How to find Windows 8 Product Key embedded in BIOS

Microsoft has done major changes in Windows 8. For the laptops and computers shipped with factory pre-installed windows 8 or 8.1. On installing Windows 8 or 8.1 it will use the windows key embedded in bios and activates automatically. Also you can not find the windows key on windows sticker also.

How to find the product key on a preinstalled version of Windows 8

1. Right click on windows logo in bottom left corner of the screen and select Command prompt.

2. Copy and paste the below code on the command prompt and press enter.

powershell “(Get-WmiObject -query ‘select * from SoftwareLicensingService’).OA3xOriginalProductKey”

Note down your Windows 8 product key.

If you are a Windows 8 Single Language (Windows 8 SL) user. If you install a fresh Windows 8 this key may not help during installation. Just copy some default Windows 8 product key from web and proceed the installation. During the activation enter your Windows 8 key and activate online.

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Run Windows 8.1 directly from USB drive

Create Windows To Go (W2G) on non certified USB drive. No need of Windows Enterprise version.

What is Windows To Go (W2G)

Microsoft Windows added a new interesting feature in windows 8. Windows 8 has ability to create image of bootable operating system on USB drive. Portable USB drive can be used in any computers with your personalized windows. Its simple, insert the W2G USB drive and boot the computer on USB drive mode. It works pretty well as a windows installed host computer. This feature is added forcefully to compete with Linux live versions. But any how it is a great added feature to Windows 8.

What is the purpose of creating Windows To Go?

Windows To Go is a pretty good feature by which you can bring your work computer’s Window home and use it to complete your work from home.

Use Window To Go for testing your PC hardware before installing Windows 8.1.

It is very useful for travelers

How to create Windows To Go USB drive

1. Download and install Aomei Partition Assistant software.
2. Insert your Windows 8.1 Disk or mount a .iso image by using software tools like PowerISO, ImDisk or with your favorite virtual drive software.
3. Plugin your Empty USB disk.
4. Open Aomei Partition Assistant.
5. Click Windows To Go Creator from Wizard menu on left side.

6. Select your USB Drive. Confirm once again the selected USB Drive.
7. Click browse it should automatically detect Windows installation file install.wim. You can also select manually if it doesn’t identify the install.wim file.

8. Now hit on proceed.

The software is creating the Windows To Go USB disk. Depend upon the USB disk writing speed it may take some minutes or hours. So leave it and do other work till it complete.

Also see: How to create bootable USB drive image

Note:

• Back up your USB drive fefore creating Windows To Go USB disk. The process will overwrite on the existing file so the contents will be erased.
• It is a full installation of Windows, On first booting you will have to enter the Windows key and start customizing the personal settings.
• Windows To Go official recommends to use certified USB drive and Windows Enterprise edition only for better experience of Windows To Go like a regular installation Windows.

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How to create bootable USB drive image

Creating image of bootable USB drive and copy the image to another USB drive or the same USB drive later after a useful work. It is better to create a duplicate copy of Bootable USB drive to always be in safer side.

Why you want to create a bootable USB image.

For example, you may use a live Linux USB drive or a Windows To Go USB drive. If you create a image of the USB drive it will create a entire image of the drive with personal data you saved to the live operating system.

If your drive doesn’t have a bootable media and just have a personal files, documents and software you can just do copy and paste in other location of your hard disk. you don’t need this tool.

How to Create Backup Image of Bootable USB Drive

Download ImageUSB tool.

Create an image of USB Drive.

1. Insert the bootable USB drive or SC card into your computer.
2. Open ImageUSB and select the USB drive you want to create an image.
3. Select Create from UDF option. Leave Post Image Verification check box enabled. It will ensure the created image is correct without out any errors.
4. Click browse and select the location to save the resulting .bin image of USB drive.
5. Hit the Create image button.

Now the Image USB will extract the image of your USB drive and saves it to your desired location as .bin file.

Write an image to USB flash drive

1. Insert empty USB drive or SD card into your computer.
2. Open ImageUSB and select the USB drive you want to write the .bin image file.
3. Select Write to UDF option. Leave Post Image Verification checked.
4. Hit browse button and select the .bin USB image file.
5. Now click Write to UDF button to start the process.

Warning: This process will erase entire USB drive content.

What does the ImageUSB tool do.

If your USB drive is bootable, multi-bootable and multiple partitions, the tool will perform a exact copy of the content in the drive, master boot record (MBR), multiple partitions, free space and slack space.USB drive. The resulting image can be copied into another USB drive. So you can do a exact copy of the USB drive or save the exact image to reproduce it to another Bootable USB drive for later use.

The ImageUSB tool restores copied image to USB drive for the similar size only. If you created a USB image from 4 GB USB drive you should consider to restore image to 4GB USB drive only. If you try to restore to 2 GB USB drive it cannot be copied. You can restore to 8 or 16 GB USB drive, only 4 GB space will be accessible remaining space cannot be used. But any how you can recover the remaining space by formatting and partitioning the drive for later use.

This will also suite for even bootable SD card.

This tool is fairly simple, light weight and free. You can also try USB image tool also to create bootable USB drive image.

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