How to upgrade 1511 from Home to Pro?

Sorry Winston.  I didn't mean for that to come off as hostile.  It's frustrating that there is such a disconnect between the Insiders and the Development Team.  They need to understand that we can't read minds, and while they may think something is a good idea, it hurts the program instead.  I fully understood the risks when I got in, but up to now we had a functioning system for recovering from a testbed being bricked by an update. 

Michael

Hi, Michael.

 No apology necessary. I did not see the reply as being hostile, only frustration.  My earlier reply was to ensure that Aug. 2015 notification/change requiring an activated Win10 as the base o/s being run to be able to turn on the 'Insider' switch was understood.

 - :)  That link 'free upgrade' was not intended to be of value, it was just part of the cut/paste from the August notice...though if it didn't work for you, it might have been temporary since clicking on that same link, does work, and redirects to:

 https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/windows-10-upgrade?

....but it still serves no real purpose unless one wishes to upgrade a qualifying o/s to 10, not a link to join or rejoin the Insider program.

It's pretty much a given that once an Insider build is installed, we as Insiders, some of us as MVPs also running Insider builds are incumbently required to provide our own protection to be able to restore a current or prior Insider build or genuine Win10 non-Insider Build(e.g. backing up the System and Boot Volume, i.e. the System partition and the o/s partition).

  - I prefer using Acronis True Image(ATI), for Win10 the supported version is 2016, though  one can use an earlier build 2014 or 2015 if using the optional boot media(boots and runs under Linux shell) creatable in the ATI program or downloadable iso for creating bootable media.  Other's have recommended Macrium Reflect on of the free imaging 3rd party utilities - good program too.  My reason for using ATI is preference after more than a decade of successful use and experience.

My colleague, Greg C, has provided sound information and the route to get to 10 from a qualifying o/s with or without embedded keys on firmware and the method to use the generic key and command line UI to activate if one has a qualifying Pro o/s and  the1511 creatable media installs Home due to the presence of an embedded 8x Home product key.

I wish it were more simple, but without an existing Insider backup, starting from scratch(earlier o/s, previous activated digital entitled Win10 clean install, etc.) is the only route to reach the base o/s requirement(Win10 Home or Pro) to join or rejoin the Insider program.

Man you're a thousand percent right.  My Acronis drive mirror got corrupted.  I guess this has just been the perfect storm of badness this past few days.  I'm just rebuilding and sucking it up, because complaining isn't achieving anything for me.  I've actually had some sleep and about 5 Monster energy drinks, so I will resolve this. You and Winston have been great.  

Michael

Thanks, I have rewiped the SSD and am in the process of the upgrade from 7 to 10 via the Insider page.  I hope it doesn't show up as Home again.  I was reading that the plan was for version parity when we have to reinstall, but this happened before and it was a bear to get back to where I was.  This time I'm going to mirror in Acronis again, and Macrium as well.  As much as I've preached to others about redundant backups I got zapped by my own failure to have more than one.  I thank you and Greg for the time you put in to help me, and listening to me vent.

Michael

Michael -

While this may be a way if you have an embedded Windows 8 key to assure you end up with Pro without needing to do the workaround, I always remind that we no longer need to do the inferior in-place Upgrade because after Version 1511 you can do the vastly superior Clean Install Windows 10 Upgrade.

You can optimize the Upgrade somewhat so that it lessens the chance of it choking or passing issues following Overcoming Windows 10 Upgrade Failures. Running the media and choosing to save nothing is nearly the same as the Clean Install  and should also lock in Pro version, although we have recently seem some very strange cases where users claimed that the OS converted from Pro<>Home during an in-place Upgrade which seems impossible. 

Let us know how it goes.

Thanks, I have rewiped the SSD and am in the process of the upgrade from 7 to 10 via the Insider page.  I hope it doesn't show up as Home again.  I was reading that the plan was for version parity when we have to reinstall, but this happened before and it was a bear to get back to where I was.  This time I'm going to mirror in Acronis again, and Macrium as well.  As much as I've preached to others about redundant backups I got zapped by my own failure to have more than one.  I thank you and Greg for the time you put in to help me, and listening to me vent.

Michael

As far as I know all links to get to Win10 - yield the same route whether starting from

1. Insider Home page options

a. The Insider Home page

 https://insider.windows.com/Home/Index

b. Before you install Windows Insider Preview

 http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/preview-faq?ocid=tp2\_nav\_faq

c. How to use Windows Insider Preview

 http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/preview-how-to

or

2. Going to the Get Windows 10 page

The download options for the both of the above(1 or 2), just point to the 1511 Media Creation Tool

 https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10

If you've the same device, with an 8x Home embedded key....and use above(1511) route

 --> The Workaround provide by MVP Greg C. should be necessary

**I could be incorrect and hope I am, but starting from 7 on a device with an 8.1 embedded key on the device, just seems like a really indirect route to recreate the same previous experienced problem - the Win10 install using the 8.1 Home embedded key to determine the resultant W10 edition.

i.e. Thus my felling -  It would seem that it does not matter where your start....from the Insider page or any other location....they all provide the same Win10 1511 version and/or Win10 media option(USB, DVD, Iso, upgrade directly from the qualifying o/s).