Microsoft Windows 7 Anytime Upgrade (Home Premium to Professional) [Online Code]

by Microsoft

Product Features

• Move up to Windows 7 Professional from Windows 7 Home Premium with Windows Anytime Upgrade
• Watch, pause, rewind, and record TV on your PC
• Easily create a home network and connect your PCs to a printer with HomeGroup
• Run many Windows XP productivity programs in Windows XP Mode
• Connect to company networks easily and more securely with Domain Join

Product Details

• Online Code: Currently, this item is available only to customers located in the United States and who have a U.S. billing address.
• Note: Gifting is available after purchase via e-mail.
• ASIN: B004E9SKE6
• Date first available at Amazon.com: November 29, 2010
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (281 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #889 in Software (See Top 100 in Software)
  • #34 in Software > Operating Systems > Microsoft Windows

Product Description

Customers an upgrade PCs running Windows 7 Home Premium to Windows 7 Professional in as little as ten minutes.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

329 of 352 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars What this upgrade does November 12, 2009

By J. Jaeger

Access Method:Box|Platform for Display:PC

I don't see much commentary here about the actual product performance. There is a lot of confusion about this upgrade in the retail outlets, so I thought I'd explain to those with questions.

I researched Windows 7 before I bought my computer, and knew I wanted Win 7 Professional in case I wanted to run XP programs. Most retail outlets only had Win 7 Home Premium installed on their computers. The computer stores had the Win 7 Pro computers on backorder. Through some investigation at Microsoft, I found out that all versions of Win 7 are preinstalled, and you just need to get a key to "unlock" the higher versions. This is that key.

It took a total of 14 minutes to install this upgrade on my new computer. The hardest part was typing in the multi-digit key. (In other words, not hard!) It ran for 12 minutes, and then it was ready to go!

I haven't tried the features of Win 7 Pro to rate it, but this upgrade works as promised.

105 of 113 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars This is how you upgrade from Win 7 Home Premium to Win 7 Professional December 28, 2009

By Roger J. Buffington TOP 500 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Access Method:Box| Platform for Display:PC|Amazon Verified Purchase

Most laptops/notebooks seem to ship with Windows 7 Home Premium rather than Windows 7 Professional. That is probably fine for most users. However, if you need your Windows 7 Notebook to be part of a business domain network, you need Windows 7 Professional. This upgrade is how you accomplish the change.

It turns out that Windows 7 Home Premium already contains Windows 7 Professional; it is simply not enabled. When you buy this upgrade you are getting an upgrade key. No disk, just a key sticker and very brief instructions. Key it in pursuant to the laughably simple instructions and within minutes you will be running Windows 7 Professional. One caveat: apparently you cannot upgrade from Windows 7 32 to Windows 7 64 bit. This will affect very few users as I do not believe that hardly any computers are shipping with 32 bit Windows 7. Nor should they. Windows 7 64 bit is very compatible with existing 32 bit software, and in the future we can expect lots of 64 bit software and we all want to be ready for it.

Some have criticized Microsoft for charging for the upgrade from Home Premium to Professional, but my opinion (which is only that) is that Microsoft makes its living by selling operating system software and this is one way for them to do it. At least the upgrade is easy, painless, and quick. RJB.

63 of 67 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Needed upgrade March 30, 2010

By Retiree

Access Method:Box| Platform for Display:PC|Amazon Verified Purchase

My laptop crashed and needed to be replaced. Old laptop was on XP Pro; new one on Win 7 Premium Home. One of my old software programs did not work on Win 7, and it is no longer supported, but I needed to use it. Research told me I could create a Virtual PC operating on XP but only from Win 7 Pro. So I bought the unlock code. It worked fine. I have now created Virtual PC and can access my needed old software program in that manner. Couple minor problems. First, a Virtual PC is truly a separate PC. It does not have access to the antivirus software installed on the Win 7 PC. Fortunately my ISP offers free downloads of Norton PC. Laptop came with McAfee (I did not want it because of my free access to antivirus from my ISP, but I had no choice). So I now have the main laptop protected by McAfee and the Virtual PC protected by Norton. Upgrade downloads occur separately and require separate reboots to take effect. There is no conflict because they are effectively two separate computers. Second, Win 7 has separated screen resolution from font size, two functions joined in XP. On XP I always selected a step down on resolution so I could read the fonts. In Win 7, I can now use max resolution and larger fonts. But when I go to Virtual PC, I cannot change resolution. So I either have to step down in resolution before invoking Virtual PC or I am stuck with microscopic fonts.

25 of 26 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars MS Windows 7 Anytime Upgrade -- Easy to Use & Does the Job September 25, 2010

By D. Riel

Access Method:Box| Platform for Display:PC|Amazon Verified Purchase

The Windows 7 operating system is offered in several versions: Starter, Home Basic, Home Premium, Professional, Enterprise, and Ultimate. It's important to understand what features are contained (and not included!) in each version so that you won't be disappointed with your machine.

If you are going to use your laptop, computer, or workstation for any business or other serious purpose, forget about the Starter, Home Basic and Home Premium versions. Unfortunately, one of these is usually what's installed if you buy the machine from online discounters or in large electronic stores

However, all is not lost. For the first time, the Windows 7 operating system comes with all the features for all the versions. All a user has to do is "unlock" those features. That's where the "Anytime Upgrade" comes in. Open this package and you will find a code. Type in "anytime upgrade" on your machine, and you will see a screen that asks for the code. Type it in and voila! You are upgraded to Windows 7 Professional. No disks. No sweat.

It's great that Amazon sells this product at a good price. Windows 7 Professional includes a license for Windows XP and can run your older software (and drivers for older hardware like printers) in XP Mode. So when I bought my first Windows 7 machine and knew it came with the Home Premium edition, I did not worry, knowing I could buy this upgrade from Amazon.

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent, if slightly confusing product upgrade September 22, 2010

By N. Schimpf

Access Method:Box|Platform for Display:PC

I bought a new desktop from Dell in June with Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit, moving up from a desktop which had Windows XP Professional. I had done a few comparisons with the price and thought it would probably be better to first go with the lower priced Home Premium version and see if it met my needs.

It sort of did, but two months in I was finding myself wanting of features I took for granted in XP Pro. Although Home Premium is powerful enough it's still quite neutered and you can't do things like use the Group Policy editor or use the included backup program, along with other power user tweaks that don't involve any Registry tinkering. Also, a few programs, being a 64-bit system, did not run, though I will admit that some of those programs include games from the Microsoft Best of Entertainment Pack from 1996 that I always played, but could not here.

After lots of debate I decided to bump up to Professional. I went to a store and purchased this, and this is one of the bottlenecks you run into buying an Anytime Upgrade; nobody selling it knows exactly what it is unless it's explained exactly by the customer ahead of time. You need to be careful buying this product and any Anytime Upgrade. I got the Upgrade disc from Vista to 7 at first, when I needed the Anytime Upgrade, which comes in a much smaller package solely consisting of a code card and basic instructions. I feel Microsoft needs to change the name perhaps to better describe the product.

Anyways, I got it home, punched in the key into the Anytime Upgrade dialogue, and about 14 minutes later I was now running my computer in Windows 7 Professional.... I ran into a couple of issues, mainly that my Start menu's most recently used programs were gone along with all of my System Restores, so run a System Restore immediately if all is well.

Then came installing XP Mode. I have an AMD Phenom II with six cores so I was more than ready to run it. Another fifteen minutes, that was installed. However, I must recommend almost immediately that you are running an unprotected system the moment you launch the XP mode desktop. At minimum like I did, install the free Windows Security Essentials onto the XP virtual machine, and then Internet Explorer 8, because there is no need in 2010 to run IE6 unless you find reinstalling your entire system after a spyware invasion to be a fun weekend activity. That XP Mode doesn't have these programs right at the start is kind of appalling and Windows 7 SP2 (or an included exclusive Windows XP Service Pack 3.5 for XP Mode installs) should hopefully address this.

Ten minutes later I was testing XP Mode programs within the Windows 7 desktop. It is slightly slower than usual (remember, it's a virtual machine so you're only devoting a little bit of RAM to it rather than it all), but still quite serviceable. Mind you this was just testing Chip's Challenge and then SkiFree until the Yeti chased down my skiier, but I am quite happy that I have more control over my system than I did under 7 Home Professional. Read more ›