IT Nota

How to Find Windows 8 or Windows 8.1 Key

As part of windows 8 upgrade to 8.1, if you do a fresh install of Microsoft Windows 8.1 using Windows 8 key, one issue you may run into is you may not have your Windows 8 product key handy. If you still have your old system running, you might be able to extract your Windows 8 (or 8.1) key from the registry by using a key finder software, so you should do this step first before installing 8.1 over the existing Windows 8.

There are many key finder software available, but I find Belarc Advisor (not affiliated) to work very well for this purpose. The program will create a detailed profile of your PC, including installed software, and save it in an HTML file to your local hard drive. Once profiling is complete, the HTML will automatically open in your browser. Click on Software Licenses on the left of the page to see your software.

Belarc Advisor Overview

On Software Licenses section, you should see most of your installed software listed along with the product keys. Not all product keys will be displayed, fortunately, Windows 8 product key is among the listed.

Belarc Advisor Software Licenses

Write down the Windows 8 product key and save it for your Windows 8.1 activation after installing it using KMS Key.

As you might have figured this out, this trick works not only for a windows upgrade, but you can also use this to reinstall windows 8.1 (or 8) without the serial number handy.

The FREE version (for personal use only) of Belarc Advisor is more than sufficient for this task and rest assured it does not send up your PC profile to a Web server across the Internet.

This solution does not always work, but I’ve seen good results in most cases. So I think it’s worth a try before you do anything more involved.

Download

Belarc Advisor – Free Personal PC Audit software.

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

How to Install Linux on Windows 8 Hyper-V

This step-by-step guide focuses more on setting up the Hyper-V environment prior to installing Linux rather than on how to install the OS because Linux Mint installation itself is actually very straightforward.

  1. Launch Hyper-V Manager. If you haven’t had it installed, you can read the previous posting on how to install Hyper-V on Windows 8.

    Hyper-V Manager

  2. While there are several ways to do the setup, I’d like to separate the setup for Virtual Hard Disk from the Virtual Switch and Virtual Machine (VM).

Virtual Hard Disk

  1. From the top menu, click on Action, New, Hard Disk… to open a New Virtual Hard Disk Wizard. Or you can right-click on your computer name under the Hyper-V Manager on the left pane to accomplish the same thing (as shown below).

    Click Next > to Choose Disk Format.

    Hyper-V Action

  2. On choosing what disk format to use, if you run the Hyper-V on Windows 8 or Windows Server 2012, you should select VHDX.

    Hyper-V Virtual Disk Format

  3. Select either Fixed Size or Dynamically expanding for the disk type. Generally with VHDX, the recommendation is to use Dynamic, but since mine is only for testing purposes, I want to setup a size limit on my virtual environment drive.

    Hyper-V Virtual Hard Disk Type

  4. For organizational purpose, name your virtual hard disk file with something meaningful. This is especially helpful if you have several hard disk files.

    Hyper-V Virtual Hard Disk Name and Location

  5. Click on create a new blank virtual hard disk (e.g., 60GB is the max amount I want to allocate for this VM).

    Hyper-V Configure Virtual Hard Disk

  6. Double check all the selections you made just now to make sure they’re all correct. Click Finish when you’re done and Hyper-V will start creating the new virtual hard disk. This is going to take a while depending on the set disk size. It’s a perfect time to take a coffee break.

    Hyper-V Creating New Virtual Hard Disk

Virtual Switch

  1. The next thing we need to setup is the network connection. On the right pane of Hyper-V Manager under Actions, click on Virtual Switch Manager….

  2. On the left pane of Virtual Switch Manager’s window, click on New virtual network switch. On the right pane, select External and click on Create Virtual Switch button to open Virtual Switch Properties.

    Hyper-V Virtual Switch Manager

  3. Set the Virtual Switch Properties as shown below. Substitute the Realtek Controller with your own. Click OK to close.

    Hyper-V Virtual Switch Properties

    4. Virtual Machine

    1. Repeat step 1 from creating the Virtual Hard Disk, but this time we select Virtual Machine….

    2. Specify Name and Location. The name you type in here will be the one used for this particular VM instance in Hyper-V manager.

      Hyper-V Virtual Machine Name and Location

    3. Set the amount of startup memory for the VM and check Use Dynamic Memory. You can set the minimum and maximum RAM later in VM settings.

      Hyper-V Virtual Machine Assign Memory

    4. Select the Virtual Switch we created earlier in the Connection. It should be listed on the drop-down list.

      Hyper-V Virtual Machine Configure Networking

    5. Check Use and existing virtual hard disk and point the location to the VHDX file (i.e., Linux Mint.vhdx) created from Virtual Hard Disk.

      Hyper-V Virtual Machine Connect Virtual Hard Disk

    6. Same drill as when we created the virtual hard disk, double check all the information is correct and click Finish.

      Hyper-V Creating Virtual Machine

    Once completed, the new VM should be listed in the center pane under Virtual Machines.

    Hyper-V Manager Linux Mint

    We’re almost done as far as setting up the virtual environment, but we before we can install the OS, we need to tweak a few more things.

    Back in Hyper-V Manager, click on the VM (i.e., Linux Mint) so it’s highlighted, and you can do this in three ways.

    1. Right-click on it and select Settings…
    2. On the top menu, go to Action, Settings…

    3. On the right pane of Hyper-V Manager, under Linux Mint click on Settings…

      Hyper-V VM Settings

    On Settings window, go to BIOS and make sure that CD is at the top of Startup order for the operating system. We just need to do this once so the VM can boot directly from the OS DVD or ISO file.
    Hyper-V BIOS Settings

    Select Image file on the Media and point the location to the folder of your ISO file. Other Linux flavor or even other OS can also be used the same way.
    Hyper-V IDE Controller 1 Settings

    Click OK and we’re done with the settings.

    Installing Linux Mint

    Double-click on the VM, and you should see the console that says “The virtual machine ‘Name’ is turned off.” Click on the start button to boot the VM.
    Hyper-V Virtual Machine Start

    If everything was set correctly, Linux Mint . Double-click on the Install Linux Mint and just follow the step-by-step instructions to complete the installation.
    Installing Linux Mint (Windows 8 Hyper-V)

    One last thing to point out after the installation is complete. Make sure in the Settings, the startup order from BIOS is set to IDE now. Check the Num Lock if you want to activate your keypad as well.
    Hyper-V Virtual Machine BIOS Settings to IDE

    After installing Linux Mint, you might want to do some additional setup like locale settings and system update. What To Do Next After Installing Linux Mint.

    Download

    Linux Mint (If you’re not sure which edition to get, choose MATE)

    Further Reading

    Hyper-V Dynamic Memory Overview
    Hyper-V Dynamic Memory Configuration Guide
    Hyper-V Virtual Hard Disk Format Overview
    How to Choose the Right Virtual Disk Format
    Linux Mint 13 (Maya) Step by Step Installation Guide with Screenshots
    What To Do Next After Installing Linux Mint

Windows 8 Updates After Moving User Profile

After moving the user profile to a different folder, certain security updates via Windows 8 Automatic Updates can fail. As mentioned in one user comment, basically, moving a user folder could pose a problem on future updates/upgrade as referenced from this article.

A good example of a failed Windows Update many users encounter is Security Update for Windows 8 for x64-based Systems (KB2781197).

To solve this, we’re going to apply similar steps from Move the Users Directory to a Different Drive in Windows 8 against $$PendingFiles directory.

Please refer to the article as the same drive letters will be used to demonstrate the creation of directory junction for $$PendingFiles folder.

DriveFile ExplorerCommand Prompt
SSD (Source)C:H:
HDD (Destination)F:G:

Repeat steps 2-6 to access the Command Prompt.

Replace steps 7-9 with the following commands:

7. robocopy /copyall /mir /xj H:$$PendingFiles G:Temp$$PendingFiles
8. rmdir /S /Q H:$$PendingFiles
9. mklink /J H:$$PendingFiles F:Temp$$PendingFiles

Exit Command Prompt, reboot and re-run Windows Update.

Further Reading

Windows 8 for x64-based Systems (KB2781197) FAILED

How to Install Windows 8 Hyper-V

Client Hyper-V is the virtualization technology built into Windows 8 that is previously available only in Windows Server.

Since it is not enabled by default, to use Client Hyper-V, you need to follow these simple steps:

  1. Go to Control Panel and click Programs, and click Programs and Features.
  2. Click Turn Windows features on or off.
  3. Check all Hyper-V related checkboxes, click OK, and then click Close.
    Windows 8 Enabling Hyper-V

    4. Now, you should see Hyper-V Manager in the Program Tiles.
    Hyper-V Manager ITNota.com

    Further Reading

    Using Windows 8 Client Hyper-V
    Client Hyper-V

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