Upgrade Win 8.1 to 8.1 with MSDN bits

Upgrade Win 8.1 to 8.1 Pro with MSDN bits

I have an image of Windows 8.1 on a laptop I am testing with and would like to install/upgrade to 8.1 pro to test our product when running on a domain (thus the need for pro). How do I do this upgrade using the MSDN bits available? Any suggestions would be appreciated. I would really prefer to not to a clean install if I can avoid it because the bump to 8.1 pro has to be minimal from an upgrade point of view.

My understand is that you have a copy of Windows 8.1 Pro with a product key via MSDN (sorry if I'm wrong). Unfortunately this product key can only be used to activate your Windows 8.1 Pro after a clean installation.

The simplest way is to purchase the "Windows 8 Pro Pack" (you can buy online via Microsoft website of contact your local reseller, you'll have a feature key when you buy this feature pack). Then you can upgrade your Windows 8.1 to Windows 8.1 Pro by adding this key throught the add feature link in System Properties (I don't remember the exact name). By this way you don't have to reinstall anything (not your Windows 8.1 or your existing programs).

Please note that the key comes with this feature pack cannot be used to activate your Windows, it is just used to add new features to your Windows.

Use a virtual machine software and use the Windows 8 Enterprise Trial edition.

As an update, I was able to just upgrade to 8.1 Pro from the 8.0 install using the MSDN 8.1 key and the option to add features to Windows. Testing this scenario did expose a potential issue in our product so I'm glad I was able to test it.

Penguin as for Pro Pack, since we have the MSDN keys, this seems an awkward (and expensive) step.

pparks1, all of the testing is in virtual environments. We just needed to test the scenarios where a user upgrades an in-place install to 8.1 Pro.

Thanks to both of you however for your replies.