Windows 8 upgrade offer question

[ranchhand]

Just a quick question... Can I, or Can I not do a fresh install on a freshly formatted hard drive with this Windows 8 Upgrade offer for $40 from M/Soft. Has anyone done that? There are none of my units that I want to change the OS on, but I can take an extra hard drive I have and install on that.


Thanks...

[usually_quiet]

As far as I know out, the $40 upgrade can only be be initiated by running Windows 8 Upgrade Assistant. I got lucky because the Windows 8 Preview version that I had installed in the Autumn of last year was one of the OS versions that qualified for the offer.

[olyteddy]

The upgrade download I got allowed me to do a fresh install from a USB stick. I had to because I installed on a 64 GB SSD and didn't have room for both.

[ranchhand]

Thanks all.... Olyteddy, do you just move the download onto the thumb drive and set the BIOS to boot from it?

[MOVIEGEEK]

http://pcsupport.about.com/od/windows-8/a/install-windows-8-usb.htm

[Cornucopia]

Couldn't you just mirror/dupe your boot partition to another drive and then perform the upgrade on the copy? Then you could always swap em out and revert to the former OS at any time.

Scott

[jagabo]

I installed Win7 without activating it. Then ran the upgrade to Win8 from a DVD (ISO image downloaded via the $40 offer) and elected for a fresh install.

By the way, Microsoft makes you run the upgrade assistant before letting you purchase and download the ISO image. But you don't have to install onto the same computer that ran the assistant.

[olyteddy]

Thanks all.... Olyteddy, do you just move the download onto the thumb drive and set the BIOS to boot from it?

The upgrade advisor allowed me the choice to upgrade 'live' or download an ISO. I picked ISO then followed instructions like in MOVIEGEEK's link: http://pcsupport.about.com/od/window...dows-8-usb.htm

[jagabo]

Yes, the ISO image is bootable and gives you the option to upgrade or reformat the drive and perform a new install. I've had problems with Win7 upgrade edition installing on Windowless systems before -- Win7 wouldn't activate with the upgrade key because no earlier version of Windows was on the system before the installation). So I decided not to take a chance and installed Win7 before the clean Win8 upgrade.

[ranchhand]

Thanks all, that's what I needed!

[ranchhand]

Ok, downloaded it last night; I plan on installing another hard drive in my box (I have several older ones not being used) and installing W8 to that; then I will use F8 boot option to to choose W8 to boot into. At least, that's the plan. I am sure that some W8 boxes/laps will eventually find their way to my workbench so I may as well acquaint myself and see if some of my test software, virus scanners, etc. will work on W8. Then I can post back ranting and cussing-out Microsoft for the piece of junk they produced. That should be fun on the forum!