Windows 8.1 iso won't be available to the public


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Installing from the store equals to a normal Windows Upgrade, indeed you can find C:\Windows.Old with all the remains of the upgrade process inside.

 

During the upgrade some applications are reinstalled and drivers are changed causing stuff to break. I had to reinstall VMware, logitech software, ATI drivers and HP printer software because all of them were broken during the upgrade.

 

It would change virtually nothing to Microsoft to release ISOs that take 8.0 retail keys or read them from the BIOS, it's just that they can't refrain from trying to feed their garbage upgrade system to users. It breaks stuff, no matter if from their company or third party companies. They just can't seem to accept that or that some users just want clean installs.

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Installing from the store equals to a normal Windows Upgrade, indeed you can find C:\Windows.Old with all the remains of the upgrade process inside.

 

During the upgrade some applications are reinstalled and drivers are changed causing stuff to break. I had to reinstall VMware, logitech software, ATI drivers and HP printer software because all of them were broken during the upgrade.

 

It would change virtually nothing to Microsoft to release ISOs that take 8.0 retail keys or read them from the BIOS, it's just that they can't refrain from trying to feed their garbage upgrade system to users. It breaks stuff, no matter if from their company or third party companies. They just can't seem to accept that or that some users just want clean installs.

Yeah, and if you have good backups clean installs can be just as fast, if not faster than the upgrade process, making upgrade all the more pointless. I have windows on my SSD and nearly all my data on separate drives, a clean install is trivial on this machine, I just backup my appdata folder and a few other things.

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There is a Windows 8.1 Pro Retail x64 ISO floating around the torrents right now, from MDL apparently.

It's custom because MS won't release an official one, but it's as real as it gets as it's a simple ESD to ISO conversion from the official Windows 8.1 installer and contains all the GA fixes integrated.

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Microsoft has released ISOs for various other products, including Windows 8 and the Windows 8.1 Preview. Just because technically-minded people can download the ISO from non-reputable sources doesn't mean they should have to.

 

MS never released a RTM iso for public use except through their channels of MSDN/Technet, etc.

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There is a Windows 8.1 Pro Retail x64 ISO floating around the torrents right now, from MDL apparently.

It's custom because MS won't release an official one, but it's as real as it gets as it's a simple ESD to ISO conversion from the official Windows 8.1 installer and contains all the GA fixes integrated.

 

MS already released 8.1 ISO's a month ago on Technet/MSDN, etc.

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MS already released 8.1 ISO's a month ago on Technet/MSDN, etc.

 

Yes, they were leaked too. But many people want up-to-date GA retail ISO's just like they did for their Volume License release versions. This is such an ISO an doesn't require a 3+ GB update after installation.

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Yes, they were leaked too. But many people want up-to-date GA retail ISO's just like they did for their Volume License release versions. This is such an ISO an doesn't require a 3+ GB update after installation.

 

The GA updates are only around 300 MB, 3GB is the full ISO that is downloading in the store for install of an update from 8.0 to 8.1

 

8.1 is 8.1, the GA updates are not going to get recompiled back into a new ISO.

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I just want to know who the idiot is within Microsoft management making these dumb decisions? This is a huge service pack released under a different name. I mean what dumbass there actually thinks people want to dl this separately for every machine they own??

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Yeah, but not to the public. :(

 

But what do you need the 8.1 ISO for? If you don't have a real key for it, you can't activate it. I don't know if the 8.0 keys are still activating at this time on a Windows 8.1 upgrade from the Technet/MSDN ISO. The Technet/MSDN ISO's issue new keys for subscribers.

 

If you had 8.0 with your system, then you upgrade via the store if you need to reload.

If you have 8.1 with your system, then you just install the 300mb GA updates and anything after this time and you are good to go.

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Windows 8.1 ISO's have already been posted for months.

:whistle:     en_windows_8_1_pro_vl_x64_dvd_2971948.iso

 

This torrent has 1 comments.This torrent has a cover imageTrusted Uploaded 29 mins ago, Size 3.59 GiB, ULed by goran137

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That's a volume language copy though that's useless for typical users. You can make your own ISO with the GA updates integrated if you want to. It's really not that hard to do at all.

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But what do you need the 8.1 ISO for? If you don't have a real key for it, you can't activate it. I don't know if the 8.0 keys are still activating at this time on a Windows 8.1 upgrade from the Technet/MSDN ISO. The Technet/MSDN ISO's issue new keys for subscribers.

 

If you had 8.0 with your system, then you upgrade via the store if you need to reload.

If you have 8.1 with your system, then you just install the 300mb GA updates and anything after this time and you are good to go.

It would just be to nice to have, so when you need to reinstall everything you can go straight to 8.1 instead of having to install 8.0 first. Also since Microsoft released the official .iso's for Windows 7 & 8, you would think they'd do the same for 8.1.

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Plus with Bandwidth caps on most internet providers lately, having an ISO to update multiple machines would come in handy as well,  (I currently own 1 Windows 8 Pro 64bit machine) but in the future I hope to get a Windows 8 laptop or Surface and at least another Desktop, so updating all those to 8.1 upon first use would be much easier with an ISO, plus I only have 6mb at&t dsl, not exactly fast for 2013 standards at all

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But what do you need the 8.1 ISO for? If you don't have a real key for it, you can't activate it. I don't know if the 8.0 keys are still activating at this time on a Windows 8.1 upgrade from the Technet/MSDN ISO. The Technet/MSDN ISO's issue new keys for subscribers.

 

If you had 8.0 with your system, then you upgrade via the store if you need to reload.

If you have 8.1 with your system, then you just install the 300mb GA updates and anything after this time and you are good to go.

Oh I dunno :rolleyes:

 

1. You have to re-install

2. You bought the upgrade version and don't want to install 7, 8, then 8.1

3. You don't want to wait hours for he 8.1 update to install.

4. You want your install to be as clean as possible.

5. Because its dumb as hell for not offering a standalone offline installer.

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But what do you need the 8.1 ISO for? If you don't have a real key for it, you can't activate it. I don't know if the 8.0 keys are still activating at this time on a Windows 8.1 upgrade from the Technet/MSDN ISO. The Technet/MSDN ISO's issue new keys for subscribers.

 

If you had 8.0 with your system, then you upgrade via the store if you need to reload.

If you have 8.1 with your system, then you just install the 300mb GA updates and anything after this time and you are good to go.

You can use a placeholder key during the install, and activate it post install with your real 8.0 key. worked for me when I did a clean install.

 

Anyway, I completely agree with AR556. Its completely ridiculous that they don't provide a proper ISO for a clean install, and its also ridiculous that it doesn't just accept windows 8 keys in the installer. Its a free upgrade from windows 8, and activates fine with a windows 8 key post install anyway, so why the hell does is even have its own keys that are necessary for the offline installer? Its completely arbitrary.

 

Why the hell would you want to clean install windows 8 and then waste a bunch of time upgrading to 8.1 over it when we can just clean install straight from 8.1? These are just pointlessly arbitrary restrictions from microsoft. /rant

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You can use a placeholder key during the install, and activate it post install with your real 8.0 key. worked for me when I did a clean install.

 

Yes, but did you try this and activate it after the 17th? Did it still activate with the Windows 8.0 key vs a true 8.1 key?

 

The first key you had to use actually was a 8.1 key, that got you in the setup. The 2nd key you used was your Windows 8.0 key and activated it with that, the question is.. are the activation servers still accepting Windows 8.0 keys for the activation after the setup. Or have they disabled that and are only accepting Windows 8.1 keys now.

 

Can anyone confirm?

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Yes, but did you try this and activate it after the 17th? Did it still activate with the Windows 8.0 key vs a true 8.1 key?

 

The first key you had to use actually was a 8.1 key, that got you in the setup. The 2nd key you used was your Windows 8.0 key and activated it with that, the question is.. are the activation servers still accepting Windows 8.0 keys for the activation after the setup. Or have they disabled that and are only accepting Windows 8.1 keys now.

 

Can anyone confirm?

Yep, i'm aware the placeholder key I used during install was a windows 8.1 key :)

 

I used a real windows 8 key to activate post-install, in fact its even an 'upgrade' key, activated fine. I activated it on oct 17th (around 11:00pm eastern time). What relevance does the date have?

 

It would be pretty ridiculous if they stopped accepting windows 8 keys, again considering its a free upgrade from windows 8, that would mean more arbitrary bull**** from microsoft. Don't bill it as a free upgrade if there's so many strings attatched, I'd rather they offer a cheap 20 dollar upgrade and give us a proper key or something :/ if that was the case...

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I was able to activate 8.1 with an 8.0 key on Oct. 18th. But shouldn't the activation servers always accept 8.0 keys? I mean, doesn't Windows also activate itself automatically when you upgrade through the Store?

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