Windows Education Activation

[Techster26]

We have the Microsoft 365 A3 licences assigned to users in our tenant and all devices are Entra ID/Intune joined but we have quite a few devices that are on either Windows 11 Enterprise or Pro and they aren't changing the licence to Windows 11 Education. It says a digital licence has been applied on either but want to change all devices to Education. Does anyone know why this is?

 

If i build a device with Win 11 Education, it says it can find a digital licence

 

Edited August 26 by Techster26

[jhothersall]

This should help - https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/deployment/windows-subscription-activation?pivots=windows-11

We had may issues where we would get a Watermark which was very hit and miss.

We have this Powershell script on logon -

 $(Get-WmiObject SoftwareLicensingService).OA3xOriginalProductKey | foreach{ if ( $null -ne $_ ) { Write-Host "Installing"$_;changepk.exe /Productkey $_ } else { Write-Host "No key present" } } 

 This seems to fix it  it resets to the device Product Key and then the A3 Licence you get when a user logs on upgrades to Education.

[Techster26]

29 minutes ago, jhothersall said:

This should help - https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/deployment/windows-subscription-activation?pivots=windows-11

We had may issues where we would get a Watermark which was very hit and miss.

We have this Powershell script on logon -

 $(Get-WmiObject SoftwareLicensingService).OA3xOriginalProductKey | foreach{ if ( $null -ne $_ ) { Write-Host "Installing"$_;changepk.exe /Productkey $_ } else { Write-Host "No key present" } } 

 This seems to fix it  it resets to the device Product Key and then the A3 Licence you get when a user logs on upgrades to Education.

So that changed the licence to Windows 11 Pro, restarted and logged back in again and it changed it to Enterprise rather thanks Education. In activation is states "Windows 11 Enterprise subscription is active. Do i need to be patent for it to pickup the Education version or do i have to Install Windows 11 Pro education on the device?

 

Edited August 26 by Techster26

[itskdog]

2 hours ago, Techster26 said:

So that changed the licence to Windows 11 Pro, restarted and logged back in again and it changed it to Enterprise rather thanks Education. In activation is states "Windows 11 Enterprise subscription is active. Do i need to be patent for it to pickup the Education version or do i have to Install Windows 11 Pro education on the device?

 

 

Whether it goes to Enterprise or Education depends on what the base licence is. Education is just discounted Enterprise and has all the same policies available.

 

If the device comes with Pro it will step up to Enterprise, if it comes with Pro Education (the discounted version of Pro that OEMs can only sell to schools) it will step up to Education.

[jhothersall]

Weirdly with A3 licences you get Windows 11 Enterprise not Education. Which is better as you get longer on the length of version support. 
 

We have 24H2 and will have support till Oct 2026.

[itskdog]

13 minutes ago, jhothersall said:

Weirdly with A3 licences you get Windows 11 Enterprise not Education. Which is better as you get longer on the length of version support. 
 

We have 24H2 and will have support till Oct 2026.

Enterprise and Education are identical in support dates, are you getting mixed up between Pro Education and Education?

 

The 3 years of support, according to the Windows 11 Release Information page, is for "Enterprise, Education, IoT Enterprise, and Enterprise multi-session", when the 2 year support is for "Home, Pro, Pro Education, and Pro for Workstations"

 

The step-up licence on M365 is called Enterprise as it is the same as in E3, I would guess even E3 would step-up a ProEdu to Edu rather than Ent.

Edited August 26 by itskdog