Hey Guys

Probably a dumb question but my friend got a old vista machine from work (with the serial) and bought a hard copy of windows 8. He then installed windows from the DVD and in process formatted the C:. It all worked fine and asked for the win8 key which he entered and it went along. the next day he has turned the PC on and it come up asking for the key again which he typed in and it said this key can only be used for upgrades and not a new installation.

He does have his old vista key still.

Any ideas?

You buy windows 8 upgrade version not fully installation.

The documentation is here

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows-8/upgrade-from-windows-vista-xp-tutorial

the option you need to choose is upgrade not custom: install windows only (advance)

Since you already wipe out your Windows Vista, I suggest reinstall your Vista and try upgrade again using this key.

• Edited by britishdhez 9 hours 46 minutes ago

OK but that's not an option for him as he was only given the serial not the media...

You can install with any Vista CD installation, then upgrade it to Windows 8.

• Edited by britishdhez 8 hours 59 minutes ago

So there's no way of doing it without re installing all the programs?

no,  because you already format your C: drive which is your OS partition (Vista)

• Edited by britishdhez 6 hours 10 minutes ago