Recovery disk, SSD and Windows 8 upgrade

No you can't point to the disk in the cd drive to verify ownership any more. You must have windows 7 installed on the hard drive and activated to install the upgrade. A bit of advice--stay with windows 7 for your ssd drive. If you really want to upgrade to 8, buy the retail disk for 8.1. That is a full version that you can install on the ssd drive right away. Win 8 disks are all upgrades, not full versions.You cannot download windows 8 or windows 8.1 to install on a new drive. If you already have a windows 8 upgrade disk (that's the old version now) you would have to reinstall 7, upgrade to 8 using the disk and then upgrade to 8.1 from the MS Store online. Then you might have hardware that does not have windows 8.1 drivers. It would be better to stay with 7 until you buy a new computer.

Hello Friends: I have a Dell Studio 1558 and I would like to install Windows 8 on it.  I have a recovery/rescue dvd (win 7) that Dell has shipped me. Do I have to install the os from recovery dvd on to the Laptop first on a new SSD and then upgrade to Windows 8 (not a big supporter of this approach) or can I install Windows 8 from scratch pointing to the recovery dvd as my proof of ownership of Windows 7 ? Your input is appreciated. Regards, -Narahari

"Officially" you have to install Windows 7 and the necessary drivers to connect and download Windows 8.0 or use the disc supplied (if retail media). Then you have to install Windows 8.0 again with the necessary drivers to connect and download Windows 8.1 via the Microsoft store. The above is a very time-consuming and inefficient procedure meaning 3 Windows installs opposed to 1 and 3 times the chance of something going wrong. For licensing Windows 8.0 retail media was upgrade only or system builders/OEM which were meant to be only used if the computer was to be sold to a third party. Thus Microsoft changed the licensing terms for Windows 8.1 so that all retail versions are full versions and could be installed on a bare hard drive. The catch is that Microsoft seriously messed up Windows 8.1 deployment so they made Windows 8.0 product keys incompatible with Windows 8.1 media forcing all Windows 8.0 users to use the Microsoft Store which has been seriously buggy and detrimental both in performance and efficiency for the end user.

Fortunately as your license is a retail upgrade and you may follow a workaround I documented which will allow you to download a Windows 8.1 .iso directly from Microsoft using your Windows 8.0 product key to perform the clean install directly in order to maximise your system performance. For more details see Download Windows 8.1 .iso:

http://dellwindowsreinstallationguide.com/download-microsoft-windows-and-office/download-microsoft-windows/download-windows-8-1-iso/

For full installation instructions see Windows Reinstallation Guide/A Clean Install of windows 8.1:

http://dellwindowsreinstallationguide.com/

The Dell Windows 8 OEM has additional problems as there is no legitimate source of downloadable media and the OEM product keys are embedded. Workarounds are being made which use MSDN/Technet .isos alongside product key identifiers however few people have a MSDN account and most the .isos people are obtained from torrents. Getting media from an illegitimate sources is not recommended as the chances of embedded Malware/Viruses are alot higher.

can I install Windows 8 from scratch

If you have an upgrade disk, if you install twice, it will activate.

[quote user="savithari"]can I install Windows 8 from scratch

If you have an upgrade disk, if you install twice, it will activate.

[/quote]

For the upgrade disc it is better to input the product key via an elevated command prompt - press [Windows] and [ x ] and then select command prompt admin:

Type

slmgr /ipk xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx and press enter.

where xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx is the product key.

It will activate on the first install and hence saves time by installing it twice. As mentioned however I recommend downloading the Windows 8.1 .iso directly and using it to clean install as this will lead to optimum performance.