Upgrade a brand new Windows 11 Home to Pro (without leaving the out-of-box experience and without logging in with a non-corporate account) - Super User
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Choose language, keyboard layout, device name etc.
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Once you hit the login screen, press shift + F10 to open CMD. Technically you can open CMD while it's installing Updates but I don't recommend this because it will restart without warning and might interrupt the following process.
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Run
slui.exe /upk
. This is not always necessary but I suspect sometimes the Home license will be installed and needs to be removed first. Doesn't hurt to do anyway. -
Run
changepk.exe /ProductKey <Your product Key>
It will say it failed but ignore it. -
Restart
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It's now Windows 11 Pro.
EX.
- Running
changepk.exe /ProductKey VK7JG-NPHTM-C97JM-9MPGT-3V66T
(Key for Windows 11 Pro) brought up the "Preparing for Upgrade" dialogue but then failed with Error Code0x80070490
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I also tried
slmgr.vbs /ipk VK7JG-NPHTM-C97JM-9MPGT-3V66T
. This errored with 0xC004F069 and said to run SLUI to get full details. -
However, I then ran
slui.exe /upk
to uninstall the Product Key, and then triedchangepk.exe
again, after rebooting the OOBE was now for Windows 11 Pro and I could create a local user and domain join.