Windows 11 Education for Students
Microsoft offers Windows 11 Education for free to students at certain educational institutions. UW students can access that software following the directions below.
- The Education edition has more features than the Home, Pro, and Pro Education editions: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_10_editions#Comparison_chart
- Microsoft will distribute only one Windows Education key to each student.
To receive your Windows student key, please follow these steps:
- Open a browser. Microsoft recommends that you use Private or Incognito mode.
- Go to https://signup.azure.com/studentverification?offerType=3
- On the sign-in page, use your netid@wisc.edu email address
- If this is the first time you have signed in to this site, you will need to complete these steps:
- You will be asked to agree to the terms and conditions and the Academic/Student verification
- For the Academic/Student verification, please fill in the fields. For school name, type in Madison and then select University of Wisconsin Madison (Madison, WI)
- For your school email address, please use your netid@wisc.edu email address.
- You will now be routed to the Education | Overview hub page. (NOTE: Pay attention to directions below, they differ slightly from the screenshot).
- To see the available software, please click on the 'Software' tab on the left side of the page.
- In the search box, type in 'Windows 11' (without the quotes).
- Select Windows 11 Education (NOTE: if you need Windows 10 Education, search for that instead. You will only get a key for one version of Windows but Windows 10 may be upgraded to Windows 11 in the future). You do NOT want the N version.
- Click on 'View key' to get your product key for the version of Windows you selected. We strongly recommend you also backup this key securely.
- Click on 'Download' to download the Windows installer
Workaround for License Activation Issues
If you do not see the license change after following the steps outlined in this document, please try the following workaround:
-
Open Windows Settings:
- Press
Windows + Ion your keyboard or click on the Start menu and select Settings.
- Press
-
Navigate to Activation Settings:
- In the Settings window, type Activation in the search bar and select Activation settings from the results.
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Change Product Key:
- Look for the option that says Change product key. Click on it.
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Enter Your Product Key:
- Input the product key you received for Windows 11 Education as shown in the image above.
- Click Next and follow the prompts to complete the activation process.
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Restart Your Device:
- After entering the product key and completing the process, restart your device to ensure the changes take effect.