The time has come for me to finally move away from vista. it works fine for me, but I don't want to get stuck in the dark ages and since I have no desire to use 7 (can't stand it) I would like to move up to 8. My only issue is I'm confused about the activation process. Can someone please tell me if there is an offline activation process for Windows 8 Professional?
There doesn't seem to be a time limitation in RTM version (and you get 1000 rearms, too). Let's see if that changes in retail version.
You could also use Enterprise Evaluation. 90 days with 1 rearm. If you don't activate RTM, Windows 8 UI personalization will be blocked.
Little advice: there are a lot so called offline activators in the wild. Some are automated scripts for KMS activation which only work if there´s a KMS host reachable for public, so there´s atm none of them on. The other version (can be verified by size - 30 to 45MB) is replacing/modifying system files and registry to fool you and your system in thinking it´s activated, these are FAKE! and might be infected.
By the way,in case you don't want to lose all your settings and installed programs, you might want to consider the somewhat lengthier (but less destructive) upgrade path of going Vista -> 7 -> 8 . On the plus side, this will retain installed programs,settings and whatever (don't trust Easy Transfer, because it has a nasty tendency to go belly up when you need it)
I recently tried, for the first time, a Windows 7 to 8 upgrade while keeping all programs and settings. Everything seemed to go great at first, but then I noticed things like the Control Panel and the Command console wouldn't ever open. This 7 installation was less than a year old and really not used horribly much. Maybe it would have worked 100% if it was a brand new fresh installation (which there may be a valid reason for sometimes - I'll write that up separately in a new thread when I'm done completing my experiment). I recommend against this, and although the transfer wizard sucks and is slow, I've never had a problem with it maintaining integrity. You can always backup files manually and to hell with settings. Vista->7->8 would probably be even worse than 7->8.
Don´t shure if there is still the bug of no working metro apps after upgrading win 7 to 8....if needed.