Windows 8 Upgrade To Win 8 Pro

Page 1 of 1

You cannot start a new topic
You cannot reply to this topic

Windows 8 Upgrade To Win 8 Pro

#1 Cykeman

Newbie

Group: Members
Posts: 3
Joined: 01-April 10

Posted 12 December 2012 - 01:06 PM

I bought a laptop 2 days ago with windows 8 already installed. I wanted to upgrade to windows 8 pro so I tried the microsoft offer of 39.95 - because I was not going from win 7 I missed out on the 14.95 deal.
Anyway, I could not get the download assistant to work as it kept telling me no pro upgrade available in my region(????)
Well I called microsoft support and with remote access the download assistant worked (I later found the fix for that) but the support person AT MICROSOFT said my hard drive would be formatted to upgrade to win 8 pro!!!
Is that true? I got some software from HP on laptop and of course no cds and I don't want to lose them.
I did win7 home to win7 pro and there was no formatting.
PLEASE let me know if the hard drive gets reformatted or not going from a win 8 to a win 8 pro.
thanks

#2 LiveBrianD

Elite

Group: Members
Posts: 11,170
Joined: 31-December 09
Location:Right behind you... made you look! :D

Posted 12 December 2012 - 04:11 PM

You should be able to use Windows Anytime Upgrade (search it from the homescreen) with the Pro key.

Spoiler

"The Internet will be used for all kinds of spurious things, including fake quotes from smart people." -Albert Einstein
Need a Windows ISO image?

#3 Cykeman

Newbie

Group: Members
Posts: 3
Joined: 01-April 10

Posted 12 December 2012 - 04:17 PM

LiveBrianD, on 12 December 2012 - 04:11 PM, said:

You should be able to use Windows Anytime Upgrade (search it from the homescreen) with the Pro key.

uh, not the question I need answered.

#4 LiveBrianD

Elite

Group: Members
Posts: 11,170
Joined: 31-December 09
Location:Right behind you... made you look! :D

Posted 12 December 2012 - 04:25 PM

The hard drive won't get formatted doing that. I don't know why you would want to do this any other way. Basically, this just unlocks the pro features (that were previously disabled), and thus leaves everything in place and only takes 10 minutes or so.

Spoiler

"The Internet will be used for all kinds of spurious things, including fake quotes from smart people." -Albert Einstein
Need a Windows ISO image?

#5 waldojim

Elite

Group: Members
Posts: 15,081
Joined: 29-October 08
Location:Texas

Posted 12 December 2012 - 05:58 PM

Cykeman, on 12 December 2012 - 01:06 PM, said:

Go at this from the way Windows Vista, 7, and 8 were supposed to be designed, the Windows Anytime Upgrade that Brian mentioned should allow you to change over to Windows 8 Pro without reinstalling anything.

Now, from what I understand, some features are limited to 64bit Windows 8, and that may be the source of the problem. If the machine was shipped with Windows 8 32bit, then yes moving to Windows 8 Pro X64 will require a fresh install.

"There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there always has been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.'" -- Isaac Asimov

Lenovo W520 CTO Intel i7-2620m, 8GB Patriot ram @ 1333Mhz, Nvidia Quadro 1000m with 2GB GDRR3, Plextor M3 256GB SSD, 1080P wide color display, Windows 8 Pro
Media Center: Intel Core i5 760 @ 3.1Ghz, 4GB DDR3, Corsair GS600PSU, EVGA Geforce 550ti, EVGA P55 SLI, 3x 1TB raid 5, 1x 1TB boot drive, Windows 8 Pro, Win TV 950(USB), Pioneer BR.
Server: AMD Phenom X4 945 @ 3.0Ghz, MSI 790FX-GD70, 16gb ddr3 RAM @ 1333mhz, 2TB Seagate HDD, 64GB Patriot SSD, Asus Silent Gefore 210
The Green machine: AMD Sempron 145EE Unlocked and OC'd to 4.1Ghz, Gigabyte GD970A-DS3, 8GB ram @ 1600mhz, Nvidia 550Ti, Thermaltake BlueOrb, Antec EW385
Samsung Galaxy Nexus, Paranoid Android 4.2 Rom http://www.speedtest...d/315465831.png

#6 LiveBrianD

Elite

Group: Members
Posts: 11,170
Joined: 31-December 09
Location:Right behind you... made you look! :D

Posted 12 December 2012 - 06:02 PM

What features were you thinking of in particular? I hadn't heard of any.

That said, it's pretty much impossible to buy a new laptop with 32-bit Windows already on it nowadays...

Spoiler

"The Internet will be used for all kinds of spurious things, including fake quotes from smart people." -Albert Einstein
Need a Windows ISO image?

#7 orlbuckeye

Senior Member

Group: Members
Posts: 544
Joined: 02-May 07

Posted 16 December 2012 - 11:43 AM

It's a little bit different from Windows 7. What you have to do is go to Control Panel and select add new features. Then you will get the prompt I want to buy a new key online or if you already have a product key (which is the key for Windows Pro) just enter the key. Either option it will then upgrade you to Windows 8 Pro. I did this and then I had to go into setting and enable Hyper-V.

Or do this

http://windows.micro...8/feature-packs

This post has been edited by orlbuckeye: 16 December 2012 - 11:49 AM

Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 32GB with Ice Cream Sandwich
Samsung Galaxy SIII - AT&T 16 GB with 32 SSD GB

[A} Acer Aspire V5-571P-6648
Intel® 2nd Generation Core™ i3
8 GB DDR3 1066 RAM will upgrade to 8GB soon
High-definition widescreen 15.6" LED-backlit with multitouch support (1366 x 768)
500 GB SATA (5400 rpm)
Intel® HD Graphics 3000 128 MB
Blacklit Keyboard
5.5 pounds
Windows 8 Pro

Acer Aspire AS8950G-9839
Intel Core i7 2630QM (2.0GHZ) 16 GB DDR3 1066 RAM
18.4" (1920 x 1080)
240 GB OCZ Agility SSD, 750 GB 5400 RPM BD Combo
Added Intel 6200 Wireless Card
AMD Radeon HD 6850M 2GB DDR3 VRAM
Windows 7 64 Bit Ultimate

Acer Aspire 9810
Intel® Core™2 Duo processor
T7200/T7400/T7600 with (4 MB L2 cache, 2.0/2.16/2.33 GHz)
4 GB of DDR2 667 MHz memory(dual-channel support)
NVIDIA® GeForce® Go 7600 with 256 MB of external GDDR2 VRAM
20.1" WSXGA+ high-brightness (300-nit) Acer CrystalBrite™ TFT LCD, 1680 x 1050 pixel resolution

#8 Cykeman

Newbie

Group: Members
Posts: 3
Joined: 01-April 10

Posted 19 December 2012 - 01:23 PM

LiveBrianD, on 12 December 2012 - 06:02 PM, said:

What features were you thinking of in particular? I hadn't heard of any.

That said, it's pretty much impossible to buy a new laptop with 32-bit Windows already on it nowadays...

The laptop had Win 8 64 installed. I wanted more network control, as the "users and groups" function is not there for groups unless you get Win 8 Pro, and I have always had the "pro" version anyway.
The deal did not seem too bad at $40, but first the upgrade checker from Microsoft would tell me "no upgrade for your system is available for your region", and that got me to call Microsoft support, where "the expert" took over my laptop, ran into the same message I did, put me on hold for almost 5 minutes, then came back to say that if I did the upgrade to pro, my hard drive would be re-formatted.
I just don't believe this, AND my home network does show up and is accessible from the laptop (all XP machines), even without the "group" maint. What I do not know yet is if the proper XP machines can access the laptop.