How To Skip Product Key When Installing Windows 8
One of the things I quite miss the old way in Windows 7 is to skip the product key input during the installation. I believe there are reasons why Microsoft has put a stop sign on this but there are also valid situations where skipping a product key during the installation also makes sense.
Basically, you will need to extract the files from Windows 8 ISO file, add a file named ei.cfg insources folder, with the following content, and re-wrap up the ISO file. (click here to follow step-by-step how to modify ISO file)
[EditionID]
Core
[Channel]
Retail
[VL]
0
Edition ID can be Core, Professional, or Enterprise, depending on the ISO image file you have. And Channel can be Retail or OEM, while VL can be set to 1 for true or 0 for false.
But I found it will be a lot easier if you have created the bootable USB drive, since you can create and edit the ei.cfg file directly into the USB file system.
Once you have the media ready, you can boot off it to start the installation process again. All steps are the same, until you reach to the point where you put in the product key. Now, you will see there is a Skip button you used to see all the time back to Windows 7 time. Clicking that will lead you to finish up the installation without typing in a valid product key.
/updated on Aug. 11, 2014/
If you have a valid product key for the edition windows you are using, you can add it in thePID.txt file in the \source folder to skip the product key entry step all together.
[PID] Value=XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX
You can reuse the product key in the product ID file for multiple installations. The product key in the product ID file is only used to install Windows. This key is not used to activate Windows.