I reinstalled Win 8 on my new laptop last night and it automatically went out and installed 8.1 Update.
However now the damn thing thinks its installed on a new machine and won’t activate unless I call MS. I called MS three times and each time I was placed in the phone queue only to get hung up on after a few mins.
Grrrr.
Yes, that is one part they are attempting to gloss over. In effect, even though most of the coding remains the same, you have basically installed a new OS. It looks pretty much the same and works essentially the same... but you now need to re-do the same Verification That You Are Not A Software Thief with this action rather than proceeding with a regular Security Patch on a functional installation.
New installers simply need to be aware not to install any version previous to 8.1 Update so as not to have to do more than one install-then-verify on their machine(s).
Even worse, from what I’ve read, any purchases you made from the Microsoft App Store are tied to the original activation, so you won’t be able to reinstall them once you’ve upgraded.
This is based on comments I’ve read, not first-hand experience, so caveat emptor.