How to change activation key when upgrading from 7 Home Premium to Pro

[kelraie]

Hello
I am trying to upgrade one of my laptops at the office from 7 Home Premium 64 bit to pro. I have bought several upgrade keys because I have several computers in the office. I lost track of how many times I used each of the keys. So on this one computer I entered one of the activation keys into Windows Anytime Upgrade. It keeps failing and tells me to go the Microsoft website for help. I suspect it's failing because I had already used that particular key too many times. I am trying to enter another activation key I have, but there's no option for that. Every time I go to Anytime Upgrade it tries to run the update using the key I had already entered with no option to enter a different key.

Thanks
Khaled

 

[gregrocker]

Audit the installed Product Key using Belarc Advisor so you know which keys are in use, organize your key backups better.

Anytime keys are retail so you can migrate them to another install, but you should stick with the same key on a reinstall to save trouble. If you want to migrate it you may need to Activate Windows 7 by Phone Step-by-Step Guide.

In addition I would save a Win7 backup image of the lesser version before you Upgrade, and an image of the upgraded version to use in place of reinstalls. These will maintain activation in almost all cases. Backup Complete Computer - Create an Image Backup