Jumping from Windows 11 Home to a Pro license supercharges Windows—useful if you need more advanced features. If you’ve been considering the leap, there’s good news for the holidays. Right now a Windows 11 Pro upgrade license is just $48 through PCWorld’s own software store or 52 percent off the normal price. 

This upgrade license will work on an activated copy of Windows 11 Home. It’s also backwards compatible, so it’ll transform a Windows 10 Home license to Pro if your PC doesn’t meet Windows 11’s system requirements.

For most folks, a move to Windows 11 Pro is to unlock BitLocker, which gives you more say over your data’s encryption, including for external drives. But other features like Remote Desktop are worth the price of admission, too. On a Windows 10 or 11 Pro computer, you can log into other computers and your own.

(In fact, if you perform frequent tech support for a loved one, upgrading to Pro on the PC you’ll be servicing can save a lot of headache. No need for troubleshooting over the phone or driving over to help. You can just log into their machine from the comfort of your own home).

These features aren’t the only ones that come with a Pro license—we have a full rundown of the two license types if you want to read up on the differences. Windows Sandbox and its virtual environments are pretty nifty, too.

This deal runs from December 23 through January 1, so you have some time to recover from family gatherings before deciding on how many licenses you might want. Being your family’s local tech support is hard. We understand. (Like really understand).

Upgrade to Microsoft Windows 11 Pro for just $48

Author: Alaina Yee, Senior Editor, PCWorld