Windows 8 upgrade question

[Azunai]

Just a quick check before I go through with this...

There's an offer until January 31st to upgrade Windows 7 to Windows 8 Pro for only â,¬29,99. Seems good enough, but I have 2 questions:

1) If I get this upgrade, how will a reinstall of my Windows work in the future, say if I lose my HDD or something of the likes? Will I have to reinstall Windows 7 then upgrade it to 8 again? And following that, will this upgrade provide me with a key of some sorts to reacquire W8 (since the offer only goes for online purchase)?

2) I'm planning to switch to an SSD drive in the near future, just not right now. This is sort of the reason I asked 1), but I guess I'll have to reinstall Windows onto the SSD. I was wondering what happens to my software if I do that. Will I have to reinstall everything onto the SSD or will it function off of the old HDD?

Hope you can help :-)

[smilodon]

When you install W8 you have an option to either install over the top or to make a disc for installation. If you make a disc then you'll be able to upgrade when you like. I'm not sure how a fresh install would work, I think you'll be asked for a W7 key or disc during the installation. When I tried out W8 I made an image of my W7 install and a Windows Start Disc. It was very simple to roll back to W7. All the tools are built into W7.

Question 2. No idea. I would guess they won't work as the new windows registry etc will not have any info about the installed apps.

[kregoron]

when you create the disk, you can use it to do a fresh install of windows 8, withou having to install win7 forehand.

[ArithonUK]

When you buy Windows 8 upgrade, you can speciify "download" or "DVD".

Microsoft has an a free-phone number to ask in the UK, so I imagine there's a similar pre-sales tech support in the NL.

Sorry I can't be of more help. My Windows 8 was a full install.

[Tutonic]

Windows rule of thumb is to always go for a fresh install instead of an upgrade.

It's more work, but you're less likely to get weird issues.

Sent from my Galaxy S3 LTE.

[ArithonUK]

This is not illegal and the double-install method is endorsed by Microsoft for a system recovery. As long as you’ve already bought XP, Vista or Win 7 then this is legal. This is also useful to know about if you upgrade your HD to SSD, or have a drive failure and need to re-install from your upgrade media.
 
First buy the upgrade DVD, or download the upgrade from here. If you got the digital download you can opt to “create media” from the Windows Update Assistant. This can be a DVD or a Bootable USB.
 
Use “double install” method.
 

• Install Windows 8 as a “custom” install on your shiny new HD or SSD.
• At some point during installation, the process will ask for the product key, then quit because it’s an upgrade and no previous OS was detected.
• Restart and install again, this time choose “upgrade” â€" the install will find the (failed) install and “upgrade” that happily.
• Opt not to “automatically” activate
  
• Once booted, change the following registry setting.

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Setup\OOBE]
"MediaBootInstall"=dword:00000000

Then you can activate your legal copy of Windows 8. If you miss steps 4 & 5, you have to phone Microsoft to activate your installation.

If you DID try and fail to activate before using the registry setting, use the process (below), then set the registry (as above), reboot and try again.
 
1. Open elevated command prompt (Right click -> Run As Administrator)
 2. Type slmgr -rearm

Hope this information is useful.