I Just cleaned installed w8 upgrade with no problems

chaparral

chaparral

chaparral

Caporegime
Joined
27 Nov 2005
Posts
25,479
Location
Guernsey
Am surprised that I just bought the w8 pro upgrade deal and just done a full fresh install to a formatted harddrive with no Activation problems...;)


I was expecting it to come up with your key is only for upgrade use errors,But I thought I give it a go and see what happens.
 
Last edited:
Didn't work for me either. Windows accepted the key during the installation, but then asked to activate after I later rebooted. It told me that my key couldn't be used because windows hadn't been installed over a previous version. I had to start again and install Windows 7 first.
 
Very odd. Had no issues doing two clean installs on two different systems via a USB stick. Hopefully the other two I have to do will also be painless.

Maybe it depends how you purchased the key. The ones I've done we're purchased on clean unactivated installs of Windows 7 with no keys entered during the install process.
 
I upgraded from a 'special' version of windows 7 ultimate.
Got a key and burnt to dvd (couldnt get usb to boot, even usings windows own tool) Formatted the drive and done a clean install, put key in during install and its all activated fine. I didnt think for a minute this would be a problem? Pretty **** is your actually have to 'upgrade' as this must leave all sorts of junk about.
 
I had a Windows 7 install on an SSD, tried to do a clean upgrade, wiped the SSD during installation, it errored out because I had my somehow incompatible HDDs still plugged in. Another go, installation went smooth on the now clean SSD, boots into Windows, not activated.

I was so annoyed having wasted time trying to figure out why it errored out with the drives plugged in, then this crap with activation, and it was a Sunday night, few hours before I had to be up the next morning.

Ended up reinstalling Windows 7 using one of the official ISOs from Digital River (not activated), then booting up from the Win 8 flash drive and doing a clean install. Worked a treat.

TL;DR clean install didn't work, clean upgrade worked on a Win 7 Trial.
 
MS does allow a clean install.

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/w...4-002f2bca8e57

you just might have to use phone activation

or

Activate Windows 8 Pro Upgrade

Windows 8 users who noticed that the operating system can’t be activated after the installation may want to try the following workaround that worked to activate when installing Windows 7 using an upgrade on a clean PC.
  • Open regedit by pressing Windows-q, entering regedit and selecting the result from the list of hits.
  • Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/Software/Microsoft/Windows/CurrentVersion/Setup/OOBE/
  • Change MediaBootInstall from 1 to 0
  • Go back to the start screen and enter cmd there.
  • Right-click Command Prompt and select to run it as administrator.
  • Type slmgr /rearm on the command line and hit enter.
  • Reboot Windows now.
  • Run the activation utility afterwards, enter your product key to activate Windows.
[/quote]http://www.ghacks.net/2012/10/27/windows-8-upgrade-clean-install-possible/
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom