I'm still going to give this 5 stars, in spite of all the problems I had to work through to get this installed properly. Here was my scenario, and I hope my experience will save a headache or two. A few days ago I purchased a new HP 17e150 touchscreen laptop here at Amazon. It came preinstalled with 8.1 standard. I have always preferred having my own os discs and have built many desktops. It's been a while since I've bought a new prebuilt machine. So a day or so later I ordered this oem system builders edition. OK, I've been a little behind I guess. The problem the last couple of years or so, is that these machines are coming out with the product key "embedded" in the bios. Just slipping in the disc and setting the bios to boot from it won't do it properly. Even setting the bios to legacy and clearing the keys out or disabling secure boot. The usual dialog box where the product key is entered will not show up. The install process will still pull the key that's embedded in the bios (somewhere). I let it run the first time though, and wound up with...Win8.1 standard..:( Well after some calls to HP (who transferred me to Microsoft, who suggested I get back to Amazon...)I managed to piece together a working solution from several different forums. I'll just cut to it: Here's what I had to do:
On my new HP with it's factory install, I created a recovery usb, then I used another disk imaging program to copy the entire drive to an image file to be double safe.
I grabbed an old spare usb stick 8GB; (4 would do it, probably), removed all other usb devices. Then opened a command prompt as administrator. Stepwise type:
1. diskpart -another cmd window should open, then type
2. list disk -you should see your usb drive listed probably as 1 if no other devices are inserted.
3. select disk 1 -or whatever yours is.
4. clean - previous step selects, this one cleans it out..;)
5. create partition primary - that's what it does...
6. active - sets it active, naturally
7. format quick fs=fat32
8. assign -to give it a drive letter
9. exit -takes you out of diskpart back to the command prompt.
At this point I put my OEM disc in the drive; you could also create/mount an iso, which would make the following go much more quickly.
Then, my command prompt still open I typed:
xcopy E:\* G:\/s /e
the first letter is my dvd; second, the usb. Substitute yours.
Now create a new text file in Notepad and type:
[PID]
Value=XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX
The X's being your product key of course.
Save it as a text file called PID .
Copy this file into the \sources directory of the usb drive just created.
Now, when booted from this usb, the Windows installer will ignore the key that's embedded in the machine and pull it from the pid.txt file. When the license agreement dialog appears it will read "Windows 8.1 Pro" and the install will proceed "normally". Whew! Anyhow, after all this I still am liking Win8. I started out with the beta program, then release candidates, and got my first copy back when MS offered the Pro version briefly for 39$
I hope this will help someone in a similar predicament, and many thanks to the eightforums,ms forum users, blogsolute,the reviewers here at Amazon and (my head is spinning) others. Amazon has (their CS people are really nice) offered me a refund, and sent a link to a mailing label, but I guess now I'll just let it expire...:-D. Well, I learned a lot about UEFI, embedded keys ( they don't even put COA stickers on the bottom anymore; been doing that a while now ), secure boot vs legacy, etc. So maybe I've caught up a little bit, and the next time I'll know what to expect!
Microsoft FQC-06950 Win8.1 Professional 64Bit 1PK EN DSP OEI DVD
3.4 | 426 ratings
Price: 179
Last update: 12-27-2024
About this item
This operating system is eligible for a free upgrade to Windows 10 when available. More details below.
The Start screen. Personalize your Start screen with your favorite news, friends, social networks, and apps. Customizable colors and backgrounds and four different tile sizes make your device as unique as you are.
The apps you want. In addition to great built-in apps for e-mail, people, photos and video editing, you can also download thousands of popular apps from the Windows Store, including Netflix, ESPN, Skype, and Halo: Spartan Assault.
It plays as hard as it works. Windows 8.1 gives you the power to quickly browse, watch movies, play games, polish your resume, and pull together a killer presentation - all on a single PC.
The Start screen. Personalize your Start screen with your favorite news, friends, social networks, and apps. Customizable colors and backgrounds and four different tile sizes make your device as unique as you are.
The apps you want. In addition to great built-in apps for e-mail, people, photos and video editing, you can also download thousands of popular apps from the Windows Store, including Netflix, ESPN, Skype, and Halo: Spartan Assault.
It plays as hard as it works. Windows 8.1 gives you the power to quickly browse, watch movies, play games, polish your resume, and pull together a killer presentation - all on a single PC.
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