I was setting up a new Surface Laptop (with a Snapdragon arm64 CPU in it – very nice) recently and as part of the setup procedure, I needed to upgrade it from Windows 11 Home to Windows 11 Pro so it could be joined to Entra ID.

I was, perhaps recklessly, installing Windows Updates at the same time I installed the Windows 11 Pro Upgrade from the Microsoft Store. Both Windows Update and the Windows version upgrade got stuck so I rebooted the machine. Yes, I could see that it was telling me not to – but sometimes you need to live dangerously.

After the machine rebooted, it then decided it was running Windows 11 Enterprise, it wasn’t activated and it could not be activated. The Microsoft Store app simply told me how I could purchase Genuine Windows 11 Enterprise Retail. Not helpful.

I didn’t want to reset the whole machine or download a new Windows installer, and as it turns out, the solution was quite simple. I needed a way to sort this out without wiping everything I’d already done on the machine to this point. I went into Settings > System > About > Product key and activation.

In there I was able to change the product key to:

VK7JG-NPHTM-C97JM-9MPGT-3V66T

which is a generic Windows Pro product key.

After entering this key, it suddenly worked out that it was running Windows 11 Pro and it was happily activated.