Accidentally installed Pro!

Kenjiin

Kenjiin

Kenjiin

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Hey! I recently bought an ssd and wanted to install Windows for boot on it. I already had 10 upgraded from 7 on my HDD and had been using it a while, so I downloaded the ISO and put it on a USB and installed W10 onto my SSD that way. Moved games across I wanted on it and formatted the HDD. Done. Everything was great!

But now I have a little message in the bottom right hand corner telling me to activate Windows in settings. On install it said it would do this automatically, but it says it can't because I don't have a key.

Now, being an idiot has it shortcomings and it seems I've installed Windows 10 Pro instead instead of Home from the ISO.

Is there an easy way of fixing this or am I going to have to reinstall Windows?

And if that's the case please tell me I can just reinstall from the USB and not have to go back to 7 and upgrade again. I'm not sure I even have the 7 disc anymore! :(

Any help is much appreciated lol
 
Oh god :(

Well at least I don't have to revert back to 7. But I am right in thinking it's not activating automatically because I never had the Pro version on my hardware right?

I don't think my W7 Home Product key will work cause I've used it so many times on my comp, always have to ring them to get it activated, which was why I was letting it happen automatically like the install screen says when reinstalling.

Hopefully now that it will be W10 Home it will just recognise it and register.

Such a pain! My fault though. Stupid enough to think if Pro wouldn't have been an option had I not had it previously. :rolleyes:
 
Sorry, amazingly never reinstalled Windows before.

Do I need to format my SSD before starting the clean install, or if I just boot to USB and start the reinstall will it give me an option to format there? Thanks ^.^
 
Yes, it will give you a chance to format before you install windows, if not click on advance options and it will give you the option to format the drive in there
 
Kenjiin said:
Sorry, amazingly never reinstalled Windows before.

Do I need to format my SSD before starting the clean install, or if I just boot to USB and start the reinstall will it give me an option to format there? Thanks ^.^
Click to expand...

Your Win7 Home key will work fine. At worst, call MS again.

Just boot from the USB, choose custom setup (rather than upgrade) and reformat from there. When installing Windows, it is always safest to physically disconnect all but the intended boot drive, or at least make sure it is referred to ask Disk 0 in setup (on the same screen it will ask you to format).
 
Yeah I was going to disconnect the HDD before I do anything :)

Brilliant, thanks for all the help guys! I'll do this after work. Wish I didn't have to copy all my SSD games back to my HDD and then back to the SSD once it's reinstalled. That seems like the most annoying part lol. Oh well xD
 
Give your Windows 7 key a try in the activation box, I've done that before from a Pro install and it changed to 'Home' after a reboot.
 
BuToNz said:
Give your Windows 7 key a try in the activation box, I've done that before from a Pro install and it changed to 'Home' after a reboot.
Click to expand...

This is what I don't understand. When you install 10, it uses the same ISO for Pro as it does for Home. It only chooses which version you get once you enter the product key.
If you entered the product key during install, and it chose to install Pro then :confused::confused:
If you didn't enter a product key, hence it picking Pro, of course it won't auto activate. Try as Butonz says and enter the Home key and see if it changes to Home on reboot.
 
All sorted now guys, I reinstalled from ISO, put in the key and it automatically installed Home. After a bit of work got everything back to how it was, now I nice new 4 sec boot time :)

But I'll explain what I did. It installed Pro the first time because when I didn't put in an activation key (as it said if reinstalling it will do this automatically once up and running) on the next screen it asked which version I wanted to install. Being a numpty, I chose Pro.

I was under the impression it wouldn't have even been an option had I not owned 7 Pro lol. Now I know better. I didn't even realise until the message popped up on the desktop overlay :p

Thanks for the help though guys :)
 
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