I have a Windows 10 laptop that was preinstalled with Windows 10 Home. Because I use this laptop for college, I have a product key for Windows 10 Education for some extra features (like remote desktop), and activated that key a few months ago.
Because I have almost finished college, the Education key should expire in a while.
Now I want to go back to the preinstalled Home edition, but can't find a way how. And I don't want to do a clean install.
I used the ProduKey tool to see my BIOS OEM Key, because there is no sticker on the laptop. Next, I tried to reactivate Windows with that key. No luck unfortunately. It returned an error (0xc004f050
).
I also found this tutorial to use a workaround with the register editor (regedit) and a re-install that keeps the files. But I am not sure if this is going to work with an educational license and an OEM key. This question was asked in the comments, but not answered.
So, is there a way to downgrade safely, without doing a clean install?
What if this is not possible? Will Windows automatically downgrade back to Home if the Education license expires? Does it uninstall the features that were installed during the upgrade to Education?
I can confirm that this tutorial works for Windows Education as well.
You simply modify the Windows Registry and then create an ISO file using the Media Creaton Tool.
Next, reinstall Windows 10 with the option to keep your files. After a while, Windows 10 is installed.
Keep in mind to make a back up of your files. Just in case something goes wrong.
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