That's what I thought too. I remember doing it once before. But I changed the wifi card and isn't recognized during setup. I have to install the drivers after installation. Its bizarre because all I did was replace the intel wireless N with another intel. It should have the drivers.
Verification for OEM: DM system is very tight regarding changes. That change could have triggered a mismatch big enough to refuse activation.
I guess my next question would be, since I already requested to reserve windows 10 from this laptop earlier will my key be upgraded to windows 10 so it will work? This is going to get silly if I have to go from 8 to 8.1 to 10
No need to use Win 8, keys are still legit to use Win 8.1. To upgrade and be activated it needs an activated predecessor. During Upgrade HWIDs get collected and if predecessor is verified legit, those IDs get send to MS Activation Server. Fresh install of Win 10 then will activate with generic key when online.
For that reason s-m-r-t people make a system image (Acronis and Co.) before starting experiments . There're usefull threads here regarding those tools. One is very nicely maintained by Atari800XL.
Info is old . Last Windows Releases already accept Win 8.1/Win 8 keys, no more need for generic ones. Second, the setup gathered the MSDM key perfectly, but system refuses to activate, most likely due to Hardware changes done.
From the w8.1 ADK, what if you check with oa3tool? Code: OA3TOOL /validate You can also build a report, check hardware hash, etc... The new oa3tool does not include validate anymore. I think now they use a 128bit hash or something...
So I called Microsoft and they told me that because it's an OEM key they can't help me. They also said the key is blocked because I used it too many times. When I asked them to unblock it because I paid for it they wouldn't. Now what?
As there is nothing to lose anymore... Get yourself Windows 7 SP1 .iso and install Windows 7 Pro in legacy mode (not uefi, you need MBR instead of GPT), download daz loader activate Windows 7 Pro, upgrade to Windows 10, wipe it and install Windows 10 in UEFI mode, you should now have a properly activated Windows 10 Pro installation.