I recently purchased a MSI GT70 laptop that came preinstalled with Windows 8. Rather than try and uninstall all the bloatware, I was planning on just doing a clean install. Little did I know that Microsoft had changed the game when it comes to authentication on W8 with the bios linked product keys.
The W8 usb drive that I used previously to install W8 on other computers does not work, I believe that is due to it recognizing it as a RETAIL version trying to be installed on an OEM system. Searching around, it seemed other people had success with using an .ISO from TechNet or MSDN and the installation automatically pulling the product key information. The .iso I used was sourced from the Microsoft store download.
After booting to the disk, I received this error: The product key entered does not match any of the Windows images available for installation. Enter a different product key.
I tried manually adding the PID.txt file with the product key I pulled from pkeyui (cross checked with showkey.vbs and RWEverything) but that resulted in the same error. For this notebook, the product key and MSDM are identical, whereas I read other people were finding two different product keys. One nestled deep in the bios and the other being what you see when you run Belarc Advisor etc.
Burning the .iso to a DVD and then starting the setup inside a session of W8 resulted in a different error: this product key cannot be used to install a retail version
So once again back to the issue of using a retail .iso with an OEM product key to try and do a clean install. As far as I know you can't download an "oem .iso" but I'm not sure how to get the retail .iso to play nicely with the product key I have.
So exactly how does one do a clean install of an OEM windows 8 build on a laptop that comes preinstalled with windows 8? If I can't sort this out, I may be stuck with rooting out the bloatware. :shock:
The W8 usb drive that I used previously to install W8 on other computers does not work, I believe that is due to it recognizing it as a RETAIL version trying to be installed on an OEM system. Searching around, it seemed other people had success with using an .ISO from TechNet or MSDN and the installation automatically pulling the product key information. The .iso I used was sourced from the Microsoft store download.
After booting to the disk, I received this error: The product key entered does not match any of the Windows images available for installation. Enter a different product key.
I tried manually adding the PID.txt file with the product key I pulled from pkeyui (cross checked with showkey.vbs and RWEverything) but that resulted in the same error. For this notebook, the product key and MSDM are identical, whereas I read other people were finding two different product keys. One nestled deep in the bios and the other being what you see when you run Belarc Advisor etc.
Burning the .iso to a DVD and then starting the setup inside a session of W8 resulted in a different error: this product key cannot be used to install a retail version
So once again back to the issue of using a retail .iso with an OEM product key to try and do a clean install. As far as I know you can't download an "oem .iso" but I'm not sure how to get the retail .iso to play nicely with the product key I have.
So exactly how does one do a clean install of an OEM windows 8 build on a laptop that comes preinstalled with windows 8? If I can't sort this out, I may be stuck with rooting out the bloatware. :shock:
My Computer
System One
-
- OS
- W8