How I Solved my Windows 8 32/64-bit upgrade woes!

[addman]

First off I have to thank "vagrantwade" for his help. This is how I got a working Windows 8 Pro x64 installation from a 32-bit Windows XP license. All of the below instructions can and must be done from any 64-bit Windows installation, use you're secondary PC or your gf's PC, any 64-bit Windows installation will do (except maybe XP 64-bit, I'm not sure).

1. Open up the email that you recieved from Microsoft when you bought your license. In it -on the top under the big "Thanks for your purchase/order" head- you will find the sentence (translating from Swedish now) "If you need to download Windows just enter your new Product key here."

2. Click on "here" and it will re-direct you to enter your Win 8 license key and you will receive a file that looks the same as the upgrade assistant and is the exact same file size and the name of the .exe is different but it isn't the same.

3. Just start the downloaded .exe file and follow the instructions, don't worry it won't install anything on the PC you are doing this on. It will just download the Windows installation files (64-bit version in this case) and when it is finished it will prompt you to either install the freshly downloaded files right away OR make a bootable ISO or USB.

4. Choose to create an ISO or USB and when it's finished making either one of those, simply put your fresh Win 8 DVD or USB stick in the computer you want to install it on. You can even make a fresh installation on an empty drive if you want to instead of doing the cumbersome upgrade from a previous Win 7/Vista/Xp installation. Just like a regular OEM/Retail DVD.

Typing this from my fresh 64-bit Windows 8 Pro installation, happy as can be!

 

[VagrantWade]

I told you like 5 times how you can easily get it to work. Read your own threads sometime.

 

[addman]

Yeah but you told me to use the upgrade assistant but you didn't say you had to download another one from the link found in the win8 license mail. If you just go to Microsofts win8 site you'll get the "wrong" one.

Sent from my LG-E900 using Board Express

 

[justop26]

So, does that mean that the computer you use to download the "right" Upgrade Assistant won't be able to upgrade to Windows 8? Seeing as you already used the key...

Honest question. Thanks in advance.

 

[addman]

So, does that mean that the computer you use to download the "right" Upgrade Assistant won't be able to upgrade to Windows 8? Seeing as you already used the key...

Honest question. Thanks in advance.

Of course it will, I had already purchased my Win 8 license through the "regular" upgrade assistant and installed it. The problem is, I did it on my old 32-bit Windows XP install so I never had the choice to download the 64-bit version. I used my gf's laptop and downloaded the other assistant that you get a link for in your win8 license mail confirmation and since she had a 64-bit version of Windows 7, the program downloaded the 64-bit install files. I think microsoft Went a bit extreme with regards to user-friendly this time around, put some advanced settings in there, regular folks won't touch it anyway.

Back to your question though, no it shouldn't affect her Windows 7 installation since I used my own new Win8 key to download the assistant.

 

[jimdriver2]

Hi, just found this thread on the net and I had this exact problem. I'm about to give it a go, but before I do just needed to check one thing. I've already installed 32-bit Windows 8 over XP. If I create a 64-bit ISO will that install smoothly over my 32-bit version?

Unfortunately I've no spare drives to install on, and need to keep my hard drives contents as it includes loads of steam games, which I don't want to download again.

Thanks.

 

[addman]

Hi, just found this thread on the net and I had this exact problem. I'm about to give it a go, but before I do just needed to check one thing. I've already installed 32-bit Windows 8 over XP. If I create a 64-bit ISO will that install smoothly over my 32-bit version?

Unfortunately I've no spare drives to install on, and need to keep my hard drives contents as it includes loads of steam games, which I don't want to download again.

Thanks.

I don't know, I just made a bootable install USB and wiped the whole thing off my drive and installed totally fresh. You could still move your Steam folder to Another temporary partition and then after your Clean install move it back to your Win8 install. Here's an official and simple tutorial on how to do just that: https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=7710-TDLC-0426

 

[jimdriver2]

Thanks for the info.

I've now downloaded the 64-bit version and burnt the ISO. I decided just to make life easy on myself though and am going to buy an external HD and back-up everything on there and then copy it back over again. I needed an external anyway.

thanks for the help, I'm looking forward to enjoying 64-bit Win 8 tomorrow now and actually using all the RAM in my PC.

 

[addman]

Thanks for the info.

I've now downloaded the 64-bit version and burnt the ISO. I decided just to make life easy on myself though and am going to buy an external HD and back-up everything on there and then copy it back over again. I needed an external anyway.

thanks for the help, I'm looking forward to enjoying 64-bit Win 8 tomorrow now and actually using all the RAM in my PC.

Glad I could help, I'm getting a new SSD next week, gonna install it on that.

 

[billy roy]

Hi,I know you must be sick of this but,can you tell me if you encounted any problems upgrading from win xp to win 8,as I am having problems when the upgrade completes.thanks

 

[Nilanka Perera]

I did exactly as you said and burnt a fresh dvd with 64 bit windows 8. But still my product key does not work with 64 bit version. It says "Cannot verify product key" when I try to boot and install 64 bit version. But the key works fine with 32 bit version of windows pro. Do you think that same key can be used for both 32 bit and 64 bit versions. In fact I received the original DVDs (both 32 bit and 64 bit) from Microsoft when I bought the windows pro upgrade.

 

[Afshan Akely]

Nice stuff overall found here, After some days ago, I need to install latest
Operating system windows 8.1 pro at my notebook, So I install with it
from my DVD suit, But with getting its activation, I saw product key was
lost.
I search at yours as well as many other sites to buy it, but its
all were free & blocked from Microsoft. Then One of my friend tell
me about: ODosta Store
Where I bought, Which is working well now.