How to Download and Install Windows 8.1

Windows 8.1 offers new features under the hood to make it the fastest, most secure, and easiest to manage Microsoft operating system for desktop, laptop, or tablet. Available as a free update later this year, a prerelease version is available now for you to try.

There are two methods to install Windows 8.1: Using the Windows Store or with the traditional ISO file that can be written to a USB device or a DVD.

Upgrading to Windows 8.1 using the Windows Store

This is the easiest method to install Windows 8.1 but it requires a minimum of 20 GB of free space on your primary OS drive. To get started, head over to http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-8/preview-download and click the purple Get The Update button.

The file you downloaded is a patch that adds support to download Windows 8.1 to the Windows Store app. After the patch is downloaded run it and click through all of the confirmation boxes. When installed, you will be asked to restart your PC.

After your PC is restarted you will be asked to go to the Windows Store to download and install Windows 8.1. If you miss the notification, you can always just click the Windows Store icon on the Start Screen and you can't miss it.

Install Windows 8.1 using ISO files

Using a ISO file can be more destructive than the Windows Store method but is the only way to install Windows 8.1 on brand new hardware or in a virtual machine. Additionally, I always recommend using clean installs instead of upgrades when possible since you typically will experiences less issues.

Visit http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-8/preview-iso to download the appropriate ISO files for your PC. I recommend the 64-bit ISO unless you have very old PC hardware.

Where is the product key?

Windows 8.1 requires new product keys when installing from ISO files. For the preview, you can use NTTX3-RV7VB-T7X7F-WQYYY-9Y92F.

If you want to install from a USB drive instead of a DVD, check out this article:

How to Install Windows 8 ISO from a USB Flash Drive

Physical DVD drives are becoming a thing of the past as the size of our PCs continue shrink and new form factors are emerging. Microsoft distributes Windows Windows 8 on physical discs or images of DVDs called ISO files that are typically burned to physical media. This has become problem as a number of laptops and tablet PCs no longer ship with DVD drives. The best way to install Windows on these devices is to use a USB flash drive that contains the Windows installation files. As an extra benefit, modern USB flash drives are typically much faster than DVDs resulting in a quick install.

Before we get started you will need:

Windows 8 ISO file.
4 GB USB flash drive.

Microsoft has a free utility that will automatically make a bootable USB flash drive from a Windows 8 ISO image file. First, download and install the utility. Don't worry that it says for Windows 7, it works fine for Windows 8 as well.

Download the Microsoft Store Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool, Alternate Link.

Once installed, launch the Windows 7 USB DVD Download Tool from the start menu.

Hit Browse, select your ISO file and then click Next.