Slightly strange question and I haven't found a definite answer to this.
Is it possible to legally download W8.1 (to create an ISO from it) such that it can be installed with no product key (knowing it only has a 30 day activation period) so that it can be test run on an older PC. If so are there any genuine links I could follow ?
If you want to test your hardware compatibility you be best off installing dual boot as VM will not tell you much in that regard.. Features wise it is pretty much like the Pro version.
Thanks.... actually I've hit one snag already, the set up won't run with Vista being installed, says it has to be W7. I can probably get around that by installing W7 from my Dell disc as long as the W8 installer doesn't need an activated copy of W7 to run.
Don't worry, its no problem as its only a "second" PC and I wanted a play with W8.1 I'll see what it makes of running from a W7 unactivated copy but that will probably be tomorrow.
Thwarted again... W7 installed and it now objects to the W8 file being the 32 bit version (which on an older laptop with 2gb seemed the sensible choice). Ho hum, looks like I'll have to grab the x64 version and try again. At least this time it said insert the other disc (the x64) and setup would commence.
I've no answer to that. I got the warning that it wouldn't install because Vista was already present, now I've put W7 x64 on it, it wanted a W8 x64 version. At this moment I'm just burning an ISO of W8.1 x64 and will try it shortly all being well.
The installer objected to my screen resolution at first and refused to continue. I thought it had done that because the W7 install is "out of the box" with just the generic graphics driver installed. I've just whacked the resolution up to max with the generic and its allowed the installer to run. You learn a lot by doing
This is something that puzzles me. I burned the first 32 bit version using Ashampoo (which I've used before to do ISO's) and when I tried booting from it wouldn't get recognised and the pc, after pausing for a couple of seconds would just carry on into the already installed Vista OS. No "press this any key to boot from the disc" message. So I ran the W8 x86 version from within Vista. No go. Has to be run from W7 or W8. Without changing anything in the Bios I pop the W7 Dell disc in and that boots straight off. Install W7 and reburn the ISO of W8 x64 this time using W7's own disc burner. Again, the W8 ISO seems non bootable for me. So I ran it from within W7 and its installed OK, however....
I have a major stumbling block. All seems good apart from the fact that W8 won't recognise my wireless card. Its not showing in device manager at all and W8 reports no wireless settings are available. Its too late today to investigate but tomorrow I might see if I have a Vista driver for the Atheros card and see if that brings any joy. If not its game over, Acronis and back to Vista
Further update on this. (its still not fixed though )
I went back to square one and put the x86 ISO onto a USB drive using a free utility to make it bootable. So far so good, it booted OK and launched into the installer, however on the first reboot it simply went back to the start of the install procedure. I tried again and this time pounced when it rebooted and swiftly changed the boot order back to HDD. The install process continued perfectly and I have a clean W8.1 install.
But still no wireless card detected. Grrr If I can't turn any fixes up for this then I might start a new thread on the problem. It is just not showing anywhere in device manager. I've set it to show hidden devices and still nothing.
Download the driver on another PC and put it on a thumb drive. Then run it on your PC that has no wireless card detected. For future reference a lot of PC's have a quick boot BIOS option. You can boot from an external device like a thumb drive that one time. On the next reboot it goes back to the default device automatically. It's great for doing install and diagnostics. On my laptop all I have to do is press the ESC key during boot up to get a one time boot menu.
Download the driver on another PC and put it on a thumb drive. Then run it on your PC that has no wireless card detected. For future reference a lot of PC's have a quick boot BIOS option. You can boot from an external device like a thumb drive that one time. On the next reboot it goes back to the default device automatically. It's great for doing install and diagnostics. On my laptop all I have to do is press the ESC key during boot up to get a one time boot menu.
Thanks. That's really useful re the BIOS and rebooting. The only (and latest) driver for the Atheros is a Vista one which I grabbed direct from Acer (its an old Acer 9301 laptop).
The wireless adapter still wasn't showing in device manager although the wireless LED is lit on the front, so on a hunch I manually "disabled" it (there is a separate Wireless on/off switch on the keyboard). I rebooted and then back to device manager to search for new hardware. This time it finds an unknown device... hmmm and it seems to be the Atheros adapter. So I try the Acer file with no joy. Next I go into manually finding compatible hardware in the driver tab and can actually bring up "Atheros 5005" but W8 still refuses to install the driver although it appears to actually attempt to. I've tried a few of the Atheros ones, the two 5005 variants and some more generic sounding ones but all come up with the same "code 31" failed to install. I've yet to Google that
At first I didn't. Only when I manually turned off the switch for the WLAN and then rebooted and manually searched for new hardware did it then show. Yes it has the yellow triangle.
Don't know what happened. I typed the reply above on another PC and the left the W8 sitting there. Looked for W8.1 drivers and found an unofficial Atheros site that looked half reputable. Downloaded driver and popped USB into W8 PC. At this point I notice the wireless symbol has changed to "connections available".
Was it connected to the Internet via a LAN cable? I never thought to suggest doing it, but it might have been the easiest way to get a driver for the WIFI adapter. Windows could have then looked online for a driver. Anyway it sounds like you have it working now and that's the main thing. :thumb: