I bought a secondhand Dell desktop, and it came with a non-genuine version of Windows 11 Pro. I first noticed a problem when I tried changing the themes and got a message saying, 'You need to activate Windows before you can personalise your PC.' After some troubleshooting, I found out that the computer is running Windows 11 Pro but has a Windows 11 Home digital license. I downloaded the Windows 11 Media Creation Tool and reinstalled Windows, hoping it would solve the issue, but it's still showing as Windows 11 Pro. I'm totally fine with wiping everything since there's nothing important on it. However, I'm not great with Windows or PCs in general, so I could really use some advice!
2 Answers
When using the Windows Media on a USB, make sure you're prompted to choose the version you want. There is a way to upgrade from Home to Pro, but downgrading can be a bit trickier. If the only things affected are personalization and domain features, and you can live without them, then you don't really need to activate right away.
Before starting fresh, I'd recommend doing a factory reset or reinstalling Windows from scratch to get it right. If you install Windows 11 Home, it should show as activated. Also, if you have another user account on the system, go to Start > Settings > Accounts > Other Users and remove that account if it's listed. To get rid of the Windows license key before reinstalling, you can run the command `slmgr /upk` in an admin command prompt.
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