Hi,
I just got a new job, and I decided to upgrade from Windows 10 Pro to Windows 11 Pro. It already had a Windows 10 Pro license key preinstalled. I decided to use the Massgrave.dev tool and accidentally changed my HWID to a Windows 11 Home key. Now, I’ve decided to downgrade back to Windows 10, but even when I use the Multi ISO for Windows 10, I can’t select Windows 10 Pro; it just defaults to Windows 10 Home now. I really want to restore my keys. Does anyone know a method?
Put Linux on it and pretend it’s never happened /s
I hope your IT department has a sense of humor lol
Use the same script to unlock Pro. Windows is automatically picking Home because it was most recently activated that way. You could also add a file onto the USB you used to install Windows with to force to show you a selection menu of various Windows variations (ie Home, Pro, Education, etc) and then pick Pro there. The preinstalled key should still be on the machine.
Do you have an IT department? Go explain to them how you fucked up and used a Windows key from a pirate website on your work laptop and risked the company’s reputation and a possible lawsuit from a tech giant and how you wish to unfuck things before it’s too late or lose your job.
Fucking hell man. That was a dumb move. I hope you learn a lesson from this.
Is it dangerous to use Massgrave.dev? I read somewhere that a Microsoft Support agent used it. I was able to install Windows 10 Pro again legitimately, but now it’s unlicensed. If anything, I’ll just buy the $200 Windows 11 Pro license and put it on here. I will take this as a lesson to never do that again.
The danger comes from Microsoft. If there’s an audit and it’s discovered that you are using pirated keys, that can coat the company a bunch of moneys
Now Microsoft is not quite as anal with those as some other companies (uh, Oracle for example) but it’s still not good
Thank you for the information. I’m leaving the computer not signed into my work account, only using local account and will buy license this Friday. I’m not using this laptop until then. I work for a small health company around 500 employees, so hopefully they won’t audit me. Am I fucked?
Honestly, I’d just suggest going to your IT and tell that you fucked around and broke things. The IT guys have seen that (in different ways) so many times it shouldn’t really be a too big deal. Way worse if you try to hide it
I feel like IT could yell at OP for a little bit, but would ultimately have to stare the fact that they allowed non-privileged users to just change the operating system square in the face. Like holy hell, 500 employees and anybody can just be like, “Hey, maybe I’ll make a major OS change today because why not?” What else are they letting happen?!
I work in it and one of our employees brought a laptop to us that had been completely and thoroughly dismantled with a screwdriver.
She told us that she wanted to remove the hard drive but she couldn’t find it.
It had a flash hard drive that had been detached from the board was sitting next to the Wi-Fi card.
Me and the other it guy just kind of like looked at each other for a minute and then got her a new laptop.
To be fair she was due for an upgrade anyway, but I’ve never had anyone dismantle their soon to be recycled devices.
The thing is, I am the IT guy. I’m 19 years old and this is my first IT job, I didn’t know well. I’m buying the license on Friday. Again, I’m sorry, it was a mistake and I learned from it.
Lmao
Try clean reinstall (wipe disk etc) if you can pick up the hardware key
Or a warranty case lol
Also gz for a new lesson learned;)
Should I be honest with my boss and tell him what I did or am I going to get fired? I don’t have enough money to buy the key until Friday.
Just ask them to re-image it. An individually bought key might not pass audit. I recall my company getting audited by Adobe for Acrobat and we had to pay about $12k sure there were lots of individually purchased copies of Acrobat. Adobe did not care if we showed them the receipt for it.
I don’t think you’re fucked. As long as you’re honest about what happened.
IT shares a bit of the responsibility here by giving you so much access to your system to allow you to install a whole OS on your own.
Licensing and activation are separate, and only loosely related. If you are at anything resembling a large org, they don’t even use the HWID or OEM key- they will be using an internal KMS server.
It really sounds like you have way more permissions than you should have on a work device. You should’ve hit a wall even attempting to install Win11 (I can confirm that my work blocks this very effectively). I also question why you would want to do that at all. I’m also not sure you needed to do anything to activate- I believe 10 and 11 use the exact same HWID/keys/etc
I guess their company might have a BYOD policy… Damn I hope that’s the case.
My dude, never mess with work equipment. Own up to your mistakes with the IT department, and they can fix it on their end.
Why on earth would you fuck with a work laptop. You do not own that and could very easily lose your job over it.
Best guess I have is to install home, run MAS again to activate a pro key, upgrade to pro inside windows.
Probably a better way, but that one should work. I was able to upgrade from home to pro this way.
That was a dumb move to force an upgrade on a work laptop. There I said it and I feel better.
Were you able to set the Hwid back to Windoes 10 pro?
Does your work IT department not manage their laptops? Are they not going to come asking why your system is unmanageable?
