Hello,
i've just bought an Acer Aspire E1 notebook with Windows 8.1 pre-installed.
I've separately bought a Windows 8.1 PRO dvd with OEM license, as i needed the PRO version for the Hyper-V support.
Now i would like to have a clean/fresh install of my dvd on this laptop, removing the "home/standard" version that came with it.
Merely installing the product isn't enough.
I formatted the system partition before installing and run the install program booting from the DVD, but :
1) no product key has ever been asked to me by the installation procedure
2) windows installs correctly and it is a "clean" setup since i don't have the acer support tools installed anymore
3) alas, this still is the "home/standard" edition, without the PRO features enabled!
I understand this has something to do with the product keys being stored into the BIOS/UEFI, but is there any proved workaround?
To be more specific, i've found a walkthrough (covering win 8, but i don't think things have changed between 8 and 8.1)that suggests to manually add a config file with the "new" product key in the installation image, thus bypassing the UEFI-stored key:
http://www.blogsolute.com/windows-8-clean-installation-product-key-do-not-match/25990/
Is this procedure correct and "guaranteed" ?
My fear is to end up with a new installation that doesn't work (and/or with a non-working product activation) and with a "forever lost" old installation...
Thanks
matteo
