Yeah, i quickly just installed Enterprise to check out this new mode and this is the only difference.
I was just able to activate my PC with WS using the known methods posted in this thread without having to reinstall: 1) Unplugged all my hard drives and added a spare. 2) Installed Win 10 pro insider preview 16278 on spare. Let it activate using the stored pro digital license that matched my HWID already. 3) Input the key ending in XD863 and rebooted. 4) Comes back as activated for WS. Ran gatherosstate.exe and saved the xml to USB key. 5) Installed my main hard drives back and booted. Coped the xml file to proper location in windows. 6) Changed key to 2YV77 and clicked activate. 7) XML file deleted and system came back as activated. Hope that helps any noobs that skipped to the end and just want to know how to swap from pro to ws without rebuilding their PC.
No need for gatherosstate. If you have HWID for WS on HDD-1 it will also be the same on HDD-2 HDD ONLY does not change HWID
Yes, no need for using the genuineticket.xml. You would only need to enter the Pro-WS non gVLK on the other hdd install, when it already is confirmed on the other hdd install.
Could you please clarify two things ? 1) when you entered XD863 key, was there upgrade process that happened at this moment or it was only license-switch ? 2) which win10 editions are installed on your main hard drives ?
ok thanks, could you please clarify this : what is the difference between these 2 keys ? (-2YV77) and (-XD863) ? i know both of these keys are generic keys and i know the last one allows to activate win10 pro WS by simply entering it but what is the use of the other one ?
I've edited my previous post to clarify that. On >16288 builds none of the keys will activate anything, only when a HWID already is established, the (-2YV77) key will make pro-ws contact the HWID server and let it activate the install.
1) Only a license-switch. The watermark on the windows screen didn't change from Pro to WS until I rebooted. 2) On my original hard drives I was running 1709 build 16299.248 Pro with digital license.
thanks for the reply but you need to know that when it comes to license-swith , you won't have the full Pro WS that means that you won't be able to benefit of real win10 Pro WS functions.
Enthousiast - Re: Step 2 - Yes, I know I didn't need to activate version 16278 to Pro. It activated automatically because I was doing a clean install on the dummy drive while connected to the network on a machine that was already HW activated so as soon as it came up it automatically activated that install. Step 3 would have activated it I believe if it had been a non-activated system. Re: Step 4 - So version 16278 doesn't give any indication that it is activated with a digital license. It simply says it's activated. If you upgrade to a later version it will say it has a digital license. I ran the gatherosstate.exe as insurance to make sure I had the xml file and so I wouldn't have to swap HD's again if something went wrong. Re: Step 6 - This step failed for me. When I booted back on my old hard drives the windows store said I did not own Workstation. Trying to add the 3V66T key resulted in an error saying my hardware did not have an existing digital license. I suspect something I did in step 4 (or perhaps version 16278 has an issue since it doesn't indicate a digital license after the key change) didn't successfully tag me in the licensing servers. When I copied the xml file to the proper location and reattempted the key change it activated successfully.
The WS features weren't added in the 1709 - 16299.248 build. Those are in the newer insider builds. However, swapping the license allows me to use REFS again which is really what I was looking for.
The pro digital licenses don't have anything to do with it. We have discussed this all over the past few months. The only thing that you need to do is install any pro-ws/pro/ent/home/edu build between 16251 and 16288, use the pro-ws activation key from the product.ini files on those build iso's (converted from UUP>ISO) and either generate a genuineticket.xml, to be used on a clean pro-ws install) or upgrade to a more current pro-ws build and it will get a HWID/DL.
if you had entered the key (-XD863)on home edition, you would have upgraded to pro WS and you will have benefited of real WS functions.
I don't think you're following what I'm saying. Yes, we all know that the above methods work. What I'm saying is that I got a 3rd method to work. I had a system that was BEYOND 16288 that I wanted to activate WS on that only had a hw entitlement for Pro that I did NOT want to do a clean install on nor did I want to revert to a previous build. Rather than installing something between 16251 and 16288 and then upgrading to a more current build to get the entitlement to WS or clean installing a new build and using the genuineticket.xml to get an entitlement, I simply took the genuineticket.xml from my 16278 temp build and it allowed me to swap licenses on my 16299 build and activate it. I skipped the upgrade or clean install step.
Do you know what functions might be missing so I can check if they are there? Storage Spaces allows me to create REFS volumes now so I know that works. I assume anything missing will be added during the next major release since those are basically like running a windows 10 upgrade on top of itself.
There is nothing new about that, after i posted that Pro-WS could be activated by the old product.ini key, ambidav or someone else generated a genuineticket.xml on it and used it on a more current install. As long as the genuineticket.xml is generated on the same hardware, in your case a spare hdd, but the same hardware, it can be applied on the original hdd install. And you actually did install a build between 16251 and 16288 on the spare hdd. If you also had applied the genuineticket.xml on the spare hdd you would only have to insert the pro-ws non gVLK from the current product.ini file on your 16299.248 install. About the missing features on 16299.xxx pro-ws by license switch: As i said, we are doing this for months now, and all info is posted in the many pages of this thread.