With all the strange issues with the 8.1 Updates, many people having varying degrees of success, myself included. It is not an easy task, and the solutions, in my case, 4 different computers and ALL of them an upgrade PITA when it comes to 8.1. Only the last one, a pre-UEFI based Acer Aspire but still capable of current network and hard drive/memory support, is giving me the most grief on getting it up. The first laptop, an HP with UEFI was a hard run, learning, searching, finding various solutions, none worked...but I finally did get it to cooperate.

But those issues aside, most people who did not have problems with 8.1 used the full install method, much like I would do with my copy of 8.0 when installing. Except I have to use the "store" method it seems. Or perhaps I am wrong about that. Hence the following question:

Can I use the product keys for Windows 8.0 and subsequent Media Center directly with a Windows 8.1 installation media and install via clearing my drive all together and starting fresh? My impression is no, that I would get a key error at the install stage and cannot continue past it, like I would with 8.0 if the key did not match the hash. I haven't tried as a result of that belief.