I blame the manufacture. Manufactures that cares put the sticker under the battery compartment so that the battery protects it. Well now it doesn't mater anymore. Windows 8 doesn't have a sticker.
What are these discs and USB installs of which you speak? WDS/imagex/DISM deployment from WIM is where it's at On topic, meh they rub off. It happens a lot. Extract VL key or buy/sell a new one IMO.
I got the key from it, (and I've shoved a copy of it onto a sticker for the inside of the HDD bay) alas had issues with trying to transfer to another disk, using linux live disk and "dd if=/dev/sdb of=/dev/sda bs=512 count=1" copied the partition structure over, and then "dd if=/dev/sdb1 of=/dev/sda1 bs=1M" supposedly copied the contents of the recovery partition over, but couldn't boot, cloning the drive likewise failed to allow me to use the recovery partition. and attempts to create an install dvd keep hitting errors when burning (and no usb keys to use either) but thats all off topic.
DISM deployment is actually a really good option, but it's all lengthy command-line commands that're a pain to remember, the lack of a GUI is a deal-breaker for me. At work we do something similar but more third-party, which is to keep generalized sysprepped images and then load them onto machines using Norton Ghost. Keep sysprepped images of all the distros you need on a dos-bootable HDD; done. I don't know what we're going to do once everything's gone GPT and SecureBoot though, Norton don't seem to have a compatible version of Ghost up and running for all that yet.
Doesn't Microsoft have something new better than Norton Ghost? That thing was super shitty when I used to work as IT last year. They've been using this for years, now they finally switching to Microsoft solution, and everyone was really exited. I didn't get to see it in action as I left, but it sounded good on paper. Also, to answer your question, Symantec would have to cash out about 1k (oh noes!) for a secure boot key to use on all their licenses. Ubuntu has one if I recall correctly. So it's not a problem for them. They are just too cheap.. busy maximizing profit rather than focusing on making their product easier to use and better.
We have 15 PCs setup which rip data from customer hard drives and dump it to a central location and also deploy Windows images (they're up to date sysprepped jobs) via DISM/imagex. When we swapped from discs we initially went the WDS server route but it was too slow. So I wrote a batch script that sets up the partitions and deploys the images from a local copy on each PC. Is much faster now /off topic
Hah, yeah. Sysprep, image, boom. I've only done it over the network a couple of times and it was kinda cool to know how to do it but I just found it (for the quantity I did) easier to image to usb hdd.
My laptop has a Win 8 COA sticker on the bottom of it (re-written onto OEM disc pack). My OEM copy of Win 8.1 has a COA stick included (or it must have done as I had to enter the code when installing it on my wife's machine). Perhaps this is because both have OEM copies of Win 8? (The advantages of buying a custom built laptop - you get the actual instal media and are not required to create your own "backup").
Your license is not OEM, but rather "OEM - System Builder" (eg: the one we can buy at computer stores) OEM licenses are only for manufactures such as Dell, HP, Acer, etc. The product key is in in the BIOS/UEFI chip.
well got it sorted eventually, couldn't clone the disk at all. and had issues trying to create an ISO to install from, but once got a working iso shoved it onto usb and worked fine. found this software useful. I backed up the activation that way and upon clean install used it to restore. (no need to attempt to activate any keys)
My rant with buying laptops is the fact my new one has a nice 1TB drive, but the way it has been configured means I'm about 50 gigs short of the formatted capacity. When I can as am still playing (and liking Windows 8.1 !) will do a clean install after making a clone of the hard drive as it is then re-install from fresh.
I think what you are talking about is a windows deployment server. had one in my old workplace and it was brilliant
Yes, and it's also hidden to make matters worse, and there's no option of making recovery media either. So if for example the hard drive fails and you have no way of making your own copy of the installation media you've had it. Time to get busy with Arcronis this weekend and see about installing Windows 7. Whilst there are certain features I like on Windows 8.1 there are certain things I don't and really do feel like it a step back, not forwards.
