Stuck With Windows 8 Enterprise trying to upgrade 8.1 Enterprise or Pro

The White Knight · Dec 16, 2013

I recently installed Win8 Enterprise on my system from a buddy with a spare license without even thinking I'd run into any issues upgrading to 8.1. Now I am stuck on their corporate license upgrade path and can't get 8.1 until they do. I have a pro key as well but chose not to use it initially. I've already had to reinstall everything to get it all on GPT from MBR and I really do not want to have to do this all over again. I've also heard that upgrading from enterprise will result in loss of apps and settings.

This is my first experience with the windows 8 series and while I read a lot of bad reviews on it I was starting to enjoy it.

How can I smoothly transition to 8.1 Enterprise or "upgrade" back to my 8.1 Pro edition? I just spent hours setting up the system and am still only half way through all the drivers etc. I hope someone can save my day.

USAFRet · Dec 16, 2013

Pretty sure a fresh install of Pro is your only option. I don't think there is a "undo" from Enterprise.

neieus · Dec 16, 2013

You may be able to down grade your version of windows. I have personally done this with windows server 2008 R2 standard but I can't gareentee it will work with the workstation version.

http://blogs.technet.com/b/server_core/archive/2009/10/14/upgrading-windows-server-2008-r2-without-media.aspx

The White Knight · Dec 17, 2013

Yeah so i've given up on 8.1 enterprise. I looked at the differences between it and the Pro edition and the couple features that would be the trade off aren't much of a loss for me as most of it can either be added later or can be supplemented with 3rd party software if ever needed. The problem now is that before with the Enterprise CD i was easily able to install it GPT style by launching the CD in UEFI mode. For some annoying reason I can't do it now with the 64 bit Win8.1 Pro CD. It keeps creating it using MBR and I even used the cmd to change the partition to GPT but researching it more in depth I discovered that the optical drive has to first initially boot in UEFI mode to work. I am now about to do the 5th installation in 2 days. (Thank god for SSD's).

The bios clearly shows 2 optical drives one UEFI and one Legacy. I have no clue why it's not launching in UEFI now like it did before. I am doing boot overrides and it just flashes the screen and returns right back to the bios every time for that option. Traditional optical loads windows fine. I popped the Win8 Enterprise CD back in and it didn't work for UEFI either so i've ruled the CD out i think. I can't seem to find the clear CMOS button on my Rampage IV Black Edition and the mobo battery is not accessible without removing components but resetting the mobo completely was my next move . . . any ideas?

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Stuck With Windows 8 Enterprise trying to upgrade 8.1 Enterprise or Pro

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