10 enterprise (without reinstalling windows)

The methods described above are not supported to upgrade Windows 10 Home to Pro (). You may use one of the following options:

  • Specify a new product key manually
  • Buy a Windows 10 Pro license in Microsoft Store (a computer with the license will be linked to your Microsoft account — MSA).

To enter a new Windows 10 Pro key manually, run this command:

Enter your Windows 10 Pro key.

How to upgrade to windows 10 enterprise (without reinstalling windows)

Confirm the edition upgrade by clicking Start.

How to upgrade to windows 10 enterprise (without reinstalling windows)

The upgrade will take some time, and then you will have to restart your computer.

The downgrade scenario is only available for Education -> Pro or Enterprise -> Pro.

How not to activate windows 10. The education tenant must have an active subscription to microsoft 365 with a windows 10 enterprise license or a windows 10 enterprise or education subscription.

How to upgrade to windows 10 enterprise (without reinstalling windows) How To Upgrade To Windows 10 Enterprise Without Reinstalling Windows

Activate windows over the internet next type in slui exe 3 and hit enter.

How to upgrade to windows 10 enterprise (without reinstalling windows)

How to activate windows 10 enterprise. Finally click on activate. In order to manually activate windows 10 enterprise you need to follow the following steps. Here we ll introduce how to activate windows enterprise edition with cmd.

Using kms key management service way 1. To do so open an elevated command prompt as follows. If that doesn t work click on e z activator.

And at the very bottom will show if windows is activated. From windows 10 version 1803 the device will automatically activate windows 10 enterprise using the firmware embedded activation key. You can confirm this information in settings update security activation.

There are two main ways to activate windows 10 enterprise which are as following. If the device is running windows 10 version 1703 or 1709 then windows 10 pro must be successfully activated in settings update security activation as illustrated in figure 7a. You can press windows r key on the keyboard to open windows run box.

Open up the command prompt with the administrative permission. Click on product keys tab and select the product and edition e g windows 10 professional. 2 with the icon clicked type pc.

Your windows will be activated immediately. 4 at the top you will see the windows version that is currently installed on the pc. A device with a windows 10 pro education digital license.

3 an icon called this pc will appear right click it and select properties. This will open the windows activation dialog box. Type cmd and press ctrl shift enter to open and run windows command prompt as administrator.

Now go to the activation tab select kms server service and click install. 1 click the windows icon on the bottom left of your screen.

How to upgrade to windows 10 enterprise (without reinstalling windows) Deploy Windows 10 Enterprise Licenses Windows Deployment Microsoft Docs

How to upgrade to windows 10 enterprise (without reinstalling windows) Windows 10 Enterprise Activating Windows 10 On Campus Grok Knowledge Base

How to upgrade to windows 10 enterprise (without reinstalling windows) 2 Ways To Activate Windows 10 For Free Without Additional Software

If you are following /reading the social networking sites (Twitter,Facebook and LinkedIn) about #windows10 ,you might have already know by now that, Microsoft just released latest/last build number 10240 which claims to be the RTM version before it made available on July 29,2015 (7/29) to everyone. To get to recent build number (10240) ,go to Start > Settings > Update & Security > Windows Update > Check for updates on your PC (Note: Make sure you login to your PC using Microsoft account before you do the windows update ).If you want to perform clean install,you may have to wait for couple of days i.e Jul 29th ,2015 else you can follow the procedure outlined here by Johan using PowerShell script to convert ESD to ISO .There are third party tools also available ,its upto you.

You can reach to windows updates window using the simple syntax which you can perform on RUN command :ms-settings:windowsupdate

How to upgrade to windows 10 enterprise (without reinstalling windows)

It will open windows update window and show the updates if any available.

How to upgrade to windows 10 enterprise (without reinstalling windows)

Coming to the subject line,If you have windows 10 professional edition and you want to convert it to Enterprise version ,you don’t have to reinstall the entire OS which is great feature in Windows 10. you can simply convert the WIM file from pro to enterprise using DISM in just few steps:

1.From your media ,copy the install.WIM file from media\sources folder to C: or D: drive and make sure wim is not read only from its properties. I choose C:\

2.Create folder called mount in C:\mount

3.open the cmd as run administrator and type Dism /Mount-Image /ImageFile:C:\Install.wim /index:1 /MountDir:C:\mount

4.check what editions the WIM will support and what is the current edition using Dism /Image:C:\mount /Get-CurrentEdition

How to upgrade to windows 10 enterprise (without reinstalling windows)

5.To check what additional versions that WIM is supported using Dism /Image:C:\mount /Get-TargetEditions

How to upgrade to windows 10 enterprise (without reinstalling windows)

6.From above,you can choose which edition you want the WIM file to be converted either enterprise or Education or home if available .Now we will change the Image from pro to Enterprise using

Dism /Image:C:\mount /Set-Edition:Enterprise

7.You can now check if the image edition changed from Pro to Ent using step 4 : Dism /Image:C:\mount /Get-CurrentEdition

8.Now we will unmount the image and commit changes to WIM file using Dism /Unmount-Image /MountDir:C:\mount /commit

TL;DR: Just use this guide and use Enterprise instead of Pro

I fetched myself the latest copy of the Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC evaluation for setting up my Windows install. The latest version when I set that up was Version 1809 and features like Windows Subsystem for Linux 2 and PowerToys Run are only available for versions 1903 and later. The general advice would be to backup and reinstall.

And I would have done that to be honest but a quick Google search will take you to a Microsoft Community thread where apparently, if you change a few registry values, things should start working…. right? So I fetched a copy of Windows 10 Pro using HeiDoc’s Microsoft Windows and Office ISO Download Tool and got to business, only to find out… that it won’t let me do the in-place upgrade without deleting my apps (but keeping my data) because the editions don’t match

What you need

  • Windows 10 Pro Install Media (no, that is not a mistake, I mean Pro)

How to do it

Avoiding Language Incompatibility

  • Go to Time and Language
  • Change all references to English (United States) and delete every other language except that, then restart.
  • Open regedit and go to HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Nls\Language and ensure both Default and InstallLanguage are 0409 , if they’re not, make them.

Ensuring the “keep apps and data” upgrade path is available

  • Open regedit , go to HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion and look for all instances of EnterpriseSEval (generally CompositionEditionID , EditionID ) and replace it with Enterprise .
  • Search for instances of Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC. (generally ProductName ) and replace them with Windows 10 Enterprise .
  • Now go to HKLM\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion and repeat instructions above.
  • Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\DefaultProductKey2 and change the value of EditionID there too…

Upgrading Windows

  • Mount your installation medium and run the setup.
  • If you’re prompted with a product key, then use installation keys NPPR9-FWDCX-D2C8J-H872K-2YT43 (Windows 10 Enterprise) or NPPR9-FWDCX-D2C8J-H872K-2YT43 (Windows 10 Pro) to allow you to install Windows. This will not activate Windows, this will only let you install it, this is not a substitute for getting a license, get a license.

That should be it, good luck!

LATEST POSTS

  • Setting up Docker instances to run on an AMD-based macOS Mojave Hackintosh without Hypervisor.framework
  • Running Adobe Products and rectifying Discord’s voice chat crash on a Ryzentosh
  • Setting up a Minecraft Ubuntu 18.04 vServer and securing it as quickly as possible
  • Setting up a UNIX-style native environment on Windows, ZSH, keyboard shortcuts and more.
  • Recovering my Windows installation after clearing the partition table

All written content unless specified otherwise is released under the CC BY-SA 4.0 International License

How to upgrade to windows 10 enterprise (without reinstalling windows)

If you’re running Windows 10 Home edition, but need the extra features that Windows 10 Pro provides, here’s how to get it using the Easy Upgrade feature.

Windows 10 is available in a variety of editions targeting different markets and user needs. The three most popular editions are Windows 10 Home, Pro, and Enterprise. Most new PC’s will come preloaded with Windows 10 Home. But if you’re a business or power user you might need the unique capabilities of the Pro edition such as Remote Desktop, business networking, BitLocker Drive Encryption, Group Policy, and more. Here’s a look at using the Easy Upgrade feature which lets you upgrade to a higher edition of Windows 10.

Upgrade to Windows 10 Pro or Enterprise Using Easy Upgrade Feature

During the free upgrade offer, Microsoft made it known Windows 10 will be free to every PC or device running a genuine version of Windows 7 or Windows 8.1. Your system was upgraded to the logical edition. For example, Windows 7 Home Basic or Premium upgraded to Windows 10 Home. But you might want or need some of the richer capabilities available in the Pro version. For this, you will need to purchase the Windows 10 Pro Pack. Or use an existing Windows 10 Pro or Enterprise key.

Employer Volume License

There’s also good news for users who have Home Use rights through an employer’s volume license program. A volume license is a convenient way for large businesses to purchase Windows licenses in bulk. Then deploy it to all computers in the organization. A volume license also includes flexible options that allow an organization’s employees to upgrade their personal devices to the organization’s licensed edition of Windows.

So for example, if your company is running Windows 10 Enterprise edition and you are running Windows 10 Home on your personal laptop, you can easily upgrade. This is important for ease of use, management, and support rights that guarantee all systems are standardized and are protected using the benefits that are available with that particular edition.

Upgrade from Pro to Enterprise Edition

For the purposes of this article, I will be upgrading Windows 10 Pro to Windows 10 Enterprise. Of course, the same procedures apply if you want to upgrade Windows 10 Home to Windows 10 Pro using either a retail Windows 10 Pro license or Pro Pack key.

Purchase Windows 10 Pro Upgrade from Windows 10 Home

If you are already running Windows 10 Home, you can purchase an upgrade to Windows 10 Pro through the Windows Store. Click Start > Settings > Update & Security > Activation > Go to Store, click $99.00 USD. Please note, Easy Upgrade will preserve your personal files, applications, and settings, it simply unlocks the edition, the process is quite similar to the Windows Anytime Upgrade in Windows 7.

How to upgrade to windows 10 enterprise (without reinstalling windows)

Upgrade to Windows 10 Pro or Enterprise Using an Existing Product Key

Once you have your Windows 10 key ready select System.

How to upgrade to windows 10 enterprise (without reinstalling windows)

Select About then Change product key or upgrade your edition of Windows.

How to upgrade to windows 10 enterprise (without reinstalling windows)

Click Yes if User Account Control comes up.

How to upgrade to windows 10 enterprise (without reinstalling windows)

Enter your product key for the edition you are upgrading to, whether it is Pro or Enterprise. Then wait while the product key verified.

How to upgrade to windows 10 enterprise (without reinstalling windows)

Make sure all open applications are closed and your work is saved then start the upgrade. Wait while the upgrade process kicks off. Your computer will be restarted several times throughout this process.

How to upgrade to windows 10 enterprise (without reinstalling windows)

The amount of time the upgrade takes will vary between systems. But in my experience, it only took 5 to 10 minutes.

How to upgrade to windows 10 enterprise (without reinstalling windows)

That’s it! Closeout of the upgrade complete verification screen and start using your new edition of Windows.

How to upgrade to windows 10 enterprise (without reinstalling windows)

If you decide you need to transfer your Windows 10 Pro Pack license to another computer in the future, check outour article for instructions on how to do so.

Applies to

The simplest path to upgrade PCs that are currently running WindowsВ 7, WindowsВ 8, or WindowsВ 8.1 to WindowsВ 10 is through an in-place upgrade.

In-place upgrade is the preferred method to use when migrating from Windows 10 to a later release of Windows 10, and is also a preferred method for upgrading from Windows 7 or 8.1 if you do not plan to significantly change the device’s configuration or applications. MDT includes an in-place upgrade task sequence template that makes the process really simple.

In-place upgrade differs from computer refresh in that you cannot use a custom image to perform the in-place upgrade. In this article we will add a default Windows 10 image to the production deployment share specifically to perform an in-place upgrade.

Three computers are used in this topic: DC01, MDT01, and PC0002.

  • DC01 is a domain controller for the contoso.com domain
  • MDT01 is a domain member server
  • PC0002 is a domain member computer running WindowsВ 7 SP1, targeted for the WindowsВ 10 upgrade

The computers used in this topic.

For details about the setup for the procedures in this article, please see Prepare for deployment with MDT.

If you have already completed all the steps in Deploy a Windows 10 image using MDT, then you already have a production deployment share and you can skip to Add Windows 10 Enterprise x64 (full source).

Create the MDT production deployment share

On MDT01:

  1. Ensure you are signed on as: contoso\administrator.
  2. In the Deployment Workbench console, right-click Deployment Shares and select New Deployment Share.
  3. On the Path page, in the Deployment share path text box, type D:\MDTProduction and click Next.
  4. On the Share page, in the Share name text box, type MDTProduction$ and click Next.
  5. On the Descriptive Name page, in the Deployment share description text box, type MDT Production and click Next.
  6. On the Options page, accept the default settings and click Next twice, and then click Finish.
  7. Using File Explorer, verify that you can access the \\MDT01\MDTProduction$ share.

Add Windows 10 Enterprise x64 (full source)

If you have already have a Windows 10 reference image in the MDT Build Lab deployment share, you can use the deployment workbench to copy and paste this image from the MDT Build Lab share to the MDT Production share and skip the steps in this section.

On MDT01:

  1. Sign in as contoso\administrator and copy the content of a WindowsВ 10 Enterprise x64 DVD/ISO to the D:\Downloads\Windows 10 Enterprise x64 folder on MDT01, or just insert the DVD or mount an ISO on MDT01.
  2. Using the Deployment Workbench, expand the Deployment Shares node, and then expand MDT Production.
  3. Right-click the Operating Systems node, and create a new folder named Windows 10.
  4. Expand the Operating Systems node, right-click the Windows 10 folder, and select Import Operating System. Use the following settings for the Import Operating System Wizard:
    • Full set of source files
    • Source directory: (location of your source files)
    • Destination directory name: W10EX64RTM
  5. After adding the operating system, in the Operating Systems / Windows 10 folder, double-click it and change the name to: Windows 10 Enterprise x64 RTM Default Image.

Create a task sequence to upgrade to WindowsВ 10 Enterprise

On MDT01:

  1. Using the Deployment Workbench, select Task Sequences in the MDT Production node, and create a folder named Windows 10.
  2. Right-click the new Windows 10 folder and select New Task Sequence. Use the following settings for the New Task Sequence Wizard:
    • Task sequence ID: W10-X64-UPG
    • Task sequence name: Windows 10 Enterprise x64 RTM Upgrade
    • Template: Standard Client Upgrade Task Sequence
    • Select OS: Windows 10 Enterprise x64 RTM Default Image
    • Specify Product Key: Do not specify a product key at this time
    • Organization: Contoso
    • Admin Password: Do not specify an Administrator password at this time

Perform the WindowsВ 10 upgrade

To initiate the in-place upgrade, perform the following steps on PC0002 (the device to be upgraded).

On PC0002:

  1. Start the MDT deployment wizard by running the following command: \\MDT01\MDTProduction$\Scripts\LiteTouch.vbs
  2. Select the Windows 10 Enterprise x64 RTM Upgrade task sequence, and then click Next.
  3. Select one or more applications to install (will appear if you use custom image): Install – Adobe Reader
  4. On the Ready tab, click Begin to start the task sequence. When the task sequence begins, it automatically initiates the in-place upgrade process by invoking the Windows setup program (Setup.exe) with the necessary command-line parameters to perform an automated upgrade, which preserves all data, settings, apps, and drivers.

How to upgrade to windows 10 enterprise (without reinstalling windows)

How to upgrade to windows 10 enterprise (without reinstalling windows)

How to upgrade to windows 10 enterprise (without reinstalling windows)

After the task sequence completes, the computer will be fully upgraded to WindowsВ 10.