Not entirely sure we are allowed to talk about this, but, if you own a previous license with microsoft (7, vista, XP etc.) then I would of thought it to be fine, however, I thought you needed the previous OS on the same disk for it to recognise it and pick it up as being OK to go ahead with. There are however ways around this.
If you have bought the OS disk from somewhere like scan then yes I installed win8 from a upgrade / retail disk I bought from scan, I booted from disk did a custom install and it activated fine no hacks needed.
Yes its fine. You can use the same method in Windows 7 Upgrade to do a direct clean install. -> Open Regedit -> Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/Software/Microsoft/Windows/CurrentVersion/Setup/OOBE/ -> Change MediaBootInstall from 1 to 0 -> Open the COmmand Prompt as true Admin -> Type slmgr /rearm on it and hit Enter. -> Once the process is done, reboot Windows now. -> Run the activation utility, enter your product key to activate Windows. And you should be good.
FYI It wasn't needed first there wasn't the option to skip entering the code 2nd there wasn't an option to activate now or later once it was installed it automatically activated, As I said no hacks was necessary. Maybe it's different with downloaded, tbh can't see why it would be
Downloaded direct from MS makes a bootable image for you which can be an image for a USB. It's great. Very easy - no messing.
I haven't tried it as I have Win8 from MSNDAA for it's like the OEM. This is what people are saying and confirmed by someone here that it works. So I don't know. I guess its if you buy the disk in the store.
I was wondering if store ones are different and are both upgrade and retail because there isn't a full retail version available to my knowledge.
From my understanding, when you get the downloaded version, in order to make the disk or USB, let alone download the ISO, you need to insert the product key. While the Win8 Upgrade retail disk version, is the same as for Win7.
I was expecting to do the hack as the same as win 7 but as I said it wasn't the same at all no option for skipping the code entering and no option for delaying the activation, Actually I reinstalled a few tmes and it was the same each time.
Well I think you can actually. Once your USB key or disk is ready, why not boot from it. Cancel the setup and boot from the disk/key
Store copies are different, my retail store copy installed fine and I activated it all fine from a clean install. However the digital download version I purchased for my laptop, after a clean install I tried to activate and it said the key was only for an upgrade not for a fresh install and I needed to buy a key. Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk 2
