Is there a way to avoid paying $100 for a Pro Pack key for a 8.1 Core installation? I'm willing to do a legitimate upgrade but not pay the $100 entry fee if it can be avoided. Can you buy multiple Pro Pack keys from a single non-Media Center 8.1 Pro installation?
I guess you have dialed the wrong number. Though let me try to answer your question, if you are trying to upgrade to Windows 8.1 Pro WMC your only option is to pay that 3 digits number and why would you need to buy multiple pro pack keys unless you wish to resell it?
Time to follow up on this because now I need to know if I boxed myself into a corner: I went to someone else's computer and purchased a $10 Media Center key. No fuss. Turns out these don't directly upgrade an 8.1 core version (which is weird but whatever; guess there is no beating the system). So I've since used generic keys to upgrade myself to an unactivated Win 8.1 Pro w/Media Center but attempting to integrate my legitimate key with the system won't work and it says the key is only for upgrading, not clean installs. Since I DID upgrade to Media Center with a generic key technically it shouldn't quibble that I'm just trying to change it to a different key but...yeah, it ain't going. So do I need to reinstall Windows now or is there some other way to feed it this key I have? EDIT: I fixed it! Not sure if I can post my solution because I got it from another forum (and this may be related to that patched data.dat method so I can't guarantee it's a solution that'll stick if you attempt it down the line) but replacing the "store" folder in ...\System32\spp allowed me to inject my legit WMC key into the system and then I simply phoned in to fully activate it. Glorious, now I have a copy of Win 8.1 Pro with Media Center on my Ultrabook that only cost me $10... EDIT 2: Okay, it looks like I followed the directions in this thread by accident without realizing it: 49539-Windows-8-1-Pro-WMC-generic-activation-tokens-creation So if you want a $10 copy of Win 8.1, just visit that thread.