How to obtain Windows 8.1 iso with Windows 8 OEM key.

theheyes · 25 Oct 2013 at 18:37

Nope, your account just needs to be in the administrators group.

Skynet5 · 25 Oct 2013 at 19:57

Bane said:
It generates some traffic for the store app I guess, as I wouldn't have used otherwise.

Agreed.

I think it might be to protect pc manufacturers from a whole lot of pain of support calls...

Either way...it should be somehow possible. Maybe MS should give 8.1 key in exchange to cancelling 8.0 key for those in the know.

#unloved

VincentHanna · 25 Oct 2013 at 21:25

medseven said:
http://www.ghacks.net/2013/10/19/download-windows-8-1-iso-image/

You need a legit key, so only legit users can do it but it works..^

This doesn't work for me, just always says

'We can't connect right now

check your internet connection and try again'

Arthur Hucksake · 25 Oct 2013 at 23:10

Another nail in my Microsoft coffin. Miss the good old days.

New OS came out, you had that one for years and everything was a service pack.

That's how it should be. This "new" approach is absolute nonsense. Apple can get awau with it because their stuff works.

My PC gaming and PC life is as good as done when this PC is obsolete.

I am just at a complete loss as to what I do next time I need to format.

Windows 7 to 8 to 8.1 ..... no thanks.

I expect to fork out £100+ for 8.1 to only discover 8.2 is about to come out. They can do one.

I honestly would not miss Microsoft if they went the way of the dinosaur. Need to get Gates out of retirement.

Arthur Hucksake · 25 Oct 2013 at 23:14

lnoton said:
Agreed.

I think it might be to protect pc manufacturers from a whole lot of pain of support calls...

Either way...it should be somehow possible. Maybe MS should give 8.1 key in exchange to cancelling 8.0 key for those in the know.

#unloved

They use to do that. They offered people to trade up their 32 bit XP keys for 64 bit. LOL

FoxEye · 26 Oct 2013 at 02:24

lnoton said:
I see your point. Getting 8.1 was a good experience.

But those with 8 OEM have a real PITA ahead of them if they want to rebuild their machine. Which I might do regular twice a year, and as needed in case of an OS failure for whatever reason.

I am hoping that the Windows Refresh option is as good as doing reinstalls, as I have now created a image using recimg.exe. 6gb of space on my SSD but never mind.

If you rebuild twice a year (why?) you probably ought to look into imaging a freshly built system instead.

Use a VM to install 8.1 + updates
Take a snapshot/clone the VM
Sysprep then ImageX
Deploy image.

If at some future point you want to refresh your image with the latest updates, reload the VM snaphot, apply new updates, take new snapshot, then sysprep + imagex again. Important that the snapshot happens always before the sysprep occurs, because you can only sysprep 3 times.

If you rebuild twice a year, then installing from ISO/CD is your least best option.

nightmare99 · 26 Oct 2013 at 09:41

Sure you just obtain an 8.1 ISO and install from that?

Macro · 26 Oct 2013 at 09:59

Arthur Hucksake said:
Another nail in my Microsoft coffin. Miss the good old days.

New OS came out, you had that one for years and everything was a service pack.

That's how it should be. This "new" approach is absolute nonsense. Apple can get awau with it because their stuff works.

My PC gaming and PC life is as good as done when this PC is obsolete.

I am just at a complete loss as to what I do next time I need to format.

Windows 7 to 8 to 8.1 ..... no thanks.

I expect to fork out £100+ for 8.1 to only discover 8.2 is about to come out. They can do one.

I honestly would not miss Microsoft if they went the way of the dinosaur. Need to get Gates out of retirement.

Errmm surely 8.1 works the same way a service pack has in the past no? Install Win8, update, get win 8.1 update from store just like a service pack in the past from windows update, problem solved. Why would you fork out £100 for 8.1 if you have 8, it's free and we've heard nothing to suggest 8.2 won't be free too. If you go back to when Gates was running MS you had to buy a new OS every couple of years. 3.1(1),95, 98, me/2000, xp....

theheyes · 26 Oct 2013 at 11:26

The refresh and reset options are good for consumers but if you plan to rebuild every 6 months then just use the image backup utility once 8.1 is installed.

Mr-White · 26 Oct 2013 at 11:35

Installing 8.1 is like doing an actual o/s update, not a service pack install as it renames the windows folder to windows.old and you end up having 6-7gb of install and log files to remove with disk clean up.

MW

Skynet5 · 26 Oct 2013 at 16:54

I have the 8.1 UK RTM ISO. I started the installer and entered a Core generic key...and it progressed through to chose the drive to install on. I've now aborted the process.

Question is, once installed would it accept my OEM 8.0 key to activate?

RTM is good enough, as a clean install would then just result a a few updates I image.

nightmare99 · 26 Oct 2013 at 19:33

Question is, once installed would it accept my OEM 8.0 key to activate?

Yes it will, infact if you create an ei.cfg for Core and put it in your ISO for example you can use this to update a Win 8.0 Core installation and you will not be prompted for a key until OOBE at which point you can use the OEM 8.0 key, also the same when doing a clean install. This negates the need to use generic keys to install, very handy if you have multiple computers to update.

Skynet5 · 26 Oct 2013 at 19:54

nightmare99 said:
Yes it will, infact if you create an ei.cfg for Core and put it in your ISO for example you can use this to update a Win 8.0 Core installation and you will not be prompted for a key until OOBE at which point you can use the OEM 8.0 key, also the same when doing a clean install. This negates the need to use generic keys to install, very handy if you have multiple computers to update.

Interesting. So an ei.cfg set to core, oem? And then it won't prompt for a key?

I wonder what the oem/retail option does? Would it reject my oem key if I had set it to retail?

Does the GA update appear in windows update for the rtm?

nightmare99 · 27 Oct 2013 at 12:35

Interesting. So an ei.cfg set to core, oem? And then it won't prompt for a key?

It will ask for the key during the out of box phase at which point you can enter your Win 8.0 key or you can hit skip and then enter it in the activate windows menu in pc options.

What it does is stops it prompting you for the key at the beginning of the install where a Win 8.0 key does not work and you would have had to enter a separate install key. This applies to an in place upgrade where you are running setup from within Windows or for a clean install.

I wonder what the oem/retail option does? Would it reject my oem key if I had set it to retail?

I'm not sure with regards to 8.1 as the OEM option certainly allows you to do an upgrade which I don't think was the case with 8.0 (normally you need upgrade or retail to do an upgrade.

Does the GA update appear in windows update for the rtm?

it is not included in the retail media if that is what you mean, so you still need to install this after installation (there are about 10 updates at the moment).