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Unable to install drivers Windows 8.1

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Shane:
Actually there are ways to do it :-)

My Windows 8 key wouldnt work on the Windows 8.1 install, which is retarded, yet works fine after I will installed.

So during the install MS even list keys you can use
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj612867.aspx

There is also other ways
http://pureinfotech.com/2013/10/21/clean-install-windows-81-without-windows-8-retail-key/

And with Windows it should auto detect your key on your system if it is a store bought machine, that is called SLIC 3.0. The key for Windows is built into the bios of the motherboard :-)

So reinstalling store bought machines, you dont even need to mess with the code.

Shane

blueman83:
Hi Shane, great info here in this thread and those links! Unfortunately the laptop came loaded with 'standard' windows 8 which I believe is the 'core' version. There were no product keys for that version in the links and the win 8.1 setup to get iso wont accept the recovered key to download the iso. If I was able to locate an iso for 8.1 core to do a repair install will it accept my recovered product key do you think, or perhaps it wouldn't even need it with the slic?

Alternatively are there any other ways you can think of to try to repair the driver install corruption? The problem happened last service when I upgraded from win 8 to win 8.1 and also ran all fixes from the aio repair tool. Is it possible anything in the tool could have done it (unlikely as I have used it MANY times before) and restoring that restore point could possibly help? I'm really stuck with this issue!

Thanks again Shane

Shane:
So far every time I have reinstalled Windows 8 for a customer on a store machine that it came pre installed with it never even asked me for a key and was activated when i booted up because of the SLIC. Thats why they dont put cd key stickers on them now.

As for the driver problem, the problem is in the registry. Something went wrong during the update and registry keys got screwed up. Not knowing which keys and how many makes it almost impossible to fix. If we knew which keys then we could fix it.

So the repair install would overwrite those keys and get ti working again. The problem with the registry is there is well over 1 million keys in there. The registry is a big database. And while my repair program does the best it can, there is a lot of keys that are machine specific and cant ever be added to the repair tool, and only Windows setup make those keys. Which make sense why MS has never come out with a registry rebuild tool.

So when the registry gets that deeply corrupted then a reinstall is the fastest and sometimes only course. :wink:

Shane

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