I'm curious if others have experimented with this, before I start getting my hands dirty...
Can any edition of Windows 8 be installed from any media, as Windows 7 often was able to do, or are there restrictions again? I'm working on a Toshiba laptop which shipped with Windows 8 Home edition[1]. The Toshiba restore media will only do a full restore to factory image, complete with all the OEM shovelware (games, invasive trials, useless "me too" apps, borderline adware/spyware, etc.). I also have various Windows 8 Pro media, including a clean OEM disc from Dell, and Volume License Media downloaded from Microsoft. I'm wondering if I can boot either of these and do a clean install of Windows Home (without all the OEM preload junk), despite the edition not matching. Windows 7 VLM could generally install any edition. It let you pick during install, and then checked the Product Key to make sure the license matched what you actually installed. Windows XP, used unique media for each edition and channel. I'm wondering if Windows 8 is more like 7 or XP in this regard. I also wonder about activation. With this laptop, there's no Product Key given to me. The activation is tied to some magic embedded in the firmware[2]. When restoring the factory image, the Windows install is happy with this. But if I install from different media, I'm not sure how it will react. Will media from any channel (FPP, OEM, VLM) recognize the firmware magic, or is it just OEM media? Or is it worse, and is the media specific to the OEM? -- Ben [1] I'm aware that officially, it's just "Windows 8", not "Windows 8 Home". Microsoft's failure to give their product an unambiguous name means one has to invent unofficial names. [2] OEM SLP (Original Equipment Manufacturer System Locked Pre-activation), in Microsoft terms.
