I need to upgrade a system for a customer in a very remote area with limited/no access to the internet.

I was hoping to pre-load a hard drive with Windows 8.1 Pro 64bit on an identical system in my office, install all updates and then move the hard drive to his machine.

The problem is once the system in my office is connected to the internet Windows 8 will activate on that machine, so when I move the drive to the other system it will detect the fact it is not in the original and require activation again. This will be a bit difficult in the middle of nowhere!

Is there anyway around this? Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Hi

Dont think there is anyway round it. if you change the hardware windows will ask to re-activate.

You can use the "activate by phone" method after you move the drive to the PC it is destined for.

Usually the product key is now located in the BIOS of the machine if these are new Windows 8.1.  If you are "creating this Windows install" and are willing to transfer that license / key, then feel free to use my program WOLF to extract the BIOS serial key (it's harmless and requires no effort.)

http://www.bytemedev.com/wolf/

If you are wanting to activate on the new machine then again at the remote site, you will need that.  If it is a disk copy, you should have a license key, you simply reactivate at the remote site.

Otherwise you could create a Windows Image (WIM) of the install you want to transport and inject the product key during the unattend process.  You simply image the remote site disk and it is good to go on turn on (if done right.)

• Edited by TitanWolf 17 hours 5 minutes ago
• Marked as answer by Dlnavy 2 hours 50 minutes ago

Usually the product key is now located in the BIOS of the machine if these are new Windows 8.1.  If you are "creating this Windows install" and are willing to transfer that license / key, then feel free to use my program WOLF to extract the BIOS serial key (it's harmless and requires no effort.)

http://www.bytemedev.com/wolf/

If you are wanting to activate on the new machine then again at the remote site, you will need that.  If it is a disk copy, you should have a license key, you simply reactivate at the remote site.

Otherwise you could create a Windows Image (WIM) of the install you want to transport and inject the product key during the unattend process.  You simply image the remote site disk and it is good to go on turn on (if done right.)

• Edited by TitanWolf Thursday, September 25, 2014 5:46 PM
• Marked as answer by Dlnavy Friday, September 26, 2014 8:01 AM

Thanks for the help, appreciate it.

The solution given here is closest to answering my needs.  I will be setting up 50 to 100 computers for our sales and tech staff which must all be identical.  These all will be identical laptops with the OEM Windows 8.1  install, stripped of most of the original software and our own software with registry changes and files installed.

Once the virgin computer is first started, by default it wants all of the user and setup information to be keyed in for the Windows licensing and registration.  I would like to bypass that step. One option I am willing to do is to remove the hard drive, create a clone of the Master Laptop, reinstall it and go from there.

Can I do this and still license them from the existing Key in the BIOS of each of the machines?

@Mike,

Yep, you would want to do an image rip and Unattended setup with the serial key loaded into the answer file on "applying" the image.

If you can't do that, then edit the WIM Directly with new Key. You just may have to do a little manipulation of the Unattend file between each machine (to just modify the key) rip unless you are using something SCCM.

Some adding Unattend Files to WIMs:
http://community.spiceworks.com/topic/268301-add-unattend-xml-to-wim?page=1#entry-1709782

I wrote an article on how to rip and apply the image.
http://www.bytemedev.com/how-to-rip-a-windows-78-image-using-winpe4-0-and-dism/

Basic concept for editing a WIM is you mount the image then make a minor change.

You could leave the key out of the Unattended file and just manually enter the product key via a script (you can setup so it boots to desktop just with the trial 30 day activation and then just simply double click a script.)  You could even host the Serial Key list on a network share drive.  Then there is even a clever way to remove the Serial Key from the List so no other machine tries to use that key.  This is best done when one machine runs the script at a time.  Slow but can be automated.

You can even activate remotely using PSExec, you have to write your powershell script (not too hard) but it executes on a remote machine.
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb897553.aspx

Alternatively, if you have a volume-license, you can then create a KMS Server for activation
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff793434.aspx

If you can't tell, people come to me asking me to figure out a different way to do things :)

I got all my starter knowledge on Image creation from the ITBros:
http://theitbros.com/category/windows/sysprep/

Very easily to follow along.

My knowledge though imaging Windows 8 machines is less than 7 and Vista.  I think it is even be simpler, because Windows 8.x looks for a product key in the BIOS, you may not have to do anything and simply configure your Windows and Default profile the way you like and deploy. I can not confirm this personally, but it automatically does it during a regular install so why not?

• Edited by TitanWolf 18 hours 17 minutes ago

@TitanWolf - Thank you, I will research your links.

Your comment: "You could even host the Serial Key list on a network share drive." is appealing, but that would require starting the virgin machine, going through the setup before I can even get to read the BIOS.

Since these are W8.1, I am pretty much on the same page that the software should deploy as OEM once installed.  Would creating a deployment version of the Master computer be the simplest way to approach this? And do you have advice on this approach?

I found this which looks promising: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn744290.aspx

• Edited by Mike Trethowan 16 hours 49 minutes ago

@Mike,

Yep, you would want to do an image rip and Unattended setup with the serial key loaded into the answer file on "applying" the image.

If you can't do that, then edit the WIM Directly with new Key. You just may have to do a little manipulation of the Unattend file between each machine (to just modify the key) rip unless you are using something SCCM.

Some adding Unattend Files to WIMs:
http://community.spiceworks.com/topic/268301-add-unattend-xml-to-wim?page=1#entry-1709782

I wrote an article on how to rip and apply the image.
http://www.bytemedev.com/how-to-rip-a-windows-78-image-using-winpe4-0-and-dism/

Basic concept for editing a WIM is you mount the image then make a minor change.

You could leave the key out of the Unattended file and just manually enter the product key via a script (you can setup so it boots to desktop just with the trial 30 day activation and then just simply double click a script.)  You could even host the Serial Key list on a network share drive.  Then there is even a clever way to remove the Serial Key from the List so no other machine tries to use that key.  This is best done when one machine runs the script at a time.  Slow but can be automated.

You can even activate remotely using PSExec, you have to write your powershell script (not too hard) but it executes on a remote machine.
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb897553.aspx

Alternatively, if you have a volume-license, you can then create a KMS Server for activation
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff793434.aspx

If you can't tell, people come to me asking me to figure out a different way to do things :)

I got all my starter knowledge on Image creation from the ITBros:
http://theitbros.com/category/windows/sysprep/

Very easily to follow along.

My knowledge though imaging Windows 8 machines is less than 7 and Vista.  I think it is even be simpler, because Windows 8.x looks for a product key in the BIOS, you may not have to do anything and simply configure your Windows and Default profile the way you like and deploy. I can not confirm this personally, but it automatically does it during a regular install so why not?

• Edited by TitanWolf Friday, September 26, 2014 4:33 PM

@TitanWolf - Thank you, I will research your links.

Your comment: "You could even host the Serial Key list on a network share drive." is appealing, but that would require starting the virgin machine, going through the setup before I can even get to read the BIOS.

Since these are W8.1, I am pretty much on the same page that the software should deploy as OEM once installed.  Would creating a deployment version of the Master computer be the simplest way to approach this? And do you have advice on this approach?

I found this which looks promising: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn744290.aspx

• Edited by Mike Trethowan Friday, September 26, 2014 6:00 PM