On 01/07/2015 02:50 PM, Hans Witvliet wrote:
On Wed, 2015-01-07 at 12:39 -0500, Doug wrote: <snip>
You can install Windows 8.1 even if you don't have the system disk, _IF_ you have recorded the installation key. If you don't have the install key, I'm pretty sure you're out of luck, unless you can talk the dealer into giving you a disk with the proper key. </snip>
Small comment on that, Some months ago, I feared my daughter hosed her laptop (W7.1 & OS_13.1)
I assumed I had to re-install the lot, but I could not find the original key.
After some googling I learned that the keys are stored encrypted on the disk, and there are tools for finding the keys for 7, 7.1, 8, 8.1 and make them readable so you re-use them again Bad news however is that these are windows programs. It seems very unlikely you can run them under wine ...
as for me, I remembered that before doing anything with that laptop, i booted 13.1 and did a "dd" from the entire hdd to an usb-drive, so i don't have personal experience with the key-finder-tool, but perhaps someone else on the list.
hw
Well, the trick is, if you buy a computer with no disk and no key, download and run the keyfinder program before you do anything else, and write down the key somewhere you can find it. (I think the seller is supposed to put a label with the key somewhere on the machine, but maybe he didn't, or maybe I'm wrong.) Perhaps someone reading here can say if it's possible to run some kind of keyfinder from Linux, assuming you can access the Windows files from Linux, as you say you can do. --doug -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org