Problem with a Dell tablet

tinpanalley · April 4, 2020

Ok, I need advice, I have no idea what to do...

I have a Dell Venue 8 Pro that's still in great shape. Hardware works beautifully.

I bought it when it came out and it had problems, they were know at the time so Dell offered to fix it for me on warranty, they did, I got a new Product Key with that repair. It ran 8.1.

When Windows10 came out they were talking about how the tablet would upgrade fine. So, myself and several others upgraded to 10.

Turns out 10 didn't run so fine, slowness issues, network adapter bugs, etc so several of us contacted Dell (this was about 4 years ago) and Dell told me, "we're sorry... here, take this free flash drive and special OTG adapter and it will let you flash back to what it was when you bought it". I didn't do it right away, left it on Windows10, but I decided this week since I had turned it into a full time reader and web search device for the coffee table that I just wanted 8.1 on there. So much faster, super fast and smooth. So, I flashed back the stock install they gave me.

...it won't recognise the Product Key. Windows says it's not their fault and can't validate for me because Dell made the special tablet version of 8.1, Dell says I'm out of my warranty, and Microsoft can't sell me an 8.1 license anymore. Somehow in this cluster#uck of companies abandoning their customers, I've fallen in a hole nobody wants to help me out of.

I just want 8.1 running on here and licensed. Nothing more. Any ideas what I can do?