Windows 7 support is drawing to an end and i was planning to upgrade to 8 or 8.1 , i was wondering if there was any reason to go to 8 instead of 8.1 , is 8 lighter than 8.1 and less hungry on resources due to lack of features? also some suggestions for aero would be nice aswell.

Well, if you're just using the desktop - and you're not planning to use the Metro apps or the touch environment at all, Windows 8 does provide some benefits over Windows 8.1 that are as follows:

• There are no known telemetry updates in Windows 8 that plague both Windows 7 and Windows 8.1
• Windows 8 does not have any known CPU blocks (which affected update support).  Then again, Windows 8 went out of support in January 2016, so any updates you get will be manually applied from Server 2012 anyway (you can get these from the Microsoft Catalog)
• No GWX Nags!

So you have a Windows version that's fairly modern, and that Microsoft leaves pretty much alone.  You can't run IE 11 (but that hardly matters).  Windows Defender still protects the system with updated definitions.

 

@NoelC and others reported that file system operations are faster in 8 than 8.1.

8.1 was 5% slower than 7, and I believe 8 was quite close to 7.

Edited December 20, 20196 yr by win32

I also created a thread related to this topic. You can find some more information there:

 

biggest issue are drivers for a modern gpu, amd blocks the install of any modern driver, even though it will install ok on windows 7

8 hours ago, greenhillmaniac said:

I also created a thread related to this topic. You can find some more information there:

 

oh thanks , i wasnt aware of this , ill check it out.

15 hours ago, Jody Thornton said:

Well, if you're just using the desktop - and you're not planning to use the Metro apps or the touch environment at all, Windows 8 does provide some benefits over Windows 8.1 that are as follows:

• There are no known telemetry updates in Windows 8 that plague both Windows 7 and Windows 8.1
• Windows 8 does not have any known CPU blocks (which affected update support).  Then again, Windows 8 went out of support in January 2016, so any updates you get will be manually applied from Server 2012 anyway (you can get these from the Microsoft Catalog)
• No GWX Nags!

So you have a Windows version that's fairly modern, and that Microsoft leaves pretty much alone.  You can't run IE 11 (but that hardly matters).  Windows Defender still protects the system with updated definitions.

 

yea i pretty much want to stay more lighter and have a faster ui and hate windows 10 for what it is , ie11 was coming to server 2012 and embedded 8 wasnt it although it doesnt matter.  Do you use any software/registry to enable aero or have any clue how do i get it , thats one of the main concerns right now , i havent been following anything in the windows 8 scene. I think im going to get windows 8 instead of 8.1 because why not right

Edited December 20, 20196 yr by burd

1 hour ago, burd said:

Do you use any software/registry to enable aero or have any clue how do i get it

https://glass8.eu/download

3 hours ago, UCyborg said:

https://glass8.eu/download

thank you

On 12/20/2019 at 10:48 PM, burd said:

There are no known telemetry updates in Windows 8 that plague both Windows 7 and Windows 8.1

I upgraded two times to Windows 8.1, didn't like them and reverted to Windows 8, others may disagree but I think the mentioned reason is good enough to go with Windows 8.

On 12/24/2019 at 2:05 AM, HarryTri said:

I upgraded two times to Windows 8.1, didn't like them and reverted to Windows 8, others may disagree but I think the mentioned reason is good enough to go with Windows 8.

well im having issues with updating it to the latest by windows update (2016) , once updates are done and it reboots it just gets stuck on the loading circle with oem logo and nothing happens , if i do 1-2 updates at a time it seems to load successfully but im not sure if i have enough time to waste on that 

I was about to join in the fun and rollback from Windows 8.1 to Windows 8 Pro. I did so successfully last week with the retail version I purchased years ago. But I did a reinstall after an errant driver hosed the OS and now Microsoft said it won't activate and I must upgrade. Anybody else have this issue?

On 5/28/2020 at 12:05 PM, Dibya said:

Everyone thinks 7 is holy os because it just came after Vista and is easy to use .

Also because Vista was just too ahead of its time, and had a far too damaged reputation by the time SP1/2 had ironed out most of the early launch issues. Doesn't help there was crap like the NVIDIA 8600M (which I'd had the displeasure of dealing with) and Pentium Dual-Cores.

There is zero reason to use Windows 8 over 8.1. 8.1's telemetry can be disabled, and GWX hasn't been a thing for a long a** time now. Trust me. I've pored over articles on this to be sure, and I've also been using 8.1 as my workhorse OS of choice for a fair few years now. It's as good as 7 was if you configure it right, and it runs perfectly stable and light with all the features one would need out of it, save for DirectX 12 and some missing newer drivers that are also in 10.

If you need really old driver support, I HIGHLY recommend that you just stick to 7 or below, or even run Linux. While 8.1 runs very well, it's obviously not going to work for ancient systems, nor was it intended to, nor is it the best OS to run such.

Edited December 4, 20205 yr by AeroSeeker

2 hours ago, AeroSeeker said:

There is zero reason to use Windows 8 over 8.1. 8.1's telemetry can be disabled, and GWX hasn't been a thing for a long a** time now. Trust me. I've pored over articles on this to be sure, and I've also been using 8.1 as my workhorse OS of choice for a fair few years now. It's as good as 7 was if you configure it right, and it runs perfectly stable and light with all the features one would need out of it, save for DirectX 12 and some missing newer drivers that are also in 10.

If you need really old driver support, I HIGHLY recommend that you just stick to 7 or below, or even run Linux. While 8.1 runs very well, it's obviously not going to work for ancient systems, nor was it intended to, nor is it the best OS to run such.

Except CPU blocking due to some updates.  Those don't affect Windows 8, while using Server 2012 patches.