[damonator98]

Quetion sounds a bit silly, but yes, I have this strange problem. My grandpa got a windows 8 laptop, but he had hard time learning to use it so his teacher(teaches him to use pc) installed windows 7(or downgraded to it). Recently he gave the laptop to me and i want genuine windows 8, but strangely i couldn't find any product code for old windows on laptop or in the box. But I've found windows.old folder with old windows 8 instalation in which could be product key. So what should I do or where should I dig to get windows 8 back ? Ps. Also it seems that Windows 7 in thta laptop aren't genuine...

[Richard Culverhouse]

There's is no sticker on the laptop with the key on it....? They are usually on the bottom.

[arjan wolthuis]

I should go back to 8 if 7 isn't legit. With my laptop the sticker is under the battery

[psiu_glen]

The newer laptops won't have a sticker with a key. Install the proper version of Windows (direct from MS site) and it will automagically activate - manufacturer key embedded in it.

Just had to do this with our Win 8 laptop, hard drive died with no warning. Put in new one after downloading and creating USB stick install on another PC and bam, 8.1 up and running.

Edit: I did a clean install though there were options for upgrading etc, if you want to save any data you would want to dig around first...

[damonator98]

Thanks psiu_glen, I'll try to do it your way, cause i have win 8 sticker on back and in bios i found "preinstalled OS win8 (some letter mess)" I just recently found that people who took care of his laptop somehow managed to install two conflicting windows 7 versions (also not genuine ones) in one partition of HDD so i'd like to take care of this mess... Which way is better in your opinion: intalling windows 8 in another partition and formating the "messed up" one OR merging both partitions and then formating HDD from xp instalation disk, installing not genuine XP, and then ?genuine? (if I understood you corectly) windows 8 ? Grrr, I'm surprised how people who don't know what they're doing can mess completely brand new pc so badly...

[psiu_glen]

What model laptop is it? That might help determine. You might want to note that code down from BIOS.

I haven't had to deal with anything like that thankfully...what a mess. At least it sounds like you don't have any data on there. Of course, the real issue is getting a valid Windows install working for free, as the laptop came with one. But it sounds like they messed that all up already?

In which case I think the nuke from orbit and wipe it all and cross your fingers approach is the way to go. (disclaimer: I'm not buying a copy if Windows if it doesn't work for you) ;)

I looked up info on Thurrott's site, he's been going through some current examples of this sort of thing.

https://www.thurrott.com/windows/100...-media-legally

https://www.thurrott.com/tag/clean-pc/

[damonator98]

So i can confirm that upgrading downgraded windows is possible by downloading untouched windows 8 (in this case) OEM version from torrent. This is what I did and it worked flawlessly.