Win8 Upgrade from fresh install + Activation

[James Rose]

Hello gang,

My old development machine died and so I bought new components (a SSD Woo Hoo!) and installed Win8. The install went great and took < 12 minutes! However when I try to activate I get a message that this activation key is for upgrades only, not a clean install. I have the Win7 discs so I could wipe Win7 and then reinstall.... but I thought I should check if there is some way around this or if I should call MS to ask them?

Thanks

[Detection]

Try this

http://www.pcdiy.com/957/how-to-solve-windows-8-oxc004f061-issue

It tells windows you upgraded and should let you activate

[James Rose]

Try this

http://www.pcdiy.com...xc004f061-issue

It tells windows you upgraded and should let you activate

Thanks kindly, sadly that did not work.

[Detection]

Thanks kindly, sadly that did not work.

Hmm, I haven't tried it with 8 myself, but fairly sure it should still work if you followed every step

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You could try inserting the product key again and activate it using CMD (Make sure you always run CMD as Admin)

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Open an elevated command prompt as administrator.

Use the following command to install product key:

slmgr -ipk XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX << Replace with product key

Activate Windows with the following command:

slmgr -ato

[James Rose]

I forgot to respond... must be all that egg nog. Anyway... That too did not work for me, so I installed Win7, registered it and then Win8. A bit of a hastle but in case anyone wanted to know.

[JustGeorge]

I forgot to respond... must be all that egg nog. Anyway... That too did not work for me, so I installed Win7, registered it and then Win8. A bit of a hastle but in case anyone wanted to know.

Make an image once you get Win 8 installed/activated. You won't have to go through the nonsense the next time :) I make a Clean install image, then another with everything installed and set up the way I like.

[neo1911]

Just back up data.dat and tokens.dat files from activated Windows 8 C:\Windows\System32\spp folder. Make sure you unhide files as data.dat is hidden. If there is a problem, copy them over after windows reinstall to remain activated.

[James Rose]

I would make an image, but by the time I reinstall I have an entire new set of apps/development tools. I now have a SSD so installing the OS (Win7 and 8) took less than 45 minutes. Thanks for the thought,