How to Install Windows 8.1 without a Product Key – ANZTech (hrfstech)
For those who want to skip the product key while installing windows 8 or windows 8.1, the following instructions will guide you through the entire process.
How to Install Windows 8.1 without a Product Key
- Step 1: Follow the following guide to download a official copy of Windows 8.1 directly from Microsoft’s servers.
How to Download Official Windows 8.1 ISO images from Microsoft.
- Step 2: Once you’ve downloaded the Windows 8.1 ISO images, follow the guide below to create a Bootable Windows 8.1 USB Flash drive.
How to Create a Bootable Windows 8.1 USB Flash drive.
- Step 3: Once you’ve created a Bootable windows 8.1 USB Flash drive. Create a Text document and copy the following text in it.
[EditionID]
Core
[Channel]
Retail
[VL]
0
- Step 4: Save the text document in the Sources folder of the Bootable Windows 8.1 USB Flash Drive with the file name as ei.cfg and select Save as type as ALL Files.
That’s it. Now go ahead and boot from the Bootable windows 8.1 USB Flash drive. This time you will see a skip button when you are prompted to enter a product key.
Once you have successfully installed Windows 8.1 through this method, you will then have 30 days to activate your windows 8.1 installation.
hile skipping a product key during the installation is nice, it won’t get you too far as it used to be. You will need your windows 8 activated before customizing your Windows, i.e. PC Settings.
Go to System window (type “system” in start screen), you will notice the message indicating that Windows is not activated at near the bottom of the window.
To activate, you can click the link “View details in Windows Activation”.
Note that the error code under Activation details section indicates that you don’t have a valid product key to activate your Windows 8 at the moment.
Click on Activate with a new key button, and that’s where you will see the following screen we mentioned in our early post how to change product key and activate windows 8.
Source: Microsoft