Win 8.1 to USB for clean install does not accept my licence key

Hi.

My notebook came with Win8.0 OEM , but i bought Win8.1 Retail to do an clean install and this is the key i use.

Since my Win8.1 Retail is quite old, I decided to use the official Microsoft windows to usb creator, it ask what version you have and then downloads the files and writes them to my usb stick.

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows-8/create-reset-refresh-media

But when i boot from the usb stick Win8.1 asks for my key, I use my retail key but it is rejected, then i try my oem key, still rejected, I used an app to pull the key from my uefi bios and it rejects this key also.

I think i read something about you can only do a clean install with oem Win8.1 Pro and not standard oem Win 8.1

So what am i doing wrong?

Thanks

John.

 

Simple, when installing, do not enter any of your keys, instead, enter one of the default installation keys for Windows 8.1, these are not real keys that can be activated, they are just used for the sake of installation.

Once you are on the Windows desktop and connected to the internet, click on activate, then change product key and enter one of your real product keys, the 8.0 and the 8.1 key can both be used and be activated.

Google Windows 8.1 default installation keys

 

Microsoft never makes things easy do they,Thanks for the help.

John.

 

That worked great, I did the clean install, this must be an newer version as it askes you if you want to upgrade to Win10 as soon as it installs, no way i clicked.

John.

 

oh pre-installed viruses in their latest build. Just what we needed after all the hard work in the "Updates to hide to avoid Win 10 upgrade"

 

I would nuke that install and grab Rufus - http://rufus.akeo.ie and use that to create the USB image of your retail disc. I wouldn't want any embedded Windows 10 crap... Rufus is my favorite tool for any ISO to USB business, it works flawlessly and offers support for GPT and MBR partitions for boot. Just make sure you choose GPT if you plan to use EFI or MBR if you plan to use legacy BIOS.

 

Funny you mention it, I was just creating a USB Flash Disk installation using Rufus for Windows 7 UEFI mode

 

I'm thinking about nuking my desktop and putting 7 on but man... 7 is not made for my machine... I doubt my ethernet would even work out of the box...

 

Use Ma-Config, it will detect devices that don't even have a driver installed and guide you to get the right driver from the manufacturer.

If you have any other way to get online on that machine like a USB Wireless card to at least temporarily be able to get online and use Ma-Config, once you install Ma-Config, let it scan, after the scan is finished. Click on My Drivers to see all related drivers to your system.

Ma-Config is the only driver updater/finder that I have found that contains no malware, no ads, no pay to download this driver. It's 100% free

PS: If you are not in a rush, I will complete the Windows 7 Clean Install Guide in another 48 hours

 

Nice find there. I checked the ASUS site for my board and it has full drivers for Windows 7 but since my laptop is in RMA and I don't want to use Windows 10 at all, I will have to wait I guess. I'm not looking forward to hours of updates and driver installation... One thing that was nice about 8.1 is that Windows Update was a lot faster.

 

Thank you sir.

That's the only thing nice about Windows 8.1, is that you don't have 200 freakin' Windows updates to install. I cannot install Windows 8.1 on my system, I tried 2 times already, after installing it, then installing all Windows updates, then installing all drivers and enabling SLI, the next reboot at the password screen it would just freeze. I am forced to use it with a Micro$h4ft account since Windows 8.1 will not allow you to login to OneDrive if you don't have it logged in with a Micro$h4ft account. Windows 7/10 will allow you to login to OneDrive with a local account even so that's one thing Windows 10 improved above 8. Windows 7 can always login to OneDrive obviously because it doesn't have the login with a Microsoft account feature.

So I am stuck with Windows 7.

 

I normally use Rufus, but i wanted an newer version of Win8.1 as i am sick of all the updates it takes to get up to date, On this new version of Win8.1 i have an new program folder called "Embedded Lockdown Manager" i have not seen that before.

Windows action center allways says i am missing some drivers, but i dont have an yellow or red in my device manger and everything seems to work, I just have to remmber to turn off quick boot or my notebook do not turn-off fully when i shut down.

John.

 

I found out the hard way that you can also put broken ISO to USB succesfully, it just fails during install

I have a usb stick in my keychain with almost 3GB worth of unpacked network drivers. The only thing I regret, I have mixed XP and Vista/7 drivers together when I started and the damage is now done I'm too lazy to start over unless some day I really have to. Concept is simple: whenever I install windows on client PC and network drivers are not found in the usb already, I've added them there. After 5 years it works pretty well.