Instructional tutorials he's written have been linked to by organizations like The New York Times, Wirecutter, Lifehacker, the BBC, CNET, Ars Technica, and John Gruber's Daring Fireball. The news he's broken has been covered by outlets like the BBC, The Verge, Slate, Gizmodo, Engadget, TechCrunch, Digital Trends, ZDNet, The Next Web, and Techmeme. Beyond the column, he wrote about everything from Windows to tech travel tips. He founded PCWorld's 'World Beyond Windows' column, which covered the latest developments in open-source operating systems like Linux and Chrome OS. He also wrote the USA's most-saved article of 2021, according to Pocket.Ĭhris was a PCWorld columnist for two years.

Beyond the web, his work has appeared in the print edition of The New York Times (September 9, 2019) and in PCWorld's print magazines, specifically in the August 2013 and July 2013 editions, where his story was on the cover. With over a decade of writing experience in the field of technology, Chris has written for a variety of publications including The New York Times, Reader's Digest, IDG's PCWorld, Digital Trends, and MakeUseOf. Chris has personally written over 2,000 articles that have been read more than one billion times-and that's just here at How-To Geek. After that, you should be able to do a clean installation of Windows 8.1 using the new product key and won't have to worry about installing Windows 8 first and going the upgrade route.Ĭhris Hoffman is the former Editor-in-Chief of How-To Geek. You can find that product key in a number of different ways and save it for the future. After you do the upgrade, Windows will assign the new product key to the installation. Instead, you'll have to install Windows 8, then do a free upgrade to 8.1. And the product keys are different for Windows 8 and 8.1, so if you have a Windows 8 product key, you can't just use it to install Windows 8.1. One caveat you should be aware of up front is that you can no longer download an ISO for Windows 8-just 8.1.

Related: Where to Download Windows 11 ISO Images Legally The process for using the tool is largely the same for both versions of Windows, so we'll be using the Windows 10 Media Creation Tool for our example. If you've got access to a Windows machine, the official method for downloading ISOs for Windows 8.1 and 10 is the Media Creation Tool. Download the Windows 10 or 8.1 ISO Using the Media Creation Tool The most important thing is that you have a valid license key.

If it won't activate, you can always install and then call Microsoft to get them to straighten it out and allow your copy to activate. Depending on the OEM version of Windows that you are running, you might run into an issue using the OEM key with a retail version of Windows.

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