Topic: Backup & Restore Windows 8 Professional with Media Center key (phone activated)

[devnullius]

As some of you might remember, I wrote some articles back in January on how to upgrade an illegal Windows 8 Professional PC to a GENUINE Windows 8 Pro Media Center installation. Microsoft had a giveaway, giving the upgrade keys away for free!

Those keys needed to be installed before a certain date - afterwards activation would not be possible anymore.

A friend of mine ran in problems: Windows 8 wouldn't boot anymore (Dell). Long story short: ntfs file system corruption damaged the system. I fixed everything, but language pack wouldn't install any more*.

So this is what I did. I took one of my machines (different Dell) which still was virgin clean and contained another illegally obtained legal Windows 8 Professional MC key.

I backuped my friend's Dell AND I backuped her license. First, I tried it manually but in the end Advanced Tokens Manager (http://joshcellsoftwares.com/products/advancedtokensmanager/) is the best solution for this. And easiest. ALSO you need to WRITE DOWN the Media Center key. I used  Belarc.com Advisor for this...

I then transferred MY Dell's Windows 8 to her hard drive. Windows started without problems, all being Dell OEM hardware (and Win 8 which became more flexible...) I booted the system and tried many things to get it activated. All failed, partially...

This will work:

FIRST you need to restore the MC key back to Windows! ATM will NOT do this correctly for the illegal Win 8 MC editions out there... Run an elevated command prompt cmd.exe, type: slmgr -ipk  6RH4V-HNTWC-JQKG8-RFR3R-36498

Of course, you replace above key with YOUR key ;p TO MY SURPRISE it actually worked! And Windows 8 replaced MY key with my friend's key!

THEN you can use Advanced Tokens Manager to restore the backup of the old system to the fresh system.

All activated. All well, even updating Language Packs...

I found a lot of helpful information, here:
https://www.google.com/?&q=site:forums.mydigitallife.info/threads/27341-Advanced-Tokens-Manager-The-Activation-Backup-Solution+%22media+center%22&sa=N&safe=off&start=10, especially the tip to FIRST fix key problems before restoring activation...

Another interesting read is: http://www.c-sharpcorner.com/UploadFile/7e39ca/backup-and-restore-windows-8-activation/ (MIRROR without pictures: http://malwaretips.com/Thread-How-to-backup-and-restore-Windows-8-activation). And also: http://forums.mydigitallife.info/threads/35737-GUIDE-How-to-backup-and-restore-Windows-8-activation

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... karma for you 

Devvie


~~~ notemail@facebook.com ~~~

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All spelling mistakes are my own and may only be distributed under the GNU General Public License! – (© 95-1 by Coredump; 2-013 by DevNullius)



* http://scforum.info/index.php/topic,8330.msg21190.html#msg21190 - Windows 8 Multilingual User Interface Packs

[devnullius]

Btw, this trick works from / too x86-x64. License is platform independent (but IS version dependant!)

ONLY QUESTION THAT REMAINS...

I was lucky I still had a virgin installation lying around that I could easily migrate, but how should I have done this without another working system to copy?

Does anyone have a GOOD Windows 8 Professional Media Center installation DVD?

Is there such a thing? Legal or otherwise? Let me know... I think I'll need it some day ; -)


(from: http://forums.mydigitallife.info/threads/27341-Advanced-Tokens-Manager-The-Activation-Backup-Solution?p=784170&viewfull=1#post784170)

devnullius

[devnullius]

Log file from when it went wrong...

Starting the Activation Restore on Microsoft Windows 8 Pro with Media Center at 16:26:47 of 2013-08-15 with Advanced Tokens Manager v3.5 RC 4 by Josh Cell Software's
 
[ 16:26:47 ] Disabling the Network connections
[ 16:26:49 ] Success
[ 16:26:49 ] Preparing the activation system for the activation restore
[ 16:26:49 ] Stopping Software Protection Platform Service
[ 16:27:06 ] Restoring the Tokens.dat
[ 16:27:06 ] Success
[ 16:27:06 ] Restoring the Data.dat
[ 16:27:06 ] Fails
[ 16:27:06 ] Starting the Software Protection Platform Service
[ 16:27:08 ] Writing the Product Key
[ 16:27:08 ] Installing the product key number: 1
[ 16:27:09 ] Fails
[ 16:27:09 ] Stopping Software Protection Platform Service
[ 16:27:12 ] Restoring the Activation Files
[ 16:27:12 ] Restoring the Tokens.dat
[ 16:27:12 ] Success
[ 16:27:12 ] Restoring the Data.dat
[ 16:27:12 ] Success
[ 16:27:12 ] Starting the Software Protection Platform Service
[ 16:27:22 ] Rebuilding the Activation System
[ 16:27:23 ] Checking the restored activation files integrity
[ 16:27:24 ] Activation files integrity doesn't match
[ 16:27:25 ] Critical error when restoring: [ Activation files restore error ] / [ Invalid Product Key ].
[ 16:28:16 ] Enabling the Network connections
[ 16:28:16 ] Success
 
Thank you for using this software.

[devnullius]

Some links I have no idea what to do with... But I should check it out as a replacement for the 7pmtech-tool, according to Slave77 (http://forums.mydigitallife.info/members/293479-s1ave77).

From Slave77's signature:

[HOW-TO] KMS-HOST and TOOLS v 3.O
http://forums.mydigitallife.info/showthread.php?p=662525#post662525

A Little Summary about Win 8 Activation Solutions
http://forums.mydigitallife.info/showthread.php?p=738970#post738970

MICROSOFT TOOLKIT - Official KMS Solution for Microsoft Products
http://forums.mydigitallife.info/showthread.php?p=475727#post475727

KMSEmulator - KMS Client and Server Emulation
http://forums.mydigitallife.info/showthread.php?p=692941#post692941

>>>|| KMS.Server.Service.Config.v6.0 ||<<<
http://forums.mydigitallife.info/showthread.php?p=750125#post750125

KMS_VL_All v3.7
http://forums.mydigitallife.info/showthread.php?p=733014#post733014

[At your service... please throw stick as far as you can!]


Sigh - looks COMPLICATED! So little time

devnullius