Solve Windows 8 Clean Installation Product Key Do Not Match Problem

In my previous post, I wrote about how to make a Windows 8 installation pendrive bootable in UEFI mode. Now, if you were on an old laptop with UEFI boot which did not came pre-installed with Windows 8 OEM then you are good to go. But if your system came pre-installed with Windows 8 OEM then you will be facing loads of trouble. Well, its not that of a mountain of troubles. Its just that people like me, who bought new laptops are not familiar with the new things that have been introduced. They may be called as new features or even logical restrictions from my point of view.

OK, as a very basic home/office user I may be happy to use my laptop without making any sort of changes to it. Changes are with respect to hard disk partition, clean installation, dual booting with Linux etc. So whats the rescue when we fall in trouble? What if I need my custom partitions on hard disk and hate to see the recovery drive taking up almost 10 GB of my valuable hard disk space. The only answer that I could figure out was to play with all possible settings in BIOS and UEFI mode and keep trying.

My ultimate aim was to dual boot Ubuntu 12.10. For the same purpose I had to perform a clean installation as Ubuntu was not appearing anywhere with Windows boot option. So, I needed a clean installation of Windows 8 with Secure boot disabled.

The experiences I gained after wondering on several forums and trying various methods myself will be presented in form of different tutorials as given below. There may be other optimized solutions but these steps are tested by me and they work.

1. Create Windows 8 USB Bootable Pendrive for UEFI Boot.
2. Solve Windows 8 Clean Installation Product Key Do Not Match Problem.
3. Error 0xC004C008: Cannot Activate Windows 8 Using Already Owned Serial Key on new PC.
4. Dual Boot Windows 8 With Ubuntu 12.10 in UEFI Boot Mode.

Tutorial 1 is good enough for people installing Windows 8 in UEFI separately (no pre-installed Windows 8). People with Windows 8 OEM will face a irritating error if they just make a Windows 8 UEFI bootable using Tutorial 1 and boot computer directly with it. The error is:

” The product key entered does not match any of the Windows images available for installation. Enter a different product key ”

This error will just appear before you can even type your actual genuine Windows 8 serial key. there is no other option left other than cancelling the Installation. This error will occur in all new systems coming with pre-installed Windows 8. It does not matter at all whether you are booting from Legacy BIOS or UEFI.

Reason behind Windows 8 product key entered does not match error?

The reason is pretty simple. The serial key to the Pre-installed Windows 8 OEM is integrated within the BIOS. So whenever you are trying to clean install Windows 8, it will automatically seek the serial key in BIOS. Now, you have a retail Windows 8 copy and the serial key stored is for Windows 8 OEM. Hence the serial key Mismatch error.

Solve Windows 8 Clean Installation Product Key Do Not Match Problem

Solution to this problem is very simple. If you are booting in Legacy boot then you can use Win7 USB/DVD Tool else for UEFI boot use the steps in Tutorial 1. In either was you are getting a bootable Windows 8 pendrive. the only difference between them is that, one is in NTFS other one is in FAT 32.

What we need to do

We need to integrate our serial key within the Windows 8 Installation Itself. So that there is no need for checking the BIOS for serial key. Lets see how to do it.

• Create a text file named PID.
• Open it and enter the values as shown in figure below.

• Here you need to replace the xxxx with your own serial key.
• save the file and copy it to F:\sources. Where F is my bootable Windows 8 Pendrive.

The next time when you boot using the Pendrive, you will be able to perform clean installation of Windows 8. In the next tutorial I will be covering Error 0xC004C008 faced while activating Windows 8.