I recently had a custom gaming rig built with Win7 Home Premium installed not knowing I needed Win7 Pro or better to run more than 16gig of ram (32gig installed). I have a Win7 Pro key and was wondring if I can use that Pro key as an upgrade key by using the "Change activation key" feature or using the "Anytime Upgrade" feature?
I have a Full Pro key and Disk but was trying to avoid a FULL install lol.
Since you're running 32 bit you would need to Upgrade to 64 bit to recognize all of your RAM.
As shown in this chart, only Basic will not recognize 16gb RAM in 64 bit. But all versions of 32 bit will only recognize 4gb RAM: Compare Windows 7 Editions - Windows 7 Help Forums
Last edited by gregrocker; 12 Sep 2013 at 09:22.
You missed the whole point of my wanting to upgrade... I need to run Pro or higher to take advantage of all my ram for gaming. Win7 home premium and lower only recognize up to 16gig where as Pro and up will recognize up to I believe 196gig of ram.
His system specs show he is using x64, so in order to utilise 32gb of ram he will have to upgrade from Home Premium to Pro or better.
As far as I know you can use the same key for activation but someone with more knowledge of this would be better to advise you for certain.
I think you have to do a full reinstall to upgrade from Home Premium to Pro.
Edit. I see from Golden's reply & checking "Windows Anytime Upgrade" How to, you don't need to do a full reinstall.
Last edited by Ranger4; 13 Sep 2013 at 17:36. Reason: More information now at hand.
Home Premium x64 can use up to 16GB RAM
Professional and Ultimate x64 can use up to 192GB RAM
All x86 (32 bit) versions Windows can use up to 4GB RAM
See this for upgrading:
Windows Anytime Upgrade - How to
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