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jodyfaisonFlag for United States of America

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Can I Upgrade win7 home pro to win7 pro with an existing product id?

I bought my wife a new laptop. It has windows home Professional installed. Her old laptop had a licensed copy of Windows Professional.
I'm finding that we need the Pro version.

But I can't seem to find a way to upgrade the new laptop with our existing previously purchased serial number?

thanks
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R. Andrew Koffron
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you can't just backup the old data and migrate it to the New OS
Windows Anytime Upgrade will allow you to upgrade to Professional or Ultimate happily using your existing license.

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-GB/windows7/help/videos/upgrade-to-another-edition-of-windows-7-by-using-windows-anytime-upgrade
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Well that's where I was, but could only find oppurtunity to BUY new number. So, thanks, let me follow your link...
Hello Harel66,
well I have backup up and moved the old data to the new laptop. But the new laptop is in win home pro, and I'd perfer to use the old OS Windows Pro.

The new laptop came with the Win home pro pre-installed.
You will have to pay for an upgrade, which will ultimately cost you more than it would, had you bought the laptop with Pro on in the first place.
If your old laptop was Windows 7 Pro OEM, then you cannot move the licensing anyway. So then you might was well spring for the anytime upgrade.

If not much time has gone by, return the laptop for a refund (removing your data first) and purchase a Windows 7 Pro laptop.

If your old laptop has retail copy of Windows 7 Pro (as mine does), use that license and as noted earlier, back up and reinstall Windows.

... Thinkpads_User
Jodyfaison, just for future reference and to help you avoid any confusion down the road, there isn't a version of Windows 7 that is actually called "Windows 7 Home Professional."  The mainstream versions of Windows 7 are as follows:

Windows 7 Home Basic
Windows 7 Home Premium
Windows 7 Professional
Windows 7 Ultimate
Windows 7 Enterprise
Oh, ok, yes that's the rub. I can't just replace or upgrade with my old number?

I guess I could re-format and re-install with my old product id and disk?
But that's more work that I had hoped for...
>>> Oh, ok, yes that's the rub. I can't just replace or upgrade with my old number?

You need to be sure that old number is not OEM. You cannot move OEM from one computer to another. If you try, you might get it work initially, but activation will be a problem down the road. So make sure of your licensing (OEM or Retail) first.

If Retail, you can re-format and re-install. .... Thinkpads_User
Ok, yes it is not oem, I remember purchasing and downloading from digital river, etc.
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John
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You can use the anytime upgrade to upgrade the same type of Windows. You can upgrade Home OEM to Pro OEM or Home Retail to Pro Retail, just not OEM to Retail.

... Thinkpads_User
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Thanks to all, good information here.
Oh by the way, my bad, I do mean Windows Home Premium.
And yes, I'm sure the new laptop is an OEM license.
Yes - the Anytime Upgrade will work on whatever you have installed.  They wouldn't give you the option to use it if it were not an option.

Alan
Thanks so much. Why can't Microsoft just tell me this? (in a place I can easily find).
Good work.
Thank you. I was pleased to assist along with the other experts here. .... Thinkpads_User