So.. one of the PCs at home started acting up. Blue screen of death after a few minutes on. Probably driver related (worked fine in Safe Mode). After trying a new video card and removing sound related drivers, the issue remained. Time for a refresh.
Conveniently, I had a DVD of Windows 8 Pro purchased a few days ago. Great! Let’s install Windows 8!
First issue – Windows 8 64-bits would not install on top of Windows 7 32-bits.
“The version of operating system you are trying to install is not compatible with your current OS”.
Alright… let’s try a fresh install. After all, the Genius-like person at the Windows store assured me the DVD was valid for fresh installs (I asked specifically).
After partitioning a new drive, a fresh install went smoothly. Windows 8 started and ran smoothly, allowing me to admire how many ways they broke usability rules with their ‘metro’ interface.
Everything was just fine until I noticed an alert…. Windows was not activated. I had to enter the serial number to activate it… why it didn’t remember the serial number I entered already during installation is beyond me.
Except that number didn’t work. No explanation, other than “This is not a valid key”. It was valid enough to install windows! In a classic broken user experience fashion, there was another way to activate Windows. While the full screen version of PC settings did not return any explanation, the ‘classic’ version of the same activation function did.
The explanation: this copy of windows is not valid for a fresh install.
Ok.. I can understand the Genius-like drone wasn’t trained well.. or maybe she was trying to play a prank on someone who walked into a Windows store still carrying a bag from the Apple store next door.
But I can’t accept that Windows itself is so broken that it allows a fresh install, wiping a drive fresh and only then, complains that it is not valid for a fresh install.
I know … there are workarounds involving messing with registry keys, I know I could purchase an OEM version of windows 8 (although, try doing that from the Windows website… the page about Windows 8 says you can purchase the OEM version but fails to provide a link to do so).
This kind of half-baked job doesn’t do a lot to inspire confidence…