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Upgrading to Windows 8.1 can mean loss of Reset/Refresh functionality

Discussion in 'Legacy Windows' started by kosketus, 2014/06/17.

  1. 2014/06/17
    kosketus

    kosketus Inactive Thread Starter

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    In the course of googling for solutions to a different aspect of the Windows 8/8.1 transitioning fiasco I was stunned to stumble upon this (posted 19 October 2013)
    http://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/1183043-caution-you-may-lose-resetrefresh-if-you-upgrade-to-windows-81/

    A key quote:-
    "When you upgrade to Windows 8.1 through the Windows Store ... you can’t use your original Windows 8.0 install media to reset or refresh Windows 8.1 if you ever need to. Even if you have your original Windows 8 install media in the drive, you will get an error message when you attempt to refresh or reset your PC, asking you to provide the install media. However, you were never provided the install media and you are stuck!...(Comment:- the actual error message I get is "The media inserted is not valid. Try again ")

    "...Of course, one solution is to give Microsoft over a hundred dollars to get a Windows 8.1 DVD, with which you can refresh or reset, but that is not a pleasant solution. However, after digging through possible solutions, I have finally found one that actually works. Please see my reply post below for a possible solution to this problem that Microsoft (out of mere stupidity) created for its paying customers ".

    In his next post (same date) the poster describes his "possible solution ", but since this has since been withdrawn the trap remains exactly as he so succinctly describes it in the words quoted above.

    Personally, I can scarcely credit that what aspires to be perceived by the public as a reputable business - Microsoft - can be guilty of such a crass blunder, one so damaging to so many purchasers. What it appears to me to mean is that the product which we bought in the belief - solidly grounded in all past MS and industry practice - that we were also buying access to all future upgrades of it (hitherto called "service packs ") was no such thing. Instead, unbeknown to us, it was something of significantly lower value - namely a product which was destined within a year at most to start being made obsolescent by MS - by virtue of not being upgradeable without suffering potentially crippling penalties only remediable by junking it and buying the upgraded version. Effectively, this version will then have cost us the retail price now demanded for it (~ $100) PLUS WHATEVER WE PAID ORIGINALLY (in my own case >£46 = $78) for the version being discarded.

    (Alternatively, we can ruefully resign ourselves to using an inferior product which was misrepresented as a superior one - resolving at the same time never to allow ourselves to be duped by MS again).

    Whether or not MS knowingly set out with the intention of duping its paying customers is completely immaterial. The fact is that this is the situation their actions have actually brought about, and that is all that matters. It's no excuse whatever to say (which in fact they haven't, although everyone knows it to be the case):- "Oops, sorry - we boobed! ". IMO nothing short of restoring things to the way they ought to have been from the first (ie to give to customers what customers had a right to assume they would be getting for their money) will suffice, and I should have thought that any fair-minded observer would concur with that.

    Of course if they refuse to do this voluntarily nothing but a court (as matters stand) can force them to, but litigation takes money - lots more money than the typical individual customer has and/or is willing to spend. Yet again we see that corporations, which can well afford to pay out of their profits for armies of specialist lawyers, can get away with whatever they can manage to square with their "conscience" - or what passes for one - because of the enormous imbalance between the economic power they wield compared with that of the individual customer. Caveat emptor appears to be MS's watchword.
     
  2. 2014/06/18
    rsinfo

    rsinfo SuperGeek Alumni

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    Agree with you 100%.

    MS changed the rules of the games leaving all of original Win 8 customers in the lurch. The most idiotic decision IMHO was to upgrade from Win 8 to Win 8.1 through Store.

    Yuck.
     

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  4. 2014/06/18
    Steve R Jones

    Steve R Jones SuperGeek Staff

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    Hmmm. After reading all this MS bashing, I spent five minutes with my favorite search engine;)

    Create installation media for Windows 8.1

    "If you need to reinstall Windows 8.1 or you want to install it on a partition and you don't have installation media, you can create it using the Windows 8.1 Setup program. To create media you need to use a PC running Windows 8.1, Windows 8, or Windows 7, and it must have the same architecture (32 or 64-bit) as the PC you want to install Windows 8.1 on. You'll also need your Windows 8.1 product key. "
     
  5. 2014/06/18
    kosketus

    kosketus Inactive Thread Starter

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    Hi Steve

    I must be going ga-ga. Can you please explain to me - as you would to a 5-year-old - how, exactly, this answers the criticism &/or provides a solution to it with specific reference to the final sentence in the passage you quote from.

    Or have you so far failed to appreciate (as I suspect you may have) that it is the fact that original purchasers of Win 8 have been shut-out by MS from using their Win 8 product key to activate 8.1 (or alternatively as part of upgrading to 8.1 been provided by MS with an 8.1 product key instead) - once they, by choice or perforce, find it necessary to reinstall 8.1 - which is the whole burden of the criticism being directed at them?

    I'd be fascinated to learn whether, once having digested this crucial fact which you appear not so far to have done, you still think that to protest (strongly) against such behaviour constitutes "MS bashing" - ie is by inference unfair, unbalanced, biased, easily dismissed, etc, etc

    Edit
    And are you ignoring/overlooking the fact that by upgrading to 8.1 purchasers of 8 have been shut-out by MS from ever being able to use the Reset/Refresh functionality should they ever need or wish to do that in preference to doing a clean-reinstall?
     
    Last edited: 2014/06/18
  6. 2014/06/18
    Gordon

    Gordon Well-Known Member

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    Steve, the problem is "You'll also need your Windows 8.1 product key. "
    My laptop came with Win 8 installed, so I have a valid Win 8 product key, which I recorded. I upgraded to Win 8.1 through the store. The product key did not change. So now I am running Win 8.1, with a Win 8 product key.

    How can I create installation media for Win 8.1 when my only product key is for Win 8.0.
    Gordon
     
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  7. 2014/06/18
    kosketus

    kosketus Inactive Thread Starter

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    rsinfo

    Thanks for adding your voice. It's good to know I'm not alone here (nor going crazy) :)

    Gordon

    Likewise
     
    Last edited: 2014/06/18
  8. 2014/06/18
    Steve R Jones

    Steve R Jones SuperGeek Staff

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    kosketus - Me thinks that MS isn't as stupid as you think they are. Take Goron for example... Odds are real good he can use his Ver 8 key code when creating a a DVD with the link I provided above.

    This situation is no different than doing a repair install of XP SP3 and only having an XP SP1 cd... You must slipstream SP3....and your original key code works just fine;)
     
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  9. 2014/06/18
    kosketus

    kosketus Inactive Thread Starter

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    Steve

    Thanks for that. I'll ponder it.

    (Btw I never implied MS was stupid - I'm sure they're not. In an unholy muddle (for reasons I can't begin to guess) - yes. Stupid - no.
     
  10. 2014/06/18
    kosketus

    kosketus Inactive Thread Starter

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    But you haven't responded to the question in my edit (which was what I began this thread by posting about)
     
  11. 2014/06/18
    Steve R Jones

    Steve R Jones SuperGeek Staff

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  12. 2014/06/18
    Gordon

    Gordon Well-Known Member

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    Thank you Steve.
    I was not aware that a user could change the product key after the installation. When I get the time I will test this work around.
    Gordon
     
  13. 2014/06/18
    James Martin

    James Martin Geek Member

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    Am I understanding this correctly that if you format & reinstall Windows 8, you can't install 8.1 without purchasing an 8.1 product key - unless you follow the posted workaround?

    I may need to do a factory restore on a Windows 8 laptop in the near future, and this thread has me concerned.
     
  14. 2014/06/18
    retiredlearner

    retiredlearner SuperGeek WindowsBBS Team Member

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    James, Have a look at the link that Steve Posted:[Fix] Windows 8 Genuine Product Key doesn’t Work for Windows 8.1 Clean Installation
    It's all explained and there is a link in there to MS to get "Generic Keys ".
    User replies indicate it works. Neil.
     
  15. 2014/06/19
    rsinfo

    rsinfo SuperGeek Alumni

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    Seems the most practical & least bothersome way is to create an image of the system partition and use it to restore from instead of formatting and reloading everything from scratch.

    But sometimes even the backup fails. Then we are all s-c-r-e-w-e-d.
     
  16. 2014/06/19
    kosketus

    kosketus Inactive Thread Starter

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    Steve

    It depends, doesn't it, what is meant by "a Win 8.1 machine ".

    If it means:- "a machine on which Win 8.1 has been installed with a purchased Win 8.1 DVD (or with a usb drive but activated with the product key obtained with the purchase of that same copy of Win 8.1)" - then yes, your impression was correct. That will have cost the possessor ~$100 (which may or may not be over and above the cost of Win 8).

    But if it only means:- "a machine on which some version of 8.1 is installed" then no, your impression was not correct.

    If the version installed is an upgrade made via Windows Store of a copy of Win 8, activated with the product key obtained with the purchase of that Win 8 DVD, an 8.1 installation disc cannot be made from it (I'd be happy to be shown to be wrong about this btw).

    Various workarounds for this are to be found in net forums but none can be guaranteed to work. In my case, none of those I've tried (starting with the one which seems to have had most success, which entails "tricking" the MS website into creating an 8.1 installation .iso on one's Win 8 computer) so far have succeeded. They haven't even got off the ground :mad:
     
  17. 2014/06/19
    kosketus

    kosketus Inactive Thread Starter

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    Exactly! (Some of mine have in the past).

    So even what is at best a half-baked substitute can't be relied upon.

    The only copper-bottomed dependable resource is the physical installation media (duplicated). An, in my view inferior, second is Windows 8's "Reset" functionality - from access to which in any case, as I described in post #1, MS's customers who upgraded to 8.1 via the Store (the only way they could have) have been cut off.
     
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  18. 2014/06/19
    kosketus

    kosketus Inactive Thread Starter

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    Steve

    Out of respect for your superior expertise and unfailing courtesy :) I've thought carefully about this - and the analogy you make doesn't seem to me to stand up.

    In the XP case, the installation software for both the original version purchased and for SP2 was in the form of CDs, supplied by MS in return for the price originally charged for that product. SP2 could then be slipstreamed as you say onto the original version (to which SP1 had meanwhile presumably been silently added by MS). SP3 was added in like fashion via the on-line update route; when installed, it carried - completely unlike the so-called "upgrade" to Win 8 (ie Win 8.1) - no damaging effects whatsoever so far as I know.

    Furthermore, again in complete contrast to 8 -> 8.1, no obstacles at all were put in the way of a user who wished/needed to format and reinstall XP SP3 using the physical media to do so - by beginning the install from the slipstreamed SP2 and afterwards completing it by installing all the subsequent on-line updates (including as I've already stated SP3). There were no nasty surprises along the way and at the end of it the value of the cutomer's original purchase remained entirely undiminished. In other words, MS had kept its side of the bargain - handsomely so.

    It seems to me that the comparison you're drawing only serves to show up the Win 8 -> 8.1 case in an if anything even more unflattering light than before.
     
    Last edited: 2014/06/19
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  19. 2014/08/17
    Gordon

    Gordon Well-Known Member

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    Steve,
    This is for your information and not intended to be Microsoft bashing.
    I spent a great deal of time attempting to create installation media for Windows 8.1 as described in your previous reply. It did not work for me.

    “Hmmm. After reading all this MS bashing, I spent five minutes with my favorite search engine

    Create installation media for Windows 8.1 "

    That may work for those that purchased windows 8.1 and have a valid Windows 8.1 retail product key. You have to read that article like a lawyer.
    Step 3. When prompted to enter a product key, enter the 25-digit product key you received when you bought Windows 8.1.
    The key word here is 'bought'. I did not buy Windows 8 or Windows 8.1. My PC came with Windows 8 OEM installed. I then upgraded to 8.1 through the store. So I do not have a retail product key. The Windows 8.1 setup program will not accept my windows 8 OEM key. The program will accept a generic windows 8.1 product key and display a message "your product key checks out, press nextâ€. Then the setup program issues a message "Can not connect right now, check your internet connection and try later." In searching on that problem and reading about it, it looks like the setup program will only work for a retail purchased (bought) product key, not a generic product key or a OEM key.
    Thank you for your effort.
    Gordon
     
  20. 2014/08/17
    kosketus

    kosketus Inactive Thread Starter

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    @Gordon

    Not quite key.

    I for example bought my copy of Windows 8 (in contrast to yours, which came as an OEM version along with the computer on which the manufacturer had installed it).

    That doesn't help me one little bit, any more than those like yourself in possession of an OEM copy. My experience after having upgraded to 8.1 via the Store (the only way it could be done) is identical to yours
    So this supposition is in fact wrong (or, more accurately, only half-right). The setup program will only work for a retail bought Windows 8.1 product key, not for a retail bought Windows 8 product key.

    And personally I continue to take strong exception to entirely justified criticism of MS for the crass and at least marginally unethical handling (whether by intent or through muddle being immaterial) of the 8 -> 8.1 transition as "MS bashing ". That plays like knee-jerk partisanship IMHO.
     
  21. 2014/08/18
    Gordon

    Gordon Well-Known Member

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    Kosketus,
    I think we both got exactly what we paid for, no more and no less.

    You paid for a Win 8 license. That gives you the right to have Win 8 on a DVD, thumb drive, or whatever offline media. In the event that you need to use that media to restore your system, you have that right to do so. After installing Win 8, you may decide to update to Win 8.1 via the store. If Microsoft still offers that free of charge, you can do so. That is all you have paid for.

    In my case, I did not buy Win 8 or 8.1. So If I need to reload my system, then I have to insert my USB recovery drive, which I should have created when I first bought this PC. Then I can decide to do the free update to Win 8.1. That is all that I paid for.

    It would be nice to have a DVD of Win 8.1 laying around here in case I ever need to restore my system to Win 8.1 in one clean step, but I did not pay for that option by buying a Win 8.1 retail license.
    Gordon
     

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