Windows 11 activation issue with M365 E5 license

Question

Hey got a Windows 11 device that was preinstalled with windows 11 home edition. I changed the product key to generic windows 11 pro key - https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/windows-insider-program/windows-11-version-upgrade-home-to-pro/m-p/2669719#M8031

I then proceeded to autopilot the device and that succeeded due to having a windows 11 pro key, and not a win 11 home key.

I have an Microsoft 365 e5 license applied to my MSFT account and this should step up the windows version and activate Windows. (to my knowledge)

However it is not. I throws the error 0xc004c003 when running the troubleshooter - "We can’t activate Windows on this device because you don’t have a valid digital license or product key"

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/get-help-with-windows-activation-errors-09d8fb64-6768-4815-0c30-159fa7d89d85#ID0ELD=Windows_11

I have also tried slmgr.vbs -rearm. no luck.

The activation screen does show:

Answer 1

Hello,

Open CMD as administrator, then paste the following commands:

slmgr.vbs /ckms

slmgr.vbs /upk

If you’ve already assigned the Microsoft 365 E5 license to your user account in Microsoft 365 admin center, you might need to wait for a while as it may take up to 24 hours for the license status to update in the backend.

In the meantime, please make sure that you’ve joined your device to Azure AD and login with the same user account that has the M365 E5 license assigned to it.

If still could not activate, I suggest that contact Microsoft 365 subscription activation support to check the key.

Best Regards,

Hania Lian

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