Windows 10: How to install wimdows 8 without product key or usb stick.

I want windows 8.

:)

 

Installing windows off of a USB stick

Step By Step from vista:
From admin cmd prompt

1. diskpart
1a. list disk
2. select disk 1 (replace 1 with your usb drive)
3. clean
4. create partition primary
5. select partition 1 (replace 1 with your usb drive)
6. active
7. format fs=fat32
8. assign
9. exit

Copy Windows Vista's DVD ROM content to the Flash Drive

xcopy d:\*.* /s/e/f e:\ (d being your vista cd and e being your usb stick)

And that's it, boot off your usb disk

 

USB stick previously used as a boot stick for Killdisk not recognized

Try method 2 under Windows 7 8 10 here:
Free to Remove Readonly Attribute in Windows

Method 2: Clear readonly status with Diskpart

In Windows 10, 8, 7 OS, you are also able to run Diskpart in Command Prompt to clear read-only attribute on any partition on your computer. You can follow the tutorial below:

Step 1. Open Command Line and type Diskpart
Step 2. Type list disk
Step 3. Type select disk (disk number)
Step 4. Type attributes disk clear readonly





Then try Clean

 

Windows 10 product keys and activation - and the KMS angle

I ought at this stage to pause and say a big thankyou to Bree and NavyLCDR (and alphanumeric...) for hanging in there and trying to help.

As this process has gone on we seem now and again to have got diverted into trying to deal with subordinate or separate aspects of the problem. Just to recap:

- the original focus was on trying to do a clean (re)install of Win10, using the embedded OEM Win 8 key which ShowKey Plus indicated was in the firmware;

- I have tried a clean install, twice, using first a Rufus-created bootable USB then an MCT-created USB. Both booted and started the install (so were properly formatted and functional), but both brought up the product-key screen and the Win 8 embedded key wasn't recognised;

- Bree and I have just been grappling with the secondary problem - that IF I were to try to re-create a bootable USB for a clean install using Option 4, I needed to copy and paste the files from the Win10 .iso image. It has emerged that because i'm using a Win 7 machine for all this preparatory work, I can't open .iso files using Windows Explorer. Ok, we can park that as a side issue, as I can - if need be - open an .iso using 7-Zip;

- but, as NavyLCDR suggests, trying different ways to create a bootable USB seems to be missing the point: however formatted and created, the USB stick runs OK. The problem is that it is unable to find the embedded key nor is that key recognised when manually entered. So a differently-created or formatted USB stick won't help.....

- In theory when I get to the 'product key' screen I suppose I could simply say I don't have a key, and skip that step. The problem then - as I see it - is that Win 10 would clean-install, but I would not then be able to activate it (if the embedded key doesn't work during the install, why would it work afterwards?). I would end up worse off than I am at present, where I have the corporate Win 10 activated and working more-or-less normally, but because it's KMS, it will at some point in the next few months be de-activated;

- That rather leads me towards the alternative suggestion made by NavyLCDR: that instead of persisting with a clean install that seems not to be possible, I could try a different way of (re) activating the existing Win 10 by using the different key suggested. I hesitate to ask for an explanation of what that key is and why it might work. But right now I'm not sure there are any other possible ways forward.