IT Nota

How to Do Fresh Install Windows 8.1 with Windows 8 Key

Windows 8.1 is a free upgrade for Windows 8 owners. Unfortunately if you have Windows 8.1 disc and you want to do a fresh install, it won’t accept the Windows 8 key during the installation. To work around this, you can use the KMS Client Setup Keys during installation and enter your Windows 8 key after the installation to activate it.

As an example if you want to install a Windows 8.1 Professional using Windows 8 Professional (they both have to be the same edition), when you reboot your machine using Windows 8.1 DVD and it asked for a key during installation, you can enter the KMS Client Setup Key GCRJD-8NW9H-F2CDX-CCM8D-9D6T9 to bypass that screen. You don’t need to be connected to the Internet to do this.

Once the installation is done, connect to the Internet and open the System window.

Click on Activate Window link and this time, use your Windows 8 key to activate it. This is the best way to do an update to windows 8.1 without going through two installations. That’s all there is to it.

What if you lost or misplaced your Windows 8 product key?

Another Method

If you want to upgrade an older OS (XP or Windows 7) and you have your Windows 8 key, you can download the installation file from Upgrade Windows with only a product key page. Make sure you backup everything you want to keep and read the instructions carefully before deleting anything.

This method only works if you already have a running OS and it won’t work to upgrade a 32-bit version to a 64-bit.

Further Reading

KMS Client Setup Keys
Upgrade Windows with only a product key

Copying Outlook Signatures From Other Computer

Microsoft Outlook Logo If you have created Outlook email signatures and you migrated to a new system, these signatures can be copied from the old computer so you can then use the signatures with Outlook on the new system.

The assumption of the example below is that the hard drive of the old system was attached to the new system on drive D.

Because the Signatures folder is a hidden folder, the easiest way to open the folder is to use the command %APPDATA%\Microsoft\Signatures from the Start menu. Please note the difference between older and newer Windows OS (see below):

Windows XP

D:\Documents and Settings\ITNota\Application Data\Microsoft\Signatures

Windows 8.1

C:\Users\ITNota\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Signatures

Copy the whole contents of the old directory to the new one. That’s it.

Update older signatures

For signatures created in older versions of Outlook, you should update the signature files so that they use revised HTML code that uses cascading style sheets (CSS). This helps prevent potential problems when switching or deleting signatures in a message.

  1. Click the File tab.
  2. Click Options.
  3. Click Mail.
  4. Under Compose messages, click Signatures.
  5. In the Signatures and Stationery dialog box, in the Select signature to edit list, click a signature.
  6. Click in the Edit signature box, and then click Save.

Further Reading

Copy email signatures to another computer

Migrating ASP.NET 1.1 to Windows Server 2012

With Microsoft cutting the support for Windows 2003 by July 2015, many legacy web applications built with .NET Framework 1.1 have to be migrated to a newer Windows Server 2012 R2. The dilemma is that .NET Framework 1.1 is no longer supported (it’s not even possible to manually install the .NET Framework 1.1 on these platforms) on Windows Server 2012 or Windows Server 2012 R2.

The proposed solution by Microsoft is to install the .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 which includes the .NET Framework 2.0. Most ASP.NET 1.1 applications should run under .NET Framework 2.0 without re-compiling or re-writing of codes so long as they don’t have any runtime breaking changes, whether it’s API or behavior.

Further Reading

Breaking Changes in .NET Framework 2.0
List of Breaking Changes
Running .NET Framework 1.1 Apps on Windows 8, Windows 8.1 or Windows 10
Microsoft .NET Framework 1.1 and 2.0 Compatibility
Runtime Breaking Changes

How to Change Default Database Driver in Visio

Other than creating a flowchart, Microsoft Visio is also a very good tool for data modeling. The default database driver set on the software though is for Microsoft Access.

Visio Default Database Driver (Microsoft Access)

Here are the steps to change the target database driver to SQL Server or any other available databases:

  1. Make sure you have other database driver you want to use installed on your computer first.

  2. Go to the Database menu, then click Database Drivers.

    Visio Menu - Database Drivers

  3. On Database Drivers window under Drivers tab, select Microsoft SQL Server as the default driver for Visio and click OK.

    Visio Database Drivers Selector

That’s it. Now when you open the column property (Edit button), you see the new default driver.
Visio New Default Database Driver (Microsoft SQL Server)

Free Microsoft eBooks

eBooks IconLarge collection of free Microsoft eBooks can be downloaded from the links provided by Microsoft Sales Excellence Manager, Eric Ligman.

Most eReader formats are available (EPUB, PDF, MOBI).

Topics

Visual Studio 2010; Office 2010, 2013, and 365; SharePoint 2010 & 2013; Lync Server; CRM 2011; SQL Server 2012; Azure Cloud Apps; ASP.NET Multi-Tier Windows Azure; Node.js on Azure; Drupal on Azure; TCP/IP Fundamentals on Windows, etc.

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