What REALLY is the windows 8 pro upgrade

[CovertDeath]

If you had a full oem disc, why would you not have a full oem key?

because as i stated i plan to torrent the full oem disc but purchase the upgrade key, since i technically am upgrading and its a helluva lot cheaper.

 

[CovertDeath]

its the same thing as long as your HDD remains functional, in the event of a HDD failure would a pure upgrade copy only kind of screw you over???

say i purchase the upgrade copy and make a day 1 image right after install... 3 months down the road my OS HDD crashes and can't be restored so i run down to my local best-buy and purchase a new HDD. i throw it in my system when i get home, now what? it seems to me like in this situation i have to install windows 7 first just so i can install my upgrade copy of windows 8 again.

now if i had a full OEM win8 pro DVD that i torrent from the internet then can i just use this to install win8 using the CD-Key i legally purchased for that UPGRADE version of windows?

I've had this situation happen before and don't want to leave myself hanging in the event it happens again

 

[pparks1]

You can restore an image to a different hard drive, I do it all of the time.

Yes, you would need to reinstall 7 if you didn't want to use an image.

I would suggest if clean installs are this important to you, just but the system builder OEM full license. Or get a technet subscription which has lots of software for just 199.

 

[CovertDeath]

how do you use a system restore though if all you have is a upgrade copy? will it still boot from bios and give the option to restore or is that a full oem option?

 

[pparks1]

I image with either acronis or macrium, and I boot from their recovery media disks and lay the iamge back down from there.

I would have to believe the ugrade disc would boot and let you do a system restore.

 

[Windows Sniper]

Speaking from Experience, if you have an upgrade disk you will have to upgrade from a pre-installed windows deployment because it seems that Microsoft has stopped people from using a fresh install on an upgrade installation.

I received Win8 Pro from the MSDN, and I could not get it to fresh install on any of my Hard drives, I actually had to install a copy of windows 7 and then install from the running version of windows 7.

Just a heads up of what to expect.

 

[BunnyJ]

Speaking from Experience, if you have an upgrade disk you will have to upgrade from a pre-installed windows deployment because it seems that Microsoft has stopped people from using a fresh install on an upgrade installation.

I received Win8 Pro from the MSDN, and I could not get it to fresh install on any of my Hard drives, I actually had to install a copy of windows 7 and then install from the running version of windows 7.

Just a heads up of what to expect.

So you can't format the partition/drive you're going to put Win 8 on?? When you start the upgrade can't you select the advanced(custom install option) and from there format the drive??

EDIT: And yes the drive in question would have to have an approved version of Windows(Xp, Vista, 7 or 8RP)..

 

[PCmannen]

Speaking from Experience, if you have an upgrade disk you will have to upgrade from a pre-installed windows deployment because it seems that Microsoft has stopped people from using a fresh install on an upgrade installation.

I received Win8 Pro from the MSDN, and I could not get it to fresh install on any of my Hard drives, I actually had to install a copy of windows 7 and then install from the running version of windows 7.

Just a heads up of what to expect.

All versions from msdn is retail or volume, there is no upgrade iso.
You must have done something wrong.
There are no special dvd / iso for windows 7 or 8 upgrade. It is the same as retail.
It is the keys which differ only.

 

[Windows Sniper]

Speaking from Experience, if you have an upgrade disk you will have to upgrade from a pre-installed windows deployment because it seems that Microsoft has stopped people from using a fresh install on an upgrade installation.

I received Win8 Pro from the MSDN, and I could not get it to fresh install on any of my Hard drives, I actually had to install a copy of windows 7 and then install from the running version of windows 7.

Just a heads up of what to expect.

All versions from msdn is retail or volume, there is no upgrade iso.
You must have done something wrong.
There are no special dvd / iso for windows 7 or 8 upgrade. It is the same as retail.
It is the keys which differ only.

I must have done something wrong the three or four times i tried to install it onto a cleanly formated SSD?

Put in disk, run from disk, install to SSD, create the necessary partitions, installation, reboot and back to square one?


The ISO i am using is from the MSDN, and it worked the one time i used it for a legit upgrade and i have had no problems after that, aside from the few glitches and stuff when playing games...


There is really nothing i could have done wrong, i even tried a custom install on my laptop and it did nothing, So speaking from experience if you purchase an upgrade version you will have to upgrade from a previous windows Installation.

 

[wglmb]

Speaking from Experience, if you have an upgrade disk you will have to upgrade from a pre-installed windows deployment because it seems that Microsoft has stopped people from using a fresh install on an upgrade installation.

I received Win8 Pro from the MSDN, and I could not get it to fresh install on any of my Hard drives, I actually had to install a copy of windows 7 and then install from the running version of windows 7.

Just a heads up of what to expect.

So you can't format the partition/drive you're going to put Win 8 on?? When you start the upgrade can't you select the advanced(custom install option) and from there format the drive??

EDIT: And yes the drive in question would have to have an approved version of Windows(Xp, Vista, 7 or 8RP)..

I would say you probably CAN format the drive, assuming Win8 installs work similarly to Win7:

Windows 7 Setup does its compliance checking before the phase of Setup where you format the disc. (Unlike with Windows Vista.) This means that you can format your existing hard drive, and blow away a previous Windows version, and not worry about activation. If it was there, Windows 7 will still activate.

From here: Clean Install Windows 7 with Upgrade Media

 

[Windows Sniper]

Speaking from Experience, if you have an upgrade disk you will have to upgrade from a pre-installed windows deployment because it seems that Microsoft has stopped people from using a fresh install on an upgrade installation.

I received Win8 Pro from the MSDN, and I could not get it to fresh install on any of my Hard drives, I actually had to install a copy of windows 7 and then install from the running version of windows 7.

Just a heads up of what to expect.

So you can't format the partition/drive you're going to put Win 8 on?? When you start the upgrade can't you select the advanced(custom install option) and from there format the drive??

EDIT: And yes the drive in question would have to have an approved version of Windows(Xp, Vista, 7 or 8RP)..

I would say you probably CAN format the drive, assuming Win8 installs work similarly to Win7:

Windows 7 Setup does its compliance checking before the phase of Setup where you format the disc. (Unlike with Windows Vista.) This means that you can format your existing hard drive, and blow away a previous Windows version, and not worry about activation. If it was there, Windows 7 will still activate.

From here: Clean Install Windows 7 with Upgrade Media

Your missing the whole point of my statement,

I could not install windows 8 Pro from MSDN onto a clean SSD, Which means that it was a fresh format. So i plugged the new SSD in, put in the installation media, install > Custom > Create new Partition on SSD. <--- That didn't work.
I had to install a copy of windows 7 pro and then upgrade to get windows 8 to work...

Bunnyj then went on to say that you have to have an approved version of windows to upgrade with.

And if i wanted to format a drive there are tons of other ways to do it, and linking me back to some old Vista - Windows 7 upgrade media tut doesn't even compare to an upgrade from win7 to win8 as it is a completly different kettle of fish.

Oh and can you read the lasts posts in a thread to see if something else has been said regarding the issue instead of grabbing a chunk from the middle, Thanks

 

[BunnyJ]

So you can't format the partition/drive you're going to put Win 8 on?? When you start the upgrade can't you select the advanced(custom install option) and from there format the drive??

EDIT: And yes the drive in question would have to have an approved version of Windows(Xp, Vista, 7 or 8RP)..

I would say you probably CAN format the drive, assuming Win8 installs work similarly to Win7:

Windows 7 Setup does its compliance checking before the phase of Setup where you format the disc. (Unlike with Windows Vista.) This means that you can format your existing hard drive, and blow away a previous Windows version, and not worry about activation. If it was there, Windows 7 will still activate.

From here: Clean Install Windows 7 with Upgrade Media

Your missing the whole point of my statement,

I could not install windows 8 Pro from MSDN onto a clean SSD, Which means that it was a fresh format. So i plugged the new SSD in, put in the installation media, install > Custom > Create new Partition on SSD. <--- That didn't work.
I had to install a copy of windows 7 pro and then upgrade to get windows 8 to work...

Bunnyj then went on to say that you have to have an approved version of windows to upgrade with.

And if i wanted to format a drive there are tons of other ways to do it, and linking me back to some old Vista - Windows 7 upgrade media tut doesn't even compare to an upgrade from win7 to win8 as it is a completly different kettle of fish.

Oh and can you read the lasts posts in a thread to see if something else has been said regarding the issue instead of grabbing a chunk from the middle, Thanks

Thanks for this post. It's just a shame you can't do the install on a clean SSD. My plan is to organize the software I want to install. I have all of it on a separate partition and it's organized well. So all I need to do is write down what I want to do to reinstall the software after I upgrade. I have things on here now I want to get rid of. SO on the 24th I'll finalize my doc, then on the 25th I'll reinstall Windows 7 HP. At that point all I'll install are the two drivers I need and an antivirus. AVG for me right now.

From there on the 26th I'll perform the upgrade to Windows 8 and start to reinstall the software I use.

Yup.. that covers it.

 

[Windows Sniper]

Thanks for this post. It's just a shame you can't do the install on a clean SSD. My plan is to organize the software I want to install. I have all of it on a separate partition and it's organized well. So all I need to do is write down what I want to do to reinstall the software after I upgrade. I have things on here now I want to get rid of. SO on the 24th I'll finalize my doc, then on the 25th I'll reinstall Windows 7 HP. At that point all I'll install are the two drivers I need and an antivirus. AVG for me right now.

From there on the 26th I'll perform the upgrade to Windows 8 and start to reinstall the software I use.

Yup.. that covers it.

Its no problem at all, and i'm glad it helped you

 

[pparks1]

GUYS:

You absolute CAN install a copy of Windows 8 Pro, from either Technet or MSDN without having anything on the hard drive. It's a full retail release, I am not sure what problem Windows Sniper had, but his experience is not what anybody should expect.

I've loaded the MSDN release onto VM's (they had nothing at the start), I've loaded them onto physical test machines which had Linux previously. I've installed them onto brand spanking new SSD's that I just took out of the box, and they all loaded just fine without having to perform an upgrade.

There is really nothing i could have done wrong, i even tried a custom install on my laptop and it did nothing, So speaking from experience if you purchase an upgrade version you will have to upgrade from a previous windows Installation.

From an upgrade disc, I completely agree with you. You will have to have an OS to install it. However, if you got a download already from MSDN or Technet, they are full versions...not upgrade versions. They come with full retail keys. If you somehow got an upgrade key, it would be the first one that I have ever heard of.

 

[Windows Sniper]

GUYS:

You absolute CAN install a copy of Windows 8 Pro, from either Technet or MSDN without having anything on the hard drive. It's a full retail release, I am not sure what problem Windows Sniper had, but his experience is not what anybody should expect.

I've loaded the MSDN release onto VM's (they had nothing at the start), I've loaded them onto physical test machines which had Linux previously. I've installed them onto brand spanking new SSD's that I just took out of the box, and they all loaded just fine without having to perform an upgrade.

There is really nothing i could have done wrong, i even tried a custom install on my laptop and it did nothing, So speaking from experience if you purchase an upgrade version you will have to upgrade from a previous windows Installation.

From an upgrade disc, I completely agree with you. You will have to have an OS to install it. However, if you got a download already from MSDN or Technet, they are full versions...not upgrade versions. They come with full retail keys. If you somehow got an upgrade key, it would be the first one that I have ever heard of.

Could it be that mine was from the MSDN Dreamspark Premium Page, because i just installed it onto my laptop by upgrading from windows 7, where it wouldn't work as a clean install on a new partition.

 

[pparks1]

I don't have a DreamSpark account myself, so I cannot be sure, but as far as I have read these are full retail releases as well and not an upgrade.