Revert the Installation of a Pirated Windows

Question

Hi.

Recently I received a laptop which has Windows 11 Pro installed as its operating system. The thing is that now Microsoft is requiring the owner to by a license to activate the product. After gathering information about the laptop model, I learned that it came with Windows 10 Home installed from factory, which makes me think the current OS (i.e., Windows 11 Pro) is a pirated version of Windows, since (I think) we may not update a Home version to a Pro version without purchasing a new license.

Considering that the owner doesn’t have the key used by the Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) to first install Windows, is it still possible to roll back to Windows 10 Home or install Windows 11 Home to use the old OEM license?

Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

This really depends because licensing is complicated. If you bought a laptop from an OEM and it had Win 10 on it then most likely it is using a digital license. A digital license is tied to the motherboard and so no license key is needed. The license cannot be moved to another machine as it is tied to the board itself. The notebook's recovery software (which is generally either on a hidden partition on the hard drive or available for download from the manufacturer) would restore the machine to its original OS using the digital license.

Once you're back to the original license you can upgrade like normal. Upgrading from Win 10 to Win 11 is free and the same license works. But that is only across editions (Home to Home for example). To jump to a different edition then yes you need a new license. Furthermore the digital license is no longer good enough and you'll need either the product key (given at purchase) or an MS account that has a license for the OS. If you have neither of these then you have to go buy a new license.

For example, my OEM system came with Win 10 Home installed. If I restore the OS (even with the Win 10 Pro media) then it defaults to the digital license associated with the board. I then upgrade to Win 10 Pro by associating my MS account that has licenses for Win 10 Pro and the OS upgrades. Alternatively I could have entered a product key and upgraded as well. If I ever wipe the machine and run the Win installer again then it'll revert to the Win 10 Home license and I have to repeat the process.