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Back Story: Way back when, I bought a Thinkpad W540, it came with Windows 7 Pro. I did the free upgrade to Windows 10 Pro. This was all connected with my Microsoft account At some point I also switch to a m.2 sata drive, and have been using that as my system drive for the past 9-ish years on that machine. It took a catastrophic failure earlier this week. Purchased a replacement, downloaded the Windows 10 install using their Creation Tool. I also tried the route of getting an ISO version as well and reinstalled from that, same results.

Problem: With the fresh install, it's only activated as the Home version. I can't figure out how to get it to Pro without providing a Product Key, which I never had since it was upgraded during that free switch to 10 period.

How can I get my Pro version of Windows 10 back?

It's too old and doesn't support Windows 11, so that is not an option.

Ramhound
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dave k
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I was not intending on answering my own question, but I just found a solution.

I ended up going to the Microsoft Store on the computer, somewhere I never go, and there it was, the option to install Pro. No cost or any hoops to jump through, click "Install" and confirm I'm ready to go. Crazy.

dave k
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