
In either case, clean install or upgrade, use this checklist to make sure you've covered some important bases that aren't part of Windows Setup. After about an hour (more or less, depending on the underlying hardware), you should be back at work, with most apps and settings migrated successfully.


Even formatting the hard drive and reinstalling the OS didn't work. Suggestions? Pretty much had to toss these couple machines in the spare parts bin because we couldn't switch them to a domain user account. No option at all to switch or sign in as someone else. If I use Alt-F4 I can see the option to "Switch users" in the drop-down, but if I select it it just takes me back to the login screen where all I can enter is the password for my same local user account, or shut down the PC. I've tried adding another account through Control Panel -> Users, the netplwiz command, and even Alt-F4 doesn't work. If I sign out it takes me back to the sign-in screen where the only option is to sign in with that same local user account. If I look in the Start menu all I see are "Change account settings", "Lock", or "Sign out". There is just no "switch user" option at all.

The upgrade would look like it "took", and the system would say it was Windows 10 Pro, but we are unable to switch users - for example, if we created a local admin to do the initial upgrade and want to switch to a domain user account to issue the workstation to a user. We'd go out, buy a license for Pro, and try to upgrade that machine (by entering the new serial number). The issue is that occasionally we'd wind up with a computer that was originally purchased with a Windows 10 Home license. So I've had this problem over the course of a few years and could never figure out a solution.
