Upgrade from Windows 8 Enterprise Eval? Nope

After publishing my series of Windows 8 upgrade tips, a few readers contacted me about the Windows 8 Enterprise Evaluation (Eval) version. Does this eval version of Windows 8 support any kind of upgrade, even a partial migration?

The answer, as it turns out, is no. And to be fair, Microsoft said as much when it announced the Windows 8 Enterprise eval back in August.

“You won’t be able to ‘upgrade’ this evaluation version to a non-eval version at a later date, I noted in Get Windows 8 Now. “Because it’s Enterprise edition, you will see some features that you will not be able to access in the future when you install a mainstream, retail version of Windows 8 Core or Pro. And you must register when you install the software and sign in with a Microsoft account.”

Still, the screen you get during Setup is somewhat priceless.

Nothing for you!!

For comparison’s sake, check out the similar screenshots from Windows 8 Tip: Upgrade from Windows 7, Windows 8 Tip: Upgrade from Windows XP, Windows 8 Tip: Upgrade from Windows Vista, and Windows 8 Tip: Upgrade from the Release Preview. 

UPDATE: Someone asked whether this type of “upgrade” would still create the windows.old folder structure from which you could retrieve documents and other files from the previous install. The answer is yes. That said, I strongly recommend backing up everything before performing this kind of operation, just in case.