I have new HP laptop with Windows 8. I want to use Windows 7. If I flash the BIOS with modded SLIC 2.1, will I lose the Windows 8 bios license?
That's crazy, man! I have OEM windows 8, but I cannot downgrade to OEM windows 7? What, MS makes it hard for us.
Why would you f. up the BIOS/UEFI when you have loaders and KMS to activate win7? You don't have to mod just for the sake of modding.
Now that's the point. If you mess up seriously, the PC won't boot anymore, you need to take the laptop apart, unsolder the BIOS chip from the motherboard, hook it up to an eeprom writer and reflash it. Something most people can do by themselves. That's why a loader or KMS should always be preferred, even for educational purposes.
True... but don't you run the same risk when flashing an official BIOS... there's always a disclaimer "Warning, do not turn off or remove power supply to the computer during flash... blah, blah harmful, irreparable, blah, blah, dead hamster!". Besides, the bios flash utility uses a checksum to verify the validity of the bios file so if your using a complete hackjob file it probably won't even flash in the first place. If something does go awry, there are OEM BIOS recovery tools that can help get you get up and running but you might have to rely on sound codes/light codes in case your machine is really incapacitated (speaking from first hand experience with old Compal laptop circa 2002). If all else fails, and your soldering skills aren't up to par, seeing that it's a new laptop you can always RMA or return it to Be$t Buy and ream out the Geek Squad for selling you a POS system! They might offer to upgrade you to win 8.1 for free for your troubles But I agree with @eydee... the quickest and safest way is to use an activation tool if you just want to get the job done. But if you decide to sack up, then give the bios mod a try, you might just learn something in the end.