Windows 8 install question

So my old Core 2 Duo CPU finally bit the dust. This was originally a Vista OEM license, upgraded to Win7 Home Premium, upgraded to Win8 Pro.

I went ahead and ordered a nice Ivy Bridge CPU/motherboard/RAM to replace it with (should arrive some time today). I am a bit worried about the install though. I'd love to do a clean install of Windows 8 and use my upgrade key. Is it going to let me? Of course I did not create install media and instead opted for the web setup. I really don't want to have to install Vista first just to wipe it out. That would add at least an hour to what is going to be a long night anyway.

If you have Windows installed on it already, you can "upgrade" and do a clean install.  If it's a blank hard drive, it won't upgrade to my knowledge without, hmm, intervention.  It's my understanding that the installer looks for a previous version of Windows on it and then you can upgrade or do a clean install "upgrade" (it maybe picky about what versions upgrade to what also).

I was able to clean install Windows 8 Enterprise on my desktop that had Windows 7 Enterprise on it. 

I think you will need to burn your media onto DVD also so when it reboots it can do the clean install and wipe everything.  Frankly, if you did have to install Vista you would lose a half hour to an hour maybe. You wouldn't have to patch it at all, as soon as it's usable start the upgrade. 

@jinx101: Yeah, the "upgrade" seems to just package up everything in the old installation (program files, windows, etc) into Windows.old. For all intents and purposes it's a new install. You don't need to burn media though. USB keys or memory cards work just fine.

I didn't think of that. I guess I could stick my old drive in there for it to detect my old Win8 installation and then install it to a different drive.

Am I going to have problems using the Win8 ISO from MSDN with an upgrade key? As I stated above, I used the web install and never made a recovery disk.

@spivonious: That could be tricky. The installer knows what kind of disc image is being used and will probably reject the upgrade key. There are ways to trick Windows 7 into using MSDN disc images with retail keys, but I haven't looked for Windows 8.

@kettch: Well, if all else fails, I can always install Vista and then go here.

I'll post an update tonight. Time probably won't be an issue, if the forecast for 8-12" of snow tomorrow is correct.

@spivonious: You could clone your old drive onto a new one (assuming the old drive is still intact). I've just done this (upgraded 500GB to 2TB) and Windows 8 was perfectly happy to carry on as if nothing had happened. I used EaseUS home edition which creates a bootable USB drive to perform the copy; took hours but worked perfectly.

Herbie

8-12" of snow?  Where are you?

@Ian2: Ha. Spiv got to sleep late this morning.  I'd guess southeastern PA.

1 day ago, kettch wrote

@jinx101: Yeah, the "upgrade" seems to just package up everything in the old installation (program files, windows, etc) into Windows.old. For all intents and purposes it's a new install. You don't need to burn media though. USB keys or memory cards work just fine.

I didn't have that experience.  I had Windows 7 Enterprise on it, I was able to reboot, it loaded from the Windows 8 Enterprise DVD (that I had burned from the ISO I downloaded) and I was able to format the hard drive after verifying I had a previous version on the computer.  It wiped the drive clean before installing.

1 day ago, davewill wrote

@Ian2: Ha. Spiv got to sleep late this morning.  I'd guess southeastern PA.

Sadly, all we got was rain. I'm in Lancaster, PA. The local weather guys are very embarrassed, and even apologized on-air.

Newegg hasn't gotten my new RAM to me yet. It should come today. It amazes me how UPS can get a package to me in one day, but the USPS takes 5 days to get a package to me from the same location. That's what I get for picking free shipping.

@Dr. Herbie - I'm not too confident in that since there will be major hardware changes. I'd rather do a fresh install.

@jinx101 - That's worth a try too. I can always wipe the drive from within Windows setup, assuming it lets me use the upgrade key with the MSDN ISO.

Well, it wouldn't accept my upgrade key with the MSDN disc. This was with only the new drive in the system, so I'm not too surprised. I'm just going to install Win7 and then run a "keep nothing" upgrade. This is the HTPC.

For my desktop, I'm keeping the old hard disk in there, so we'll see if it works with that.

The excitement continues. The Windows 8 Upgrade installer didn't like my key. I wonder if I should be using the Media Center key instead.

edit: I typed the key wrong in the first place (8 instead of B). It's working from the MSDN disc now. I did try the media center key and it said it was only for adding features, so that answers that question. I also left the old drive plugged in too. That may have made the difference.

Glad to hear you got it working.

@jinx101: Yep, all went well. Just had to call up MS to activate, as I expected.

One more bump. I just wanted to say how awesome Storage Spaces is. I put three 500GB drives in a pool and made four spaces of it. Media (parity), Documents (mirror), RecordedTV (simple), and Backup (simple). I love how thin provisioning lets me allocate more space than I have and increase the drive size in the future without shuffling data around.