- Messages
- 282
- Location
- Sunnyvale, CA USA
A friend asked me to help him dual boot a Dell Inspiron laptop.
He had Windows 7 Pro and wanted to try out Windows 8 Pro, so he bought an OEM installation disk.
I set up a second partition and did a clean install of Windows 8 Pro into it (using the .\sources\setup.exe installer).
I did not notice anything unusual in the installation, except it never asked for a product key.
After the install, the System control panel shows 'Windows 8' (not Pro) and the system was activated with some sort of OEM key. We never entered any key, so I don't know how it came up with that.
I tried to change the product key, but it would not accept the key from the installation disk.
I don't understand what went on here, can anyone suggest what happened and what I should do to fix this?
During the boot screen, both OS's show up as choices and the advanced options are all there and everything seems to work fine, but it isn't Windows 8 Pro that somehow got 'automatically' activated, it is the 'basic' version.
He had Windows 7 Pro and wanted to try out Windows 8 Pro, so he bought an OEM installation disk.
I set up a second partition and did a clean install of Windows 8 Pro into it (using the .\sources\setup.exe installer).
I did not notice anything unusual in the installation, except it never asked for a product key.
After the install, the System control panel shows 'Windows 8' (not Pro) and the system was activated with some sort of OEM key. We never entered any key, so I don't know how it came up with that.
I tried to change the product key, but it would not accept the key from the installation disk.
I don't understand what went on here, can anyone suggest what happened and what I should do to fix this?
During the boot screen, both OS's show up as choices and the advanced options are all there and everything seems to work fine, but it isn't Windows 8 Pro that somehow got 'automatically' activated, it is the 'basic' version.
My Computer
System One
-
- OS
- Windows 8.1 Pro with Media Center (64-bit)
- Computer type
- PC/Desktop
- System Manufacturer/Model
- Custom-build
- CPU
- Intel Core i7-2600K @ 4.3 GHz
- Motherboard
- ASUS P8P67 PRO Rev 3.0
- Memory
- 16 GB G.SKILL Ripjaws X DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (4 banks 4GB DIMM DDR3 8-8-8-24 5-32-12-7 1T 1.5V)
- Graphics Card(s)
- NVIDIA GeForce GT 440
- Sound Card
- Firewire Focusrite Saffire Pro 14
- Monitor(s) Displays
- LG W2353V
- Screen Resolution
- 1920x1080
- Hard Drives
- 2 of Seagate Barracuda XT ST32000641AS (2TB ea.);
1 of Seagate Barracuda Green ST2000DL003 (2TB);
1 of Hitachi Deskstar HDS722020ALA330 (2TB);
2 of Seagate Desktop ST4000DM000-1F2168 (4TB)
- PSU
- Corsair AX850 Gold
- Case
- Cooler Master HAF 932 Advanced
- Cooling
- ThermalTake Silent 1156
- Keyboard
- Logitech K520
- Mouse
- Logitech M310
- Internet Speed
- 7Mbps
- Browser
- Chrome
- Antivirus
- Kaspersky
- Other Info
- Event Studio Precision 6 powered audio monitors;
Boston Acoustics CS Sub 10 Powered Subwoofer;
NI Kore controller;
NI Maschine controller;
M-Audio Axiom 61 keyboard controller; expression pedal; sustain pedal;
... and tons of audio software ...
I also keep two USB 3 thumb drives (A: and B:) attached with boot recovery and security stuff that I can boot into from BIOS in case of emergency