If you want your laptop legally activated on WMC, you should upgrade to PRO first by purchasing $14.99 PRO upgrade offer.
Or input the generic Pro retail key in Add features, then activate it via KMS, then again put the WMC key in Add features.
First thing you should do is use the manufacturers program to make restoration media. That way if things go haywire you can return it to factory specs. Just sayin.
yes, make an image of your entire hard drive, the whole GPT drive not just the c: volume. I suggest Paragon Advanced Recovery or Acronis and the like. The easiest, well fastest way I could get it to work was to use a backed up image of a Win8Pro install and restore it to the new machine (the backup image can be from another machine as the used space is less than your hdd capacity). Then KMS the pro and update to WMC with free key to get permanent activation. I also have had to change bios settings to allow me to boot to legacy mode to even boot to an external drive, dvd, thumb drive etc. Hopefully my case is unique or I am missing something (most likely) and you can find a better way. For now that is what I am stuck with, and it drives me crazy I cant figure it out lol
___________________________ You do not need any kind of 3. party software to create the recovery media it is included in all factory set up bought PC´s. To install WMC is very easy. 1. You buy The upgrade to Win 8 Pro for $14.99 windows.microsoft.com/is-IS/windows/upgrade-offer 2. Or here if you did not buy a PC $39.95 - windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/buy?ocid=GA8_O_MSCOM_Prog_FPP_Null_Null 3. You can upgrade. but I recommend that you do a clean install. (see my post-- forums.mydigitallife.net/threads/38529-Windows-8-Clean-Install-From-Upgrade-Key/page2?p=675011&highlight=#post675011 4. Get WMC for free, go to - windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-8/feature-packs and follow directions. I also recommend to make the recovery disks, however for me I will never ever need them and all the crap that follows by installing to factory settings. I´m a new member and there for not allowed to post links so please replace the with https:// in my links, Thanks.
once you uninstall the bloatware, it is nice to use a 3rd party app to make an image of your cleaned system for recover
But why install a 3rd party software to do that. Just make a clean install, 25 -40 minutes depending on the speed on your PC. Now when you have setup your PC with all your preferred programs and setting I agree with you , that it will be a good way to backup your PC. I use Macrium Reflect, but there are a lot of good backup software out there.
This is the easiest an most sure fired way to do... it... +1 for TITO why make a easy task - hard....
And I really don't install the 3rd party software, I need to enable legacy in bios and boot to a bootable cd with Paragon on it. I truly would love to do that, unfortunately it isn't possible in my case with this HP Windows 8 machine, it is impossible for me to get a "Fresh" install without going around and about. Have you purchased a new HP Win8 machine yet? If so I would love to know how to get around setting up a "fresh" install of the OS version of my choice. Right now it forces a Win8 Core key to every install
Inside Windows 8 Core search for "Windows Anytime upgrade" and enter a pro key . Also you can try to add ei.cfg to the Install base, might let you choose the OS you want to install.. dunno, try it
yeah I am actually in the process of doing that now. Just setup a UEFI Win8 USB drive. Wish me luck lol -ed- OK that worked, Fresh install of Win8 Pro on an OEM system with UEFI. I feel pretty stupid about this. I've been going nuts trying to figure this out. You know what I was doing wrong? I forgot to format the USB drive to fat32. I used Windows 7 USB/DVD download tool and made the USB drive bootable, but forgot to remove the files, format it to fat32 and then replace the files back to the USB drive (it stays bootable, the format doesn't mess with the MBR). The usb tool formats to NTFS and UEFI will not see it unless its fat32. So, installed with install key after adding the ei.cfg. Activated with KMS moo server, entered my WMC key and now fresh install with perma act. Its all I wanted to do lmao
lol, happens Also im wondering does your OEM system come equipped with a Recovery partition? if yes how big is it Code: if you have only one disk cmd diskpart select disk 0 list partition or use Disk Management
Since installing Win8Pro as said above, WinRE, EFI, Recover etc are all dumped on one Partition at 24gb. So this is what is left. I am going to kill the recovery volum since it is just a regular volume now. I am not exactly sure what happen here hahah View attachment 19319