

- VIRTUAL PC FOR WINDOWS 8.1 INSTALL
- VIRTUAL PC FOR WINDOWS 8.1 UPDATE
- VIRTUAL PC FOR WINDOWS 8.1 WINDOWS 10
- VIRTUAL PC FOR WINDOWS 8.1 PRO
With the Oracle VM VirtualBox program, you can run operating systems such as Windows, Linux, and even macOS on your computer and use them easily. Because using Microsoft’s latest distribution Windows 11 system on your host computer offers you security and performance and protects you on online platforms.
VIRTUAL PC FOR WINDOWS 8.1 WINDOWS 10
TechNet: Windows Setup Edition Configuration and Product ID Files (EI.cfg and PID.If you want to use a great-looking version of Windows 8x instead of Windows 10 or Windows 11 on your physical computer, we recommend using virtual machines.
VIRTUAL PC FOR WINDOWS 8.1 PRO
SuperUser: Is Windows 8 Pro usable without activation?
VIRTUAL PC FOR WINDOWS 8.1 INSTALL
SuperUser: Install Windows 8 without a Product Key You'll get frequent prompts to activate, but until you do the product key hasn't really been used.

In this case, the product key is validated but isn't activated, so it's not "used up" until you activate. If you prefer, you can install using a valid Windows 8 product key but without an internet key. Another option: Enter a product key but don't immediately activate You'll get frequent prompts to Activate, but you can skip them and go to the Start screen by pressing the Windows key.
VIRTUAL PC FOR WINDOWS 8.1 UPDATE
Next, select the folder with the modified ISO contents and select "Make Image Bootable" and click the burn icon in the lower left.Īfter that, I ended up with a update ISO that will allow skipping the product key / activation step during install: I installed ImgBurn (also available on Chocolatey - cinst imgburn) in seconds, then opened it and selected the "Create Image File From Files/Folders" It's irritating that you can't edit files in an ISO file directly, but fortunately burning files to a new ISO is really easy. Open a simple text editor (like Notepad), paste the following in, and save it as EI.cfg into the /sources folder of the ISO files you just extracted. OEM) install and indicates that this is not a Volume License. The following selects Professional edition, Retail (vs. The EI.cfg (and PID.txt) files are documented on Microsoft TechNet here. It turns out that the install process looks for a simple /sources/EI.cfg text file, and you can pretty easily modify the install media to add that. Right-click your ISO, select the 7-Zip submenu, and select extract to (folder name). I use 7zip to extract ISO's - it's free, lightweight, extracts every compressed file I encounter regularly, and it's available from Chocolatey (cinst 7zip). We'll need to modify the contents of an install ISO file, and to the best of my knowledge that required three steps: extract it, add our file, and write it back to a new ISO file. Keep in mind that this takes a few minutes, but once you're done you'll have an ISO that doesn't require the product key during installation, and you can use that over and over. Again, I don't recommend this for a "real" Windows 8 install - you're going to get frequent "Activate Windows" prompts and some minor bits of functionality will be disabled until you activate - but it's really handy on a virtual machine. It's at those times I miss being able to defer activation a bit.įortunately, you can (in a legal, documented manner) delay activation a bit. wait, 10 Windows machines in my house right now), then sure, let's get that product key thing done once and for all.īut sometimes I rebuild a VM several times while testing daily builds of pre-release software, or I want to make sure something's going to install first. If I'm really installing Windows (and I count 9. For most cases, I think that's an improvement.

With any of the Windows 8 ISO's I've used, there's an install wizard step that you can't pass until you've entered a valid product key. I've been building a lot of Windows 8 virtual machines lately, and I've noticed that the product key / activation steps have changed from Windows 7 to Windows 8.
