Surface Pro 3 Windows Key

Question

My old and dear Surface Pro 3 just died a few days ago, and even after trying all tricks arounf the Internet to bring it back to life, nothing works.

Since the product is out of support, I purchased a brand new Surface Pro 7 to replace the SP3.

Now, SP7 comes with Windows 10 Home pre-installed while SP3 had Windows 10 Pro, after the free upgrade from the originally installed Windows 8.1 Pro.

I would like to migrate the license to the new Surface Pro 7 to be able to upgrade Windows 10 to Pro version.

How can I do that?

Answer 1

You can't.  The license is per machine and the product key is encoded in the BIOS.  You will have to pay the $99 upgrade to Pro via the Store (I had to do the same thing with a different machine).

Answer 2

The Surface Pro 3 is a great machine.  Am on my 3rd one now and consider it the best of the entire tablet line.

As for the license, probably in some years to come, the operating system will probably end up being free and work in a similar model as how Linux functions.  There is a gradual move to what is called a "rolling release" to where you get the operating system with the machine and all it gets are updates and never an upgrade.  For that to happen with Windows, they have to get rid of "Home", "Pro", and "Enterprise" flavors and just put out "Windows".  That probably won't happen soon but eventually, down the road, would be cheaper to support by only having one flavor.

Answer 3

From my investigations you are right. Cannot move the product key to another surface, which actually sucks, because licenses should be perpetual and movable.

Anyway, I will not require it as I was able to resurrect the dead SP3 (must be the Easter season), which seems perfectly functional now, and I will clean it up and reuse it for my kids.