Easily switch from Windows 10 Enterprise to Windows 10 Education

Some of you may have seen me do a demo at previous events showing how you could change from Windows 10 Pro to Windows 10 Enterprise, just by changing the product key – the change is immediate, no reboot is required.  That capability was added in Windows 10 1607.

Now in Windows 10 1709, we’ll add one more OS into the fold.  Now you can also change from Windows 10 Enterprise to Windows 10 Education, again just by changing the product key.  Here’s a short video showing how to do this:

In case you are wondering, the product keys shown in that video are publicly documented at https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj612867(v=ws.11).aspx – they don’t actually activate the OS, they just cause it to try to find a KMS server that can activate it.

We announced a similar capability recently, Windows 10 Subscription Activation, which leverages the same technology behind the scenes, but today that only supports stepping up from Windows 10 Pro to Windows 10 Enterprise.  Check out the Ignite session that Kamal and I did on this topic, available at https://myignite.microsoft.com/sessions/53410.  The ability to support stepping up from Windows 10 Pro to Windows 10 Enterprise automatically through Subscription Activation is something we’re looking at for the future.

p.s. One of the questions asked at Ignite, and more recently on Twitter, was how to move from Windows 10 Enterprise LTSB to Windows 10 Education.  While you can’t upgrade directly from Windows 10 Enterprise LTSB to Windows 10 Education, you can instead upgrade from Windows 10 Enterprise LTSB to Windows 10 Enterprise 1709, then use the mechanism I described above to change the product key to Windows 10 Education – one additional step in the process.

Comments

• Anonymous
  October 10, 2017
  Mr. Neihaus,Will we ever be able to go from Enterprise back to Pro?
  • Anonymous
    October 10, 2017
    You already can (something I mentioned in a follow-up blog).