Guide to preserve Windows 8.x OEM Activation

This is very useful for sharing, I think I need to learn more about.

 

Hey there this is my experience with the surface pro. straight out of box booted it up without internet and got watermark build 9200 on the desktop, and machine showed not activated. when i pushed activate now it gave an error (i think it's very strange to sell machines that show unactivated, what a great OOBE .

I wiped the machine by using diskpart, clean and installed Windows 8 HE-IL MSDN Iso, it picked up automatically the OEM key and installed the PRO version, and i connected to internet, and it showed activated. (I understand from the first post that you can't do the above with core version to replace Win 8 us-en with foreign lang ISO? that core OEM keys are language specific?)

Thanks Tito for all the info!!!

 

Thanks for the info Tito, so you're saying that the en-us core that's sold in 99% of laptops in US stores can be converted like PRO into any language?

Also for the sake of imaging a laptop for a master image for other laptops with OEMM, must the OEMM key be manually insterted into the target machines using slmgr -ipk? or is there a way to force a mini setup that picks up the key from bios automatically?

FYI the Surface is really locked down, even with secure boot disabled, i wasn't able to boot Windows 7 UEFI USB drive, gave a boot error, only booted from Windows 8 X64 UEFI (i didnt try X86 but im pretty sure it's uefi only so no 32bit). other than that surface seems very well built and lots of thinking went into design (type keyboard, kickstand, but wasnt too impressed by the pen) too bad it isn't mine to keep

 

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I'm having a little difficulty understanding the instructions.

Lets say I have an HP Windows 8 device that is full of bloat. I want to put in a new hard drive and do a clean install of Windows 8.

1. On the existing installation, use RW-Everything to find your product key
2. Verify SKU type of that product key with PID checkers
3. Select matching media type for SKU
4. Delete ei.cfg file from Sources
5. Swap in new hard drive
6. Install OS from disc (you will not be prompted to enter a key)

Is this right?

 

You will only need to install normally from the official Windows 8 Core+Pro media. The setup should pick up your key and install the matching SKU.

 

Hello,

I try to do a fresh install on my new asus ac300. This is what i got from pid check website :

Product Key : XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX
Validity : Valid
Product ID : XXXX-60529-XXXX-AAOEM
Activation ID : 9xxxxxxb-3xx5-xxfx-9xxf-cxxxfxxxbxxc
Edition Type : Core
Description : Win 8 RTM Core OEMM
Edition ID : X18-15561
Key Type : OEMM
Crypto ID : 1796

I think now I have a core version. Where can i download the msdn iso?

I tried to install it with windows8-install.exe that I download on microsoft website, then tried to select my own product key (hidden here), but it failed.

Did I miss something?

Sorry I'm not native english.

Thanks

 

As Tito mentions clearly in the first post, since your SKU is simply the CORE version of Windows 8 without the extra Single'd versions, your key should be automatically detected by the MSDN ISO of the same while you are installing it afresh.
Not exactly sure of the windows8-install.exe that you are talking about though.

 

Thanks you. I understood my sku is the core version.

(windows8-install.exe is the 5Mo program you can download from website to get window 8 from windows 7 for instance. Since Tito explain how to find the key of my computer, i tried to launch it and to enter the key to see... )

However, how could I find the MSDN ISO, now? I didn't find the link yet...

 

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Thanks !

I'll download mine.

 

This might be off-topic but how can I preserve my OEM activation with hardware modifications?

 

You can modify the hardware all you wish, as long as the motherboard is the same youre fine. this is because this is because the key is tattooed into the MB.

 

I'm just thinking that the hardware ID might change causing the key to not work.

 

Well you could always change the hardware and attempt to activate. If it doesn't work then you could change the hardware back, right?

 

But when upgrade are essential? That is why I ask how to make it work -_-

 

Got money to upgrade then you've got money to buy another key.
If your cheap then activate via kms.

 

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