Different Ways to Activate Windows 11
Windows 11 has been a buzz topic since the official launch on Oct 5. We have seen a large portion of old Windows users are preparing for un upgrade. Before getting started, you should know how to activate Windows 11 in a free or cheap way. If not, you could pay extra money to buy a legit product key from Microsoft.
[Important Notice]: For clean install of Windows 11, please choose the right editing during installation process. Let’s say your old Windows product key is Home edition, then install Windows 11 Home edition instead. If not, the activation would fail for sure.
Activate Windows 11 on a New PC
Till the time we are writing this post, the price of Windows 11 is not yet unveiled by Microsoft. The easiest way to activate Windows 11 is via a Windows 10 product key, where you can find it at This PC -> Property.
Copy or write down product ID and save it in a safe place. You will be asked to input a product key during Windows 11 installation. Kindly enter the same key to activate a Windows 11 copy. However, you have to deactivate the license key first before using it to activate Windows 11 with a clean install.
For OEM laptops, Windows 11 will be activated by default. Please don’t worry about it.
Activate Windows 11 On a Windows 10 Machine
It is 100% working to use activate Windows 11 with a Windows 10 product key. And there are two ways to upgrade Windows 10 to Windows 11. One is in-place upgrade and the other is clean install.
For in-place upgrade: The activation process is done automatically. You don’t need to take additional step to activate Windows 11 in this way. Windows 11 will be activated by default once the upgrade process is completed successfully. However, this only works on a PC or laptop that is fully compatible with Windows 11 system requirements. You will receive Windows 11 upgrade notification once Windows 11 upgrade is available for this device.
For clean install Windows 11: Not all Windows 11 computers are eligible for a direct upgrade. According to our observation, most of Windows 10 PCs are not supported Windows 11 because of No TPM/Secure Boot or unsupported CPU. Hence, a direct upgrade is not possible.
The only way to install Windows 11 on unsupported hardware is through clean install with registry hacks.
To activate Windows 11 in this way, the first step is to write down Windows 10 product ID and activate Windows 11 during installation.
Activate Windows 11 on a Windows 7/8 Machine
Activate Windows 11 using a Windows 7 or Windows 8 license key? This sounds crazy but it did work. Here is the step-by-step-guide:
Step 1: Find and copy Windows 7 or Windows 8 product key for later usage.
Step 2: Upgrade Windows 7 or Windows 8 to Windows 10 with in-place upgrade or clean install.
Step 3: Upgrade Windows 10 to Windows 11 and get Windows 11 activated literally according to the principle we shared in above section.
In short, it is totally possible to activate Windows 11 with a Windows 7 or Windows 8 product, even for OEM product keys. However, you should upgrade the machine to Windows 10 first, which takes time to do so!
Activate a Windows 11 Virtual Machine
Some of the folks like me are using Windows virtual machine instead of real machine. This is very common among Mac users. To activate a Windows 11 virtual machine, the procedure is no different from a real device.
It depends on what kind of Windows virtual machine you are running. If you want to create a new Windows 11 virtual machine and want to activate it, then any valid retail or OEM product key of Windows 10/8/7 will be OK.
For existing Windows virtual machine, you have to either upgrade to Windows 11 directly from Windows 10 or upgrade to Windows 10 first and start a in-place upgrade to Windows 11 later.
Summary
Simply put, you will get Windows 11 activated successfully if you had a legit product key of Windows 10, Windows 8 or Windows 7. However, Microsoft might change Windows 11 activation policy in future and we will update the post accordingly.