Clean Install Windows 8 pro Upgrade

By NTCTZEN
in Microsoft (Windows)

 Share

Recommended Posts

Community Regular

NTCTZEN

Posted
Posted

I hope this thread helps others who were contemplating buying the upgrade license but haven't bought it yet because of the lack of clarity on whether a person can do a clean install using the license they'd buy for $39.99.

Well the simplest answer is yes you can. You can either do it by the registry workaround to change MediaBootInstall from 1 to 0 @ HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/Software/Microsoft/Windows/CurrentVersion/Setup/OOBE/

But the cleanest method that I have tried this weekend with success, is what I want to recommend to all fellow Neowin members.

Buy the license key using the upgrade advisor application.You don't need to download the ISO file. Download a legit ISO of Windows 8 Pro (MSDN/Technet) from your favorite torrent and install using the license key you just bought. Not only you will be able to install it but Windows will activate without any trouble.

I hope this makes frontpage so more and more people know they can do a clean install and how!

Link to comment
https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/1122036-clean-install-windows-8-pro-upgrade/
Share on other sites
Veteran

+DKAngel Subscriber²

Posted
  • Subscriber²
Posted

i bought via upgrade assistnat, said install later, downloaded the upgrade iso from ms burnt it and put a new hdd in, put the iso in and put my key in, and it installed and i never had windows on there to start with

Grand Master

Detection

Posted
Posted

Yes, but how do you install on a clean hard disk, one that doesn't have any Windows installed?

You didn't mention that in your post, but yea the registry trick is the easiest and doesn't involve downloading from torrents and hoping your ISO is genuine / having to check the hash

i bought via upgrade assistnat, said install later, downloaded the upgrade iso from ms burnt it and put a new hdd in, put the iso in and put my key in, and it installed and i never had windows on there to start with

Did it activate ok without hacking ?

Veteran

Shane Nokes

Posted
Posted

i bought via upgrade assistnat, said install later, downloaded the upgrade iso from ms burnt it and put a new hdd in, put the iso in and put my key in, and it installed and i never had windows on there to start with

That's because the other HDD that you didn't take out already had Windows on it.

I've explained that in multiple threads. It scans all hard drives in the system. ;)

  • 2 months later...
Neowinian

Mike-Mat

Posted
Posted

@Shane - This is the information I've been searching for. My system has XP/64 and I want to install Win 8/64 Upgrade onto a new Hard Drive. So you're saying I can leave the old HD in there and just do the install onto the new HD. As long as the old HD is there to verify the old OS, the Win8 Upgrade will install. Then afterwords I can copy any data files from the old HD to the new C: drive and then reformat the old drive or remove it. Is all that correct.

Thanks,

Mike

This topic is now closed to further replies.
 Share
Go to topic listing

  • Posts

    • AltSendme 0.4.1

      By Copernic · Posted

      AltSendme 0.4.1 by Razvan Serea AltSendme is a minimal, cross-platform application designed for fast, secure, and private peer-to-peer file transfers. It allows users to send files or entire directories directly between devices without relying on cloud servers, accounts, or any personal information. Everything is encrypted end-to-end using modern protocols like QUIC and TLS 1.3, ensuring both strong security and low-latency performance. Transfers are verified with BLAKE3 for data integrity, and interrupted downloads automatically resume, making the experience reliable even on unstable connections. You can transfer anything—images, videos, documents, and more. Integrity checks are performed on both ends, so your files are automatically verified for correctness during both sending and receiving. AltSendme works seamlessly across local networks or long-distance links, capable of saturating multi-gigabit connections for extremely fast delivery. With built-in NAT traversal and encrypted relay fallback, it connects devices almost anywhere. The app integrates with the Sendme CLI and will soon support mobile and web platforms. Fully free and open-source, AltSendme offers a lightweight, privacy-first alternative to traditional cloud-based services, removing size limits, upload costs, and unnecessary data exposure. AltSendme 0.4.1 changelog: Release Highlights Self-hosted relays: Run your own iroh relay so transfers don't rely on public infrastructure. Includes a full deployment template in deploy/relay/ with Docker Compose for a VPS and configuration examples for production use. Fly.io support: One-click deploy template for Fly.io, including a quick-start config (fly.dev.toml) for testing without a custom domain, plus production setup with Let's Encrypt and your own hostname. Relay settings UI: New Settings → Network panel to choose how AltSendme connects: automatic public relays, custom self-hosted URLs (with optional auth token), or disabled. Test connections, verify latency, and see live relay status in the footer. Disable relays: Turn off relay servers entirely when you only need same-network transfers (e.g. LAN). Direct connections only. No relay hop required when devices can reach each other. Android graduates from beta: Android is now part of the regular release cycle alongside desktop. APKs ship with each version (universal, arm64, and armv7). Other improvements Private relay access control via shared auth token Relay fallback notifications when a custom relay is unreachable Broadcast mode toggle in sharing settings Android release build fixes (split-per-ABI APKs, universal APK preservation) UI polish: mobile safe-area insets, dropzone layout, transfer progress animation Bug fixes for minification-related serialization issues and system tray icon loading What's Changed feat(relay): add relay status functionality and settings UI (a120cdf) feat(relay): implement custom relay server configuration and verification (51276c7) feat(relay): add configuration for private relay access and enhance observability features (48fbabf) feat(relay): enhance relay URL validation, display connection status (d4fffa0) feat(relay): add RelayChangeGuard component and enhance relay-related translations (16ba514) feat(broadcast): add toggle setting for broadcast mode in sharing UI (ca6d977) fix(relay): correct QUIC discovery port, pin image, templatize fly.dev (52a2ba5) fix: More broken serialization due to minification (67491a9) fix(android): preserve true universal APK across per-ABI builds (e9f256f) fix(ui): conditional safe-area insets padding on mobile (1182f0e) refactor(transfer): CircularRing component animation fix (944572b) chore(android): drop x86 and x86_64 release APKs, keep universal+arm64+armv7 (34ada0b) Download: AltSendme 0.4.1 | ARM64 | ~9.0 MB (Open Source) Download: AltSendme for MacOS | Android Links: AltSendme Home Page | GitHub | Screenshot Get alerted to all of our Software updates on Twitter at @NeowinSoftware
    • Why Delta Chat is the best decentralized messenger you have probably never tried

      By zikalify · Posted

      You are mostly right about the ephemeral nature of it. As I mention in the article, if you dont add a second device or take a backup of your account before uninstalling it, then yes you will lose access to your account. That said, in terms of actual user experience when you sync multiple devices your message history carries across and there's also a Saved Messages chat like there is on Telegram to send messages and attachments between your installs. But yh, what you point out are correct and its not trying to emulate Messenger or Telegram.
    • You've tried DuckDuckGo and Brave Search, now get serious with SearXNG

      By zikalify · Posted

      OK so SearXNG is a meta search engine that you can install locally or use via a public instance. It scrapes other search engines which you choose and then sorts the results. Not as complicated as multiple relays
    • The Trump administration doesn't want you to use OpenAI's GPT-5.6 without its approval

      By excalpius · Posted

      The only difference here is that you think you came up with these reasons. You didn't. These age old fearmongering lies (that were NEVER true) were funded by and the anger stoked by Putin through proxies like Farage (and later in the USA, Trump) and filtered down through the skinheads, Neonazis, etc. until it reached the uninformed, ignorant, and gullible -- never realizing they were being played for fools against their own best interests. Even now, despite all of the EVIDENCE proving that Brexit was a terrible mistake for ALL citizens of the UK and that its supporters were tricked by Putin's proxies into sabotaging their own nation, you're still here defending these well-known lies as if they were ever true. Not only are they not true. They NEVER were. So, when are you going to realize that you were lied to and actually get angry at the liars and charlatans who lied to you, instead of blaming the innocent people they lied to you about?
    • Windows 11 is getting redesigned taskbar settings in new build

      By felrefordit · Posted

      Dupe of "Microsoft further improving Windows 11 Taskbar with latest builds", published <20 minutes apart

  • Recent Achievements

    • Week One Done
      flexorcist earned a badge
      Week One Done
    • One Month Later
      Woland13 earned a badge
      One Month Later
    • Week One Done
      Woland13 earned a badge
      Week One Done
    • One Year In
      bernmeister earned a badge
      One Year In
    • Week One Done
      Scoobystu earned a badge
      Week One Done

  • Popular Contributors

    1. 1
      +primortal
      495
    2. 2
      +Edouard
      225
    3. 3
      PsYcHoKiLLa
      152
    4. 4
      Steven P.
      75
    5. 5
      FloatingFatMan
      71
    Show More

  • Tell a friend

    Love Neowin? Tell a friend!