I'm thinking of finally upgrading to windows 8.1 along with an SSD. I will be adding Start8 and disabling all the charms and such. I want to know who out there has it and what their honest opinions are on it. Should I upgrade from 7? I have heard that its faster and almost better once you tweak it. Any input would be great.
-Please do not post here unless you actually are running windows 8.1
To be honest, there really isn't a huge difference, and I haven't noticed any realy performance differences. I use StartIsBack, and it really just feels like 7 but with a couple of changes.
Unless you can get it cheap, I don't really think it's worth the upgrade.
Or really worth the upgrade in the first place.
Personally, I like a lot of the changes made in Windows 8. I use StartIsBack as well and I really like it. For me, especially on my laptop, Windows 8 is way faster, especially booting up. I'm done booting in less than 30 seconds with a 5400RPM drive and a fair amount of programs on start up.
Some games do perform better in Windows 8 as well and as it is newer you will see support for longer.
With 8.1 it not as jarring switching around between desktop and metro. Honestly while i think it performs decently, Metro represents a huge security risk through the app store. Spam ads and crappy apps still makes it not worth anything. If you stay away from metro its almost passible. Since it was free, its okay i guess. If i had to pay for it, i would just go back to 7.
I kind of agree with that. But i will never use linux til they come up with good general driver support with a decent ease of use for gaming.
I can't find anything in WIndows 8. Windows 7 is a lot easier to use.
As far as the rest is concerned: there is no difference, Windows 8 has a bit less functionality, but will become slow and bloated just the same as Windows 7.
The unholy trinity of major Windows handicaps has not even been addressed, and Microsoft is never going to address them:
1. No free stepless GUI Scaling: make Windows almost impossible to use on modern monitors, this is something that open source operating systems have had since like forever, but in Windows, it's still impossible to make a nice monitor look good.
2. No decent filesystem: Windows still uses FAT and NTFS, which is just ridiculous. It kills all performance, has no features, and messes up the data on the storage big time. It also makes storage incredibly expensive.
3. No decent security: Windows is still just a collection of malware with no preventive security features whatsoever, no trustworthy software repository, no trustworthy drivers in the kernel, no transparency in the code, no zero-day patching, highly unreliable software full of bugs that are easy to exploit, etc...
There are much more problems than that with Windows, but regardless of the use case scenario and the skill of the user, these are the three main dealbreakers that make it impossible to sensibly use Windows at all. Why invest extra in yet another 100-250 USD dose of the the same, when you already have a W7 license? It's just throwing away money...
For me, I love it for work, (wedding DJ) I HATE it at home.
I have tested Thief on win 7,8 and 8.1 which is the smoothest one. However windows 8.1 has mouse bug, here is the fix http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2908279
I like it. It is really fast and with Classic Start Menu from Shell it is just like Win 7. I boot directly boot to the Desktop and haven't used the tile menu since October 2013.
One Con though, with my WINDOWS 8 certified board it runs great, with a old board you have to disable fast boot in the "msconfig" thing or it will take forever.
I think I'm gonna try it out. If I dont like it I'll just switch back. Thanks everyone for the input, really helps. Btw I would switch to linux but I mostly play games so it would just cause unnecessary hassles.
Maybe the screen splitting?
This will be my first post on TSF. I know you've already made your decision, but I would like to share some of my views on this issue. If you use a lot of keyboard shortcuts - like I do - and you're not too concerned with Windows 7 features like Shadow Copy, then I see no reason not to use Windows 8.1. I've removed almost all the metro apps, I use the start screen sort of like a quick launch menu and I use a local account (since I have no interest in using OneDrive or syncing my settings).
To me, Windows 8.1 feels a lot smoother than Windows 7 and the new explorer is such a great experience to work that I will not hesitate to recommend it to anyone. You also have to bear in mind that Microsoft will probably force you to upgrade to the Windows 8 family of operating systems in order to use DirectX 12.
Thanks for the response. I think I will be using it like you. I'm going to be disabling all the metro/ charms crap and using either Startisback or Start8. Another reason for me switching is my work enviornment. Now I will be using this at home but I work in an IT department and we are starting to get windows 8 related problems/ solutions. So I think having it at home will sort of "make me learn it". I'm tired of being afraid of it, so to speak.
Well its going to piss you off . Any of the that old hardware that you reuse, just throw it out the window. Its not gonna work right from this point on. Printers ,old bluetooth, mice , wify adapters, stuff like that. Window is going to cram their drivers and supported products down your throat. Its possible to get some of these things working okay but its not going work smoothly.
There is really no reason to upgrade if you already have a working copy of 7. 8.1 without startisback is really not that different than windows 7. Once you learn where everything is you don't really miss the start button and if you use metro correctly it can even speed you up a little in the long run.
I'm up for the challenge. Also all my stuff is like 7 months old. I think it'll be ok.
Ya, dont get me wrong. Its really nothing all that bad for a teck savy person, just annoying. My wifi still doesnt work right( tv tuner, bluetooth). I got them working just not correctly. Windows, insist i use their drivers. My logitech mouse now works correctly tho:)~
Yeah I mostly use my pc at home for gaming/ media consumption. I don't think I'll run into any problems that make it unusable. Although my little USB wifi adapter has me worried, but it was like a $20 investment so its no sweat if it doesn't work.
You're pretty spot-on about it not really being that much different from Windows 7 below the surface. Some of the more enterprisey features like Shadow Copy is severely lacking in Windows 8.1 Pro and Windows 7 generally does have much better driver support.
If you have an old HP printer, I'm pretty sure that HP has a Windows 8.1 driver for it, my LaserJet is 7 years old and HP still makes new drivers for it, so it runs just fine on my system. My Canon CanoScan Lide 25 (also 7+ years old) also works on Windows 8.1 (weirdly enough it accepts the Windows 7 drivers). I tend to stick to things that already have "built-in" drivers like USB soundcards, since an unstable driver is just another point of failure in your system.
At the end of the day, one needs to try Windows 8/8.1 for oneself and see how you feel about it. In my opinion, it's not bad at all, but as AC1DSKU11pointed out, if you already have Windows 7, there really is no rush to upgrade. I had Windows 7 Home Premium and I got the Windows 8 Pro upgrade quite cheaply so that's why I use it.
As a university student in Germany you get 2 Windows licences for free (2xWin7, 2xWin8) which is pretty much the only reason why I am using it. I wouldn't pay for an upgrade that not really different from Win7.
Startisback is a must-have!