Upgrade Windows 7 Home Premium to Windows 7 Professional using DVD

[Guest AntiguaGuy]

A couple of years ago, I purchased a Windows 7 Home Premium Family Pack (three licenses) and installed Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit on three PCs in my home, replacing Vista Ultimate on each. A few weeks later, I realized that I could no longer use Remote Desktop on these machines with Windows Home Server, because that feature is not enabled in the Home Premium version. So I've purchased a full retail Windows 7 Professional 64-bit DVD, and I wish to upgrade one of the home PCs from Windows 7 Home Premium to Windows 7 Professional using this disk - I'm assuming that I'll be able to do this through some upgrade path without performing a fresh install and losing all of my existing registries.

My question is this: When I upgrade a PC from Windows 7 Home Premium to Windows 7 Professional using a new full retail Windows 7 Professional DVD, does that free up the Home Premium license from that PC so that I can now upgrade a different PC from Vista to Windows 7 Home Premium using my Windows 7 Home Premium Family Pack DVD? Can I activate the license automatically on the new PC, or do I have to call Microsoft?

 

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