Windows 10: Unable to activate after upgrading Win 11 Pro to 24H2

On Monday, January 6th, I upgraded my Windows 11 Pro installation to 24H2. I did several OS upgrades that day [iOS, macOS, Debian] and was feeling lucky. I didn't notice until the next day that Windows now required re-activation which was failing with the key I had provided during the initial install in February 2024. Bought the PC for gaming then; assembled it from scratch and activated Windows using a license key I purchased online. It went smoothly ever since. Haven't changed anything except the aforementioned upgrade. Never encountered any relevant issues. I went on the odyssey of tryi

:)

 

Unable to Activate Win 8

I got Win 8 isntalled on my file server, but I am unable to activate it with the key. Says the key is invalid. Since I work at microsoft I got a retail version from the employee store. I have been doing some reading, and to be able to activate Win8 with the key there needs to be a previous version of Windows installed for it to work. WTF, so you can't do clean installs?

And the box says nothing about Upgrade version. Straight Windows 8 Pro.

 

Unable to Activate Win 8

I guess that's two of us with magic Windows 8 upgrade disks. *Laugh :laugh:

 

Unable to upgrade Windows 11 Home to 11 Pro

Thanks much, Dave, indeed it was a big job.

Clean install of Windows 11 from a bootable USB helped to Activate the Pro.

Just to summarize what was done:

1. Took backup of the drives and save some on cloud.
   
2. Installed the Media creation tool app as you suggested (Download Windows 11)
   
3. Connected the USB and ran the application and downloaded the Windows 11.
   
   1. additional thing which I had to do is to install WLAN driver to the USB in advance, to have the WIFI option available as it was required to connect to a network to download the latest windows features while reinstalling the Windows, and Wi-Fi option was not available.
      
4. Turned off the 'Secure boot' from the BIOS menu.
   
5. Changed the 'Boot Order' in the BIOS menu to first use the USB Boot.
   
6. Saved and Exit, which triggered Restart and Windows installation.
   
7. During the network connecting stage to install the latest updates and features - 'Let's Connect you to a network', I opened the CMD (Shift + F10) and ran than WLAN driver exe to install it and then I was able to connect to my WIFI network.
   
   1. Optional to this step is to BYPASS the network connection stage by following this - bypass "lets connect you to a network" - Microsoft Community
      
   2. Then, doing that manually once Windows has been installed.
      
8. Once everything is set-up, I followed the suggestion from this again, and it worked - Unable to upgrade Windows 11 Home to 11 Pro - Microsoft Community