News - Windows 8 promotional pricing will end on 1st February

[Willzzz]

So once you have taken Metro out of the equation what are the other downsides?

[cam1986]

Even if it is just an upgrade version you can still do a standalone installation with it, as I have been doing with mine, so long as you don't do it on a brand new hard drive because it can check if data has been written to your hard drive before.

I managed to install it onto a brand new hard drive and all went ok. It did say that it would not activate as it was an upgrade version. I searched around the net and found a solution to that!

[Noxvayl]

I managed to install it onto a brand new hard drive and all went ok. It did say that it would not activate as it was an upgrade version. I searched around the net and found a solution to that!

Installing it twice enables it to activate successfully, so after the first install don't bother trying to activate just start again and do a quick erase format and it works perfectly.

[rabbid]

I had a question, sorry if this has been covered in thread - I have Win 7 Professional, (retail box) installed on my machine...I want to do a whole new build in a few months, can I install my win 7 again? and then upgrade? I was thinking about getting the DVD version of this for 50 quid.

Is the downloadable W8 upgrade a retail verson of W8 pro, same as the one circa £42 on scan for the dvd version?
If so then it would be fine to move it with your W7 retail as the need arose.

Interested to know as I am considering a similar thing (& future issues or possibilities) upgrading from retail box W7 HP

[mickyjim]

I know a few people who have down graded to windows 8 its all about the App store thats were the money will come from

[Strawb77]

From my experience the Windows upgrades only look for a folder called `Windows`.

It`s quite easy to install say, XP (you don`t have to activate it) and then upgrade.

I have upgraded a W7 upgrade with W8 upgrade no probs.

Strange Microsoft has left this exploit.

Just because something *can* be done, doesn't mean it *should* be done, of course.

[Noxvayl]

Strange Microsoft has left this exploit.

Just because something *can* be done, doesn't mean it *should* be done, of course.

Lets imagine they plugged this loop hole, how many people do you think would be calling them to try and get their valid license of Windows working? I am fairly certain Microsoft know about it and have purposely left it because they don't intend on dealing with the issues "fixing" it would cause.

Using the loop hole is also not breaching any contractual law so long as you own a license for a version of Windows that is older; I wouldn't encourage people to install older versions of Windows first because they take significantly longer to install than Windows 8 and Windows 7 do so the loop hole should be used to save time and effort.