Just something I went though and thought I might as well
share it to save you some pain if you plan to go through it.As you know Windows 10 is not actually FREE if you have to
buy it. Its pretty expensive actually from the leaked pricing. The best way to
secure it is to get hold of the upgrade NOW by pre-booking.
BUT in order to quality, putting the license issue aside,
you better be on Windows 7 SP1 or Windows 8.1 U1. Yes, nothing below is going
to work. The pre-booking “app” is actually a Windows Update component which
will not install on anything lower.
So, for those stuck in Windows 7 or 8.0, maybe it’s time to
upgrade.
Windows 8.1 is kinda a SOB cos of the license key and all.
Its not compatible with the keys used for 8.0 and such. But what I am going to
share is a secret to get whole of the legitimate keys, right in front of you on
that bloody machine of yours. A lot of people did not know this. When you buy a
Dell, HP and what not, OEM machine, they actually implanted a CD Key into your
BIOS. And its always activated automatically based on that key. Its usable for
Windows 7-8.1. Meaning if you bought it a few years ago with Windows 7, you are
supposed to get Windows 8 and 8.1 upgrade FREE. Looks like your school admins
did not do their job :P
But nevertheless, I will tell you how to get it right.
Pretty much without their help.
You will need to download the media to install Windows 8.1.
NOT, not from some torrent or fileshare site! But right from
Microsoft, perfectly legit.
It’s a few GB of download, but ONLY this version works (out
of the ISO) for OEM products. There are other ways to get it to work by
changing the ISO or branding it, that’s pretty complex and I won’t discuss it
here (Although the 26-in-1 OEM ISO is pretty exciting, with all the Asus
wallpaper and all).
While download that, you should EXTRACT your OEM CD-KEY. 3
ways to do it, but I cut the chase and show you the easiest one.
Run the EXE and you better be sure to print it out, especially
if you plan to wipe you HDD.
Now, you have all you need to “upgrade”. By Upgrading, Its
far too glorified a term to use. I assure you 90% you will fail. But be my
guest and try to upgrade your Windows 8.0 to 8.1. Its due to the amount of
software and shit that had been in there since 8.0 was installed that cause a
lot of complication to just upgrade. In the end, I guess most of us choose to
REINSTALL 8.1.
I won’t say it’s a bad choice, but it’s definitely clean.
Now, the important point is during the installation right from the start, you
will see the CD-KEY prompt and you will be able to fully verified with the one
you had extracted. It doesn’t matter if you bought your Acer with Windows 7 or
Windows 8 at all. It’s a perfectly legit copy of Windows 8.1 in your hands now
and nobody just want to talk about it.
Well, you may or may not need to activate it, more often
than not, yes. But if you do not want to use an online account (which gives you
Sky Drive Pro, which could sync your personnel settings onto the cloud. This
however is flagged by Mcafee Webwasher as “Uploading to Skydrive” though DOOH!), you
should unplug you network during the installation and you will be given a
choice to create a local account for Windows 8.1.
Let me know if you find this useful.
