So, I updated two of my PC's to Windows 10...

Scoob

Scoob

New member
Hi all,

So, while around a friends for a gaming evening, I took advantage of his epic broadband and upgraded both my Laptop and second Gaming PC to Windows 10, via the update method.

The upgrade process went smoothly and the gaming night continued as planned, however, there's one thing that sorta bugs me... I had Windows 8.1 Pro on both these machine, yet after the upgrade I only have Windows 10 Home. Now, I've already encountered limitations surrounding how updates are delivered in this restricted Home version, and doubtless I'll encounter many more as I use the PC's.

I recall many a time I've been glad of going for the "Pro" or "Ultimate" Windows versions, as it's allowed me to do certain things that've been important to me.

So, has anyone else found their Pro or Ultimate editions of Windows 8.1 or 7 effectively downgraded to a humble "Home" version of Windows 10? It may not initially be apparent, but as you start doing more of your usual things, you realise you cannot. For a pure gaming PC you'd likely be fine though.

Just an FYI, I use my machines for far more than just simple gaming and the Pro and Ultimate versions have been essential in certain situations.

Cheers,

Scoob.
 
Can you explain how you upgraded? It seems you may have chosen the wrong version whilst building your upgrade media. If you upgraded via the reservation tool then windows will download the setup equivalent of your current OS.

Also, was how were your previous versions of 8.1 pro activated? Retail key, OEM or KMS?

Last week I upgraded (windows update reservation tool) a few laptops at work for testing at work and they all got upgraded to 10 pro from 8.1 Pro OEM.
 
You definitely got the wrong version then dude as Windows Update detected my 8.1 Pro license and downloaded 10 Pro, Here's the table for comparison -

473162-which-version-of-window-10-should-you-get.jpg



I'm not saying you have but either something went wrong during the detection procedure or you were running an "Unofficial" version.

The only thing I can think of other than those is the installation media you chose was simply the wrong version.
 
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just checked mine and there both win 10 pro versions so the op definitely has an issue i would contact ms and ask about it :-/
 
Surprised it allowed you to upgrade to a different version. usually home can only upgrade to home, and pro upgrade to win 10 pro.
 
I had 8.1 pro and downloaded the pro version of 10 to usb and updated that way also used the same install on my sons which had the TP version on 10 and that upgraded to pro
 
Hi all,

Yeah, everything I'd read suggested I should get W10 Pro, but thought maybe I'd missed something.

As for upgrade method, I was deliberately testing the automatic one, i.e. I "reserved" then, when nothing happened, I cleared the Windows download cache and used the wuauclt.exe / updatenow method. After a few minutes my update started to download.

After that step there was nothing to select or choose, no OS options until I was asked to configure my preferences post installation.

A couple of hours later - while the BBQ was warming up - I did the update to my second PC, and the process was exactly the same.

Note my Windows 8.1 Pro is a full and valid version downloaded via my MSDN subscription. I also have both Windows 10 Pro and Enterprise images (and keys) for when I choose to do a full install on a new build.

I was planning to pop Windows 10 Pro on a usb key to update my main gaming PC today. I'm back on my own crappy connection, so the automatic method would take several hours.

Scoob.
 
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*sigh*

I expect I will fully rebuild both these PC's as the automatic upgrade process has, to all intents and purposes, failed.

As I have a full and valid W10 Pro key, I tried doing a key change, but the version of W10 is locked to Home and will not allow an update. Poor show MS.

I may create an install USB key and see if I can upgrade from the incorrectly applied home edition to the actual Pro edition which should have been applied.

Scoob.
 
Just out of intrest, can you do the following in cmd prompt: slmgr /xpr

Post a screenshot, here is mine:

w4EBA5g.jpg
 
Hi,

Mine is the same as yours but says:

"Windows(R), Core edition:"

I've just popped my Pro version on a USB key and am going to attempt to upgrade my laptop. I have my Pro key to hand.

Interestingly, while I have the options to either "Keep Personal files only" or "Nothing" the "Keep personal files and apps" is disabled. Seems a bit bloody stupid it cannot do this considering this laptop is already on W10, just the wrong version! I'm actually going to abort this as the entire point of letting Windows update automatically in the first place was to avoid crap like this.

Tried one more thing, upgrading my version of Windows 10 via the Store. It lets me enter my Pro product key, which is validated fine, but says that the key cannot update this version of Windows. Why not? Just download what you need FFS! What's the point of having a valid key, plus the option to upgrade, if the version Windows Update incorrectly applied is locked from being upgraded? Bloody daft.

New OS installs usually got a lot more smoothly than this, but then I've always in the past gone for a fresh build with the new version, never an upgrade like this. I wonder how many others have had this issue? Thankfully this laptop isn't one of my main PC's - I got it as a broken machine and repaired it - but on other machines the likes of Remote Desktop and the ability to control updates is a fair bit more important. So, the crappy Home version Windows Update appears to want to downgrade my Pro versions of W8.1 to is useless.

Ooo, I'm starting to rant a bit lol.

Right, for my main PC, I'm going to snag a couple of decent SSD's and do a FRESH Windows 10 Pro install on those, sod this automatic failgrade crap lol.

Scoob.
 
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Scoob said:
Hi,

Mine is the same as yours but says:

"Windows(R), Core edition:"

I've just popped my Pro version on a USB key and am going to attempt to upgrade my laptop. I have my Pro key to hand.

Interestingly, while I have the options to either "Keep Personal files only" or "Nothing" the "Keep personal files and apps" is disabled. Seems a bit bloody stupid it cannot do this considering this laptop is already on W10, just the wrong version! I'm actually going to abort this as the entire point of letting Windows update automatically in the first place was to avoid crap like this.

Tried one more thing, upgrading my version of Windows 10 via the Store. It lets me enter my Pro product key, which is validated fine, but says that the key cannot update this version of Windows. Why not? Just download what you need FFS! What's the point of having a valid key, plus the option to upgrade, if the version Windows Update incorrectly applied is locked from being upgraded? Bloody daft.

New OS installs usually got a lot more smoothly than this, but then I've always in the past gone for a fresh build with the new version, never an upgrade like this. I wonder how many others have had this issue? Thankfully this laptop isn't one of my main PC's - I got it as a broken machine and repaired it - but on other machines the likes of Remote Desktop and the ability to control updates is a fair bit more important. So, the crappy Home version Windows Update appears to want to downgrade my Pro versions of W8.1 to is useless.

Ooo, I'm starting to rant a bit lol.

Right, for my main PC, I'm going to snag a couple of decent SSD's and do a FRESH Windows 10 Pro install on those, sod this automatic failgrade crap lol.

Scoob.
Click to expand...

You need to reinstall win 8 with your original license and then make the upgrade from there by starting setup.exe on your usb key, make sure your win 8 is activated correctly .... I have already tried to install directly from a iso using a pro windows 8 license and this does not work. Its all about making the 1st upgrade from within windows itself and then doing a clean install by booting up from USB...
 
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FTLN said:
You need to reinstall win 8 with your original license and then make the upgrade from there by starting setup.exe on your usb key, make sure your win 8 is activated correctly .... I have already tried to install directly from a iso using a pro windows 8 license and this does not work. Its all about making the 1st upgrade from within windows itself and then doing a clean install by booting up from USB...
Click to expand...

Yeah, thanks for the tip, however that totally defeats the point of taking the "easy" automatic update option in the first place. I could possibly roll back to my full and valid W8.1 Pro build, then do the update from my USB key, but to be honest it's not worth my time at this point. I have no faith it'll not screw up again. Also, the entire point of the easy update was that it preserved both my files and apps. If those aren't preserved then a full clean install is the only option that makes sense.

Shame really, as other than installing entirely the wrong version of Windows 10, the update went smoothly via my friends excellent Fibre Broadband connection.

To those of you who have had their Windows 7 Ultimate / Windows 8.1 Pro updated successfully to Windows 10 Pro, did you simply allow Windows Update to do it for you, or did you use a usb drive or other option? I was going to go usb drive initially, but as I was at a friends with fibre broadband I thought I'd try the "easy" way. They're all on Windows 7 / 8.1 too, so wanted me to be the guinea pig, but they are all just Home or Home Premium versions, not Pro.

I will update my main PC's at some point, however I cannot afford, nor do I want, any of those to incorrectly give me the Home version of W10.

Scoob.
 
Just checking, seems I can use the Recovery option to simply go back to my prior Windows 8.1 build for the next 30 days. So MS have made this easy.

However, what problems will I potentially run into trying this? What if it doesn't correctly revert back to my Windows 8.1 Pro, but instead gives me the Home edition because I have the (incorrect) Home edition of W10?

Yeah, I'm somewhat lacking in trust that these automatic processes will actually get things right now lol. It wasn't my plan to stay inside playing around with Windows installs today...lol

Scoob.
 
Ok, so I can't leave things alone :)

I really wanted my main PC to be on Windows 10 Pro, so I've taken my USB key with "Multiple Versions" of W10 on it, and I've plugged it in while already sat in Windows 8.1 Pro. The install process has already confirmed it's updating me to "Windows 10 Pro" which is great, as well as keeping all my files and apps, though it did complain about it having to change the language. I'm assuming that's some English (US) and English (UK) thing as the latter was not an option when I tried booting off said USB key on the laptop previously.

Install process is at 32% currently, so fingers crossed it continues to go well.

The lesson learnt here is that the automatic "easy" upgrade process via Windows Update can get things wrong...let's hope this manual USB key method behaves better :)

Scoob.
 
Just in case anyone's still reading...

Well, that method worked great. Windows had a "moment" where it got confused about my GPU's, but I just left it and it sorted it out. I'm now in Windows 10 PRO and doing some tweaking.

So far, the only app that got scrubbed seems to be CPU-z 1.72, but I just downloaded 1.72.1 and that works fine. Will keep testing but I expect things to be largely business as usual now.

Btw: are there actually any DX12 benchmarks out there actually available for download yet? I just see videos of said tests so far. No reason for wanting this other than playing.

Scoob.
 
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