Will the disk burnt with Win 8 ISO install full Windows 8?

ecbritz

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On January 31st, I bought a product key for Win 8 Pro paying $40. I downloaded the Windows.iso that came with the purchase. Afterwards, I burnt the Windows.iso to two separate DVD Roms, opening the ISO with Windows Disk Image Burner.

When one of the two DVD Roms is opened, the program setup.exe presents itself, together with about 9 folders and files. (Please see the attachment, showing the contents of the DVD Rom.)

Setup.exe is obviously the trigger for installing Win 8.

My question is: Will this trigger (setup.exe) install the full Win 8 operating system, using what is stored on the DVD Rom, plus perhaps elements downloaded from the internet during the installation process? Or must I have installation elements on my hard drive, downloaded during the purchase, in addition to the DVD Rom?

In other words, is the DVD Rom burnt from the ISO the "full" Windows 8, the only thing I need apart from my product key, to install Win 8?
 

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My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8
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    Asus S200
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    Intel® Core™ i3 3217U
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    DDR3 1333 MHz SDRAM, OnBoard Memory 4 GB
    Graphics Card(s)
    Integrated Intel® HD Graphics
No, you purchased an upgrade version of Windows 8. It requires that a previous qualifying OS be already on the hard disk. It does not require downloading anything if you've burned it to DVD, but there must be an OS to "Upgrade". You can do a clean install, but the original OS must be there first.
 

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Thanks. The computer I am talking about has Win 7 installed on it. When the computer was scanned by Microsoft before the money was paid and the download started, Win 8 Pro was recommended. The price was still $40, so I proceeded and I assume that Win 8 Pro is now ready to be installed. I have another computer with Win 8 on it, used mainly by my child. I want to wait a few months before installing Win 8 on the machine running Win 7. I need to do serious work on it and can't afford to wonder how to do things I urgently need to do. Through the other computer with Win 8 I will hopefully get more confident with the new version of Windows in time. When I'm ready, I'd like to use the DVD Rom I burned.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8
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    Asus S200
    CPU
    Intel® Core™ i3 3217U
    Memory
    DDR3 1333 MHz SDRAM, OnBoard Memory 4 GB
    Graphics Card(s)
    Integrated Intel® HD Graphics
That will be fine. If you are planning on using your dvd and product key on the machine with 7 already on it.
 

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  • OS
    7/8/ubuntu/Linux Deepin
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That will be fine. If you are planning on using your dvd and product key on the machine with 7 already on it.
OP says: "in other words, is the DVD Rom burnt from the ISO the "full" Windows 8, the only thing I need apart from my product key, to install Win 8?"

With respect to all posts to date, I thought, whether under BIOS or UEFI, he could do what he wants, under Clean Install with Windows 8 Upgrade, using an install DVD even with a completely clean drive provided that he uses a retail upgrade DVD or an ISO-created install DVD where the ISO is obtained via the upgrade-assistant process. Note the use, for example, of the refresh option for activation in Clean Install with Windows 8 Upgrade.

Edit: I should not have said what I did in red below originally. Don't know what I was thinking a the time. This "check" issue now is dealt with later in the thread.

But, maybe not with the retail DVD since there is no check for a "qualifying" prior OS. Does the retail DVD do this check? Regardless, OP does not have a retail DVD. It wouldn't have to do any sort of "bitness" check (i.e., the disc packs retail or through the upgrade assistant contain both 32-bit and 64-bit).
 
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But, maybe not with the retail DVD since there is no check for a "qualifying" prior OS. Does the retail DVD do this check? Regardless, OP does not have a retail DVD. It wouldn't have to do any sort of "bitness" check (i.e., the disc packs retail or through the upgrade assistant contain both 32-bit and 64-bit).

Sorry, but I don't follow what you mean by this.

The only "retail" packages I've seen so far are the upgrade ones. As far as I know, they are the same as the downloads obtained through the Upgrade Assistant (except the retail packages include both 32 and 64 bit installation DVDs.)

There is no "full retail" package. The System Builder copy is supposed to serve that purpose for do-it-yourself types, including the ability to transfer the license to a new PC. I haven't seen a SB package, so I don't know whether it includes both bit levels. I also don't know whether it can be installed as an upgrade-in-place over an existing older Windows copy, which I believe the old Win7 full retail version allowed. (I don't know that from personal experience. Only upgrade versions for me.)
 

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But, maybe not with the retail DVD since there is no check for a "qualifying" prior OS. Does the retail DVD do this check? Regardless, OP does not have a retail DVD. It wouldn't have to do any sort of "bitness" check (i.e., the disc packs retail or through the upgrade assistant contain both 32-bit and 64-bit).

Sorry, but I don't follow what you mean by this.

The only "retail" packages I've seen so far are the upgrade ones. As far as I know, they are the same as the downloads obtained through the Upgrade Assistant (except the retail packages include both 32 and 64 bit installation DVDs.)

There is no "full retail" package. The System Builder copy is supposed to serve that purpose for do-it-yourself types, including the ability to transfer the license to a new PC. I haven't seen a SB package, so I don't know whether it includes both bit levels. I also don't know whether it can be installed as an upgrade-in-place over an existing older Windows copy, which I believe the old Win7 full retail version allowed. (I don't know that from personal experience. Only upgrade versions for me.)
You are mostly correct on what you say above. But, if you look back at my post, then you'll see that my comment about "a retail DVD" refers to my earlier discussion about "a retail upgrade DVD." Your comment "they are the same as the downloads obtained through the Upgrade Assistant" is true, except that disks made from the ISO's from the upgrade assistant (and the ISO's themselves) sometimes (perhaps often) fail to provide UEFI support. However, the disc sets that can be ordered when using the upgrade assistant are the same as the retail upgrade disc sets; both "types" of sets have UEFI support.
 

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But, maybe not with the retail DVD since there is no check for a "qualifying" prior OS. Does the retail DVD do this check? Regardless, OP does not have a retail DVD. It wouldn't have to do any sort of "bitness" check (i.e., the disc packs retail or through the upgrade assistant contain both 32-bit and 64-bit).

Sorry, but I don't follow what you mean by this.

The only "retail" packages I've seen so far are the upgrade ones. As far as I know, they are the same as the downloads obtained through the Upgrade Assistant (except the retail packages include both 32 and 64 bit installation DVDs.)

There is no "full retail" package. The System Builder copy is supposed to serve that purpose for do-it-yourself types, including the ability to transfer the license to a new PC. I haven't seen a SB package, so I don't know whether it includes both bit levels. I also don't know whether it can be installed as an upgrade-in-place over an existing older Windows copy, which I believe the old Win7 full retail version allowed. (I don't know that from personal experience. Only upgrade versions for me.)
You are mostly correct on what you say above. But, if you look back at my post, then you'll see that my comment about "a retail DVD" refers to my earlier discussion about "a retail upgrade DVD." Your comment "they are the same as the downloads obtained through the Upgrade Assistant" is true, except that disks made from the ISO's from the upgrade assistant (and the ISO's themselves) sometimes (perhaps often) fail to provide UEFI support. However, the disc sets that can be ordered when using the upgrade assistant are the same as the retail upgrade disc sets; both "types" of sets have UEFI support.

What I didn't follow was "But, maybe not with the retail DVD since there is no check for a "qualifying" prior OS."

I have no experience with the retail upgrade package. I acquired the X64 Pro upgrade through the dreaded Upgrade Assistant, and saved it as an .iso. I prepared a USB flash drive installer. The installer required a license key to perform the installation. However, if no qualifying older OS is present, the installation won't activate. (That's leaving off any work-arounds.)

I actually prepared The USB flash drive twice. The first time I used the utility from the Microsoft Store. However, that formats the drive as NTFS, while I found that I needed FAT for a UEFI install. I used the widely published procedure that uses diskpart.

Is the retail upgrade copy different?
 

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  • OS
    Window 8 Pro
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    16 GB Gskill DDR3-2133
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    WD Cavair Black 1.5TB
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See my follow up in post #16 if interested.

That will be fine. If you are planning on using your dvd and product key on the machine with 7 already on it.
OP says: "in other words, is the DVD Rom burnt from the ISO the "full" Windows 8, the only thing I need apart from my product key, to install Win 8?"

With respect to all posts to date, I thought, whether under BIOS or UEFI, he could do what he wants, under Clean Install with Windows 8 Upgrade, using an install DVD even with a completely clean drive provided that he uses a retail upgrade DVD or an ISO-created install DVD where the ISO is obtained via the upgrade-assistant process. Note the use, for example, of the refresh option for activation in Clean Install with Windows 8 Upgrade.

But, maybe not with the retail DVD since there is no check for a "qualifying" prior OS. Does the retail DVD do this check? Regardless, OP does not have a retail DVD. It wouldn't have to do any sort of "bitness" check (i.e., the disc packs retail or through the upgrade assistant contain both 32-bit and 64-bit).
OK, I checked out what I said above and the logic of the tutorials. Note that the tutorials I refer to make no mention of installed operating system preconditions--except when referencing the upgrade-assistant process--which is not pertinent to what I did--regardless of which of the two disks mentioned below I used. All is good, but I want to make what I did clear.

1. I started with Windows 8 Pro installed on my machine so to be precise I did a reinstallation.
2. In applying the procedures from our pertinent tutorials, I used the 64-bit install disc ordered during the the upgrade-assistant process (but see below for "special" pre-installation steps taken). It should be the same as a retail 64-bit upgrade disc. In this regard, I did not use the 64-bit upgrade disc created from the ISO downloaded via the upgrade-assistant process. I did not use this disc because I wanted to "get as far away from" the upgrade-assistant process as possible.
3. I went Clean Install with Windows 8 Upgrade > Clean Install - Windows 8 (could have started with this one). I did all steps to the point where the installation began. I emphasize that I started with Win8 64-bit installed on my machine--not an OS qualifying for an upgrade.
4. To distance myself from my installed Win8, I aborted the installation after it had begun.
5. I tried to start to my 64-bit installation, but "no operating system was found." Good.
6. I restarted to my installation DVD and did all the steps in Clean Install - Windows 8.
7. After finishing the installation, Win 8 64-bit was not activated.
8. To activate, I first tried using "Activate Windows Upgrade using a BAT File Download" (step 6) from Clean Install with Windows 8 Upgrade to save time. It didn't work.
9. So, I tried "Activate by Refreshing the Windows 8 Upgrade" (step 5) from Clean Install with Windows 8 Upgrade. It worked. All is good.

I have a few caveats. First, I supposed my install disc could have found remnants of my prior installation and worked because of the found remnants. I don't see this scenario to be at all likely. Second, I could have been more secure in what I am saying works by, for example, writing zeros to my drive at the outset. I didn't think that doing so was necessary. And, as said above, "the tutorials I ... [referred] to make no mention of installed operating system preconditions--except when referencing the upgrade-assistant process--which is not pertinent to what I did--regardless of which of the two disks mentioned ... [above] I used. In any case, I did not start with an OS qualifying for an upgrade installed on my machine--which is a partially mitigating factor.
 
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    DIY Rig; MacBook Pro (MBP)/Parallels/Boot Camp; HP Pavilion dv6500t Laptop
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Sorry, but I don't follow what you mean by this.

The only "retail" packages I've seen so far are the upgrade ones. As far as I know, they are the same as the downloads obtained through the Upgrade Assistant (except the retail packages include both 32 and 64 bit installation DVDs.)

There is no "full retail" package. The System Builder copy is supposed to serve that purpose for do-it-yourself types, including the ability to transfer the license to a new PC. I haven't seen a SB package, so I don't know whether it includes both bit levels. I also don't know whether it can be installed as an upgrade-in-place over an existing older Windows copy, which I believe the old Win7 full retail version allowed. (I don't know that from personal experience. Only upgrade versions for me.)
You are mostly correct on what you say above. But, if you look back at my post, then you'll see that my comment about "a retail DVD" refers to my earlier discussion about "a retail upgrade DVD." Your comment "they are the same as the downloads obtained through the Upgrade Assistant" is true, except that disks made from the ISO's from the upgrade assistant (and the ISO's themselves) sometimes (perhaps often) fail to provide UEFI support. However, the disc sets that can be ordered when using the upgrade assistant are the same as the retail upgrade disc sets; both "types" of sets have UEFI support.

What I didn't follow was "But, maybe not with the retail DVD since there is no check for a "qualifying" prior OS."

I have no experience with the retail upgrade package. I acquired the X64 Pro upgrade through the dreaded Upgrade Assistant, and saved it as an .iso. I prepared a USB flash drive installer. The installer required a license key to perform the installation. However, if no qualifying older OS is present, the installation won't activate. (That's leaving off any work-arounds.)

I actually prepared The USB flash drive twice. The first time I used the utility from the Microsoft Store. However, that formats the drive as NTFS, while I found that I needed FAT for a UEFI install. I used the widely published procedure that uses diskpart.

Is the retail upgrade copy different?
In post 5, you many have missed "note the use, for example, of the refresh option for activation in Clean Install with Windows 8 Upgrade." And, see my post 9--the part on activation. In post 5, I also said "I thought, whether under BIOS or UEFI, he could do what he wants, under Clean Install with Windows 8 Upgrade, using an install DVD even with a completely clean drive provided that he uses a retail upgrade DVD or an ISO-created install DVD where the ISO is obtained via the upgrade-assistant process." I said also said above--that these two DVD's will be the same except that sometimes (perhaps often) that DVD's created using ISOs will lack UEFI support. I emphasize that this comment applies only to 64-bit discs since 32-bit discs don't currently have UEFI support--no matter what. Also, while I don't recall saying it above, note that the DVD set that can be ordered during the course of using the the upgrade-assistant process and the retail upgrade DVD set are the same--with the 64-bit discs in both sets having UEFI support.

Why not try a DVD and follow the procedure in Clean Install with Windows 8 Upgrade > Clean Install - Windows 8--and back to Clean Install with Windows 8 Upgrade at the end--if you can't activate as I did in post #9 having previously used your flash-drive procedure. Try both activation procedures in Clean Install with Windows 8 Upgrade whether using having used a DVD or your flash drive to install.

I should not have said "but, maybe not with the retail [upgrade] DVD since there is no check for a "qualifying" prior OS. Does the retail DVD do this check?" Don't know what I was thinking. The only time there ever is check for a qualifying OS is when using the upgrade-assistant process. And, of course, in this context, there is a "bitness" check--if running 32 bit (64 bit) when using this process, then the ISO obtained will allow only the installation of 32 bit (64 bit), but the installation can be done a machine other than the one from which the upgrade-assistant process was used.

I answered hurriedly above. Please let me know if there is something I have not clarified well enough.
 
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The installer required a license key to perform the installation.

Presumably you entered the upgrade license.

if no qualifying older OS is present, the installation won't activate
 

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In post 5, you many have missed "note the use, for example, of the refresh option for activation in Clean Install with Windows 8 Upgrade."

That was one of the "work-arounds" that I referred to in Post 8.

You can install WIn8 to a blank hard drive using an upgrade key, but the result won't be activated, and it won't accept an upgrade key for activation. I have never tried it, but thank you for confirming that the un-activated installation can be refreshed, and the upgrade key used on that.

I haven't seen any official statements about it, but I can't imagine that Microsoft would bless this installation technique. It could easily be used to install Win8 with an upgrade license without having an older qualifying copy of Windows in hand. Perhaps Microsoft still calls that casual piracy. (I believe that Microsoft built that backdoor by design, but I doubt that I'll ever know the truth of that.)

Somehow I doubt that this exchange is helping ecbritz very much.
 

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I was finishing my post #10 when you posted. Please check it out. It deals with all your issues and more except for some of your above comments. You seem to have a problem with the "work arounds." These techniques are "allowed" by our tutorials, and that's good enough for me. Shawn speculated once that the refresh procedure is there to facilitate individuals reinstalling their Win8 systems [on non-OEM Win8 machines] in some circumstances without having activation issues. He presumes that a qualifying operating system license is forfeited upon initial installation even if not a reinstallation. See the replies in Clean Install with Windows 8 Upgrade for substantiation of these points.

Note that, when reinstalling (or installing), no check that would prevent Win8 from being reinstalled and activated is made so I have to assume that MS is good with the procedure. Of course, MS could be unaware of the procedure, but using the procedure still does not seem to be an EULA breaker to me, even on a fresh drive, provided that, at some point, when installing Win8 a qualifying operating system license is forfeited. Additionally, if one forfeits a qualifying OS license when upgrade installing no matter how done, then no harm no foul. In general, MS is not employing a method of knowing whether a qualifying OS is forfeited even if on the machine at time of install no matter how an upgrade is done (e.g., even if installing directly via the upgrade assistant).
 
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There is no problem doing a clean install with the upgrade version. Just follow this tutorial.

http://www.eightforums.com/tutorials/13375-clean-install-windows-8-upgrade.html
That was my original point in post #2.

"With respect to all posts to date, I thought, whether under BIOS or UEFI, he could do what he wants, under Clean Install with Windows 8 Upgrade, using an install DVD even with a completely clean drive provided that he uses a retail upgrade DVD or an ISO-created install DVD where the ISO is obtained via the upgrade-assistant process. Note the use, for example, of the refresh option for activation in Clean Install with Windows 8 Upgrade."

I was hoping for clarification--that never came. So, I confirmed what I thought myself--as reported in post #9. While I trusted the implications of the tutorial, I wanted to try it out under a sort of extreme condition (ergo, my post #9).
 
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    Other Info
    Pioneer Blu-ray Burner/DVD Burner
Following up on post #9, I did another upgrade disc clean install (i.e., to be precise a reinstallation). Again, I used the 64-bit upgrade install disc ordered during the the upgrade-assistant process. It should be the same as a retail 64-bit upgrade disc. In this regard, I did not use the 64-bit upgrade disc created from the ISO downloaded via the upgrade-assistant process. I did not use this disc again because I wanted to "get as far away from" the upgrade-assistant process as possible.

1. Started up to the Win8 upgrade install DVD. Ran Diskpart using command prompt.
2. Did, with Diskpart, the first 4 steps here: SSD / HD : Optimize for Windows Reinstallation on the disk on which Win8 is to be reinstalled--in my case--Disk 0. Used clean all command (not clean command) as used in the snips. Don't know why clean all is repeated in step 3; I ignored the repitition. The clean all command writes zero to disc and leaves the cleaned drive having only unallocated space. Execution of this command takes considerable time, but leaves nothing on the drive--including no traces of a prior OS--whether it was an OS qualifying for upgrade or Win8, itself.
3. After exiting Diskpart, I tried to start to my HDD. No OS present. Good.
4. Used precisely the steps in Clean Install - Windows 8 in reinstalling.
5. Check out the "Note" in step 8 of the above tutorial. I wanted to to have the 350 MB System Reserved Partition so I was happy that my use of Diskpart had left me with only unallocated space on Disk 0 (see 2 above).
6. Win 8 was not activated after installing.
7. I activated by using the Refresh option in Clean Install with Windows 8 Upgrade.

There is essentially no reason to do anything between installation and refresh since:

Refresh your PC—Attempts to solve system problems by replacing system files without affecting user data files. Such files still should be backed up. Installed programs will have to be reinstalled except those from the Windows Store. A list of uninstalled programs is provided on desktop. You personalization settings will be maintained. System settings will be set to defaults. A Windows.old folder will be created at C:. You can delete it once you have everything you want from it. See Windows.old Folder - Delete in Windows 8.
 
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My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Win7 Ult on DIY; Win8 Pro on MBP/Parallels; Win7 Ult on MBP/Boot Camp; Win7 Ult/Win8 Pro on HP
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    DIY Rig; MacBook Pro (MBP)/Parallels/Boot Camp; HP Pavilion dv6500t Laptop
    CPU
    Intel i7-2600K (sometimes OC'd to 4.8 GHz)
    Motherboard
    ASUS P8P67 Deluxe Rev B3
    Memory
    16 GB Corsair Vengeance
    Graphics Card(s)
    EVGA 570 SC
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Gateway
    Hard Drives
    Dual Boot:
    Win7 Ult RAID 0 on OCZ Revo x2 and
    Win7 Ult RAID 0 on Caviar Black SATA 3's
    PSU
    Cooler Master Silent Pro 1000W
    Case
    Cooler Master 932 HAF
    Cooling
    Zalman CNPS9900MAX-B CPU Fan
    Keyboard
    Logitech Cordless Desktop MX 5500
    Mouse
    Logitech Cordless Desktop MX 5500
    Internet Speed
    20 Mbps Download/2+ Mbps Upload
    Other Info
    Pioneer Blu-ray Burner/DVD Burner
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