Installing Windows 8 on my device

[ChristopherED]

I am planing to completely format my device and install windows 8, just to test.

My question is that if I plan to go back to Windows 10, after installing it will it automatically activate or not?

because i heard that the product key is imprented on the bios?

For me cloning the device is not an option, because I tried it once before and made many corruptions.

so will after a complete formate and installing the same os (windows 10 64bit) will it activate automatically?

[WAWood · Accepted solution]

ChristopherED

While many folks will tell you that, since you had previously activated your PC with Win10, it will automatically reactivate, the actual truth of the matter is that no one really knows!  I went through a similar experience with a laptop and it did NOT reactivate.  It SHOULD reactivate, but there are no guarantees.

The safest thing to do is, as you mentioned, doing an image backup prior to the switch.  I know you had problems doing this previously, but my recommendation is using Macrium Reflect to do it.

Macrium Reflect (MR) provides a FREE version that can be used to image and restore partitions or entire drives: http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.aspx

What I recommend is the following:
1) Download and install Macrium Reflect (MR)
2) Run MR and choose the option: "Create an image of the partition(s) required to backup and restore Windows" to write a full backup to an external drive or USB stick
3) Use the option to create a boot USB stick or CD

My experience is that MR, when using the High Compression option, typically can compress the saved image file to about 50% of the USED space in the OS partition. This means if you have an 80GB OS partition, and 40GB is used, MR only needs about 20GB to store the image file.

Good Luck