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Share your Microsoft Windows 8.1 experience


noobie91

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51 minutes ago, Jody Thornton said:

Are you talking about hardware configuration?  Use?  Problems?  What exactly are you wanting to hear about?

Does it count if I use Windows 8, as opposed to 8.1?

Well, maybe, because Windows 8 and 8.1 are mostly the same.

BTW, I had created topics like this on the Windows Vista, XP and 7 forums (check them out if you have not already), so this nice guy created such a topic on this Windows 8.x forum for me. Maybe he's talking about all (hardware config you use 8/8.1 on, how you use it, etc.etc., the more details the better)

Also BTW, I used Windows 8.1 after moving from Win7 on my secondary laptop for 3 months, after which I handed that laptop to my brother (specs: Dell Inspiron 15 3567, i3-6006u, 4 GB DDR4-2400 MHz RAM, Toshiba 1 TB 5400rpm HDD) when I received my Latitude e5420 which I currently use as my main machine and which I have Windows Vista on. The Inspiron still has Windows 8.1 and it is superfast!! 

I also have Windows 8.1 installed on a cheap MacBook Air clone that had 4 GB of non-upgradable RAM, a 32 GB eMMC SSD and a Pentium n4200 that officially supports Windows 10 only (not even Linux, so you might be guessing how crappy it was), and oh boy, it was S L U G G I S H with Windows 10 on it!!!! But somehow I got Windows 8.1 working with most drivers installed (I see around 10 question marks in Device Manager) and now it has become usable for basic tasks!!

I've also tried Windows 8 on a VM and it is very good, the only thing I hate about it is the crappy start screen. Also, Windows 8 is faster than 8.1 by 5% IMO. I also think that the Metro UI is better organised in Windows 8.x than in Win10, where the desktop and tablet-style UI's are combined into one whole interface that is just FisherPrice-looking nonsense as opposed to Windows 8.x where the desktop and tablet-style UI's were separated.

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I have seen those topics for Vista and other OSs; that's what prompted me to ask for clarification.  Well, here goes:

I use an HP xw8600 PC (which looks like my old xw8200, but it's a tad beefier), and it contains

Two Intel Xeon Core2 Quad 3.2 GHz Processors

16 GB DDR2 800 MHz Memory

nVidia Quadro FX 3800 PCI-E Video Adapter

Realtek HD Audio Adapter (Integrated)

Two Seagate Cheetah 300 GB SAS Disks (15 K RPM)

Two CPU Fans and a Larger Case Fan for cooling

Two LSI 3000 SAS Adapters

Samsung SyncMaster 213T 21" 4x3 Flat Screen (at 1600x1200 resolution)

I have my system configured with Classic Shell to, not only provide a Start Menu, but to conceal the Metro Start Screen.  For browsing, I use Waterfox G3.0.2 (based on Firefox ESR 78.6)  I run Softmaker Office 2016 for productivity.  Superfetch is disabled, but Prefetch isn't.  I've integrated Windows Mail and Calendar from Vista to be used on Windows 8.  In a few weeks, I'm replacing Windows Mail with Interlink Mail and News.

I had used Vista x64 SP2 for two years between February 2014 to December 2015.  I was going to migrate to Windows 8.1 after installing it and setting it up on a friend's PC.  I initially hated Windows 8x because of the common excuses: Metro, flat looks, no Start Menu, yada yada.  Except the more I configured his system, the more I really enjoyed using the desktop portion of Windows 8.1  It ran exceptionally smooth.  So I decided to move to it.  But on my xw8200, the netburst Xeon I was running could not boot Windows 8.1 x64.  However, Windows 8 x64 DID boot, so I settled on that instead.

I finally settled on a newer machine to run with it, and couldn't be happier.  I use Server 2012 security patches to maintain the system with.

System.jpg?psid=1&width=761&height=559

Edited by Jody Thornton
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Alright, here is my take on this:

I use Windows 8.1 since 2014. initialy I used Windows 8.0 on my laptop in 2012, but that was horrible... I only have 1 sample pc, so I can’t say that windows 8.0 is bad, but it ran super awful on that laptop. I was actually hating on windows 8 in 2013, because I didn’t like the metro ui (pretty ironic, because now that’s one of the main things I like about it).

My main pc is now running Windows 8.1 with these specs:

Ryzen 5 1600x

32GB DDR4 3 200mhz

500gb nvme ssd

rtx 2060 (soon upgrading to rtx 3060 Ti)

 

it is running well. Even though, that no official Windows 8.1 ryzen driver exists. This just shows, how good of an operating system windows 8.1 really was. My bloated os boots in 6 seconds. I have around 20 apps, that starts with the os. I had more bsod with windows 7 in 2 years than I had with Windows 8.1 in 6. Now let me get to something else. My mom has this office laptop that she uses for online shopping etc... it has pentium n4200 and it is more than slow on windows 10. How did you guys managed to get Windows 8.1 on that?

Thanks

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49 minutes ago, Jaguarek62 said:

My mom has this office laptop that she uses for online shopping etc... it has pentium n4200 and it is more than slow on windows 10. How did you guys managed to get Windows 8.1 on that?

Thanks

I never thought I would get Windows 8.1 up and running without noticable bugs on that laptop and was actually astonished when it was successfully installed with all the very essential drivers. I got through the install (using a USB 2.0 flash drive and a USB 2.0 port) somehow without BSOD and later installed GPU, audio, wifi etc. Drivers through driver booster (I know it caused issues for you but not for me in this case). I was surprised at how a Windows 10 Intel HD graphics 505 driver successfully installed on Windows 8.1!!

Also, that laptop has only 32GB of internal storage, so no updates. 

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Just now, Win10-Hater said:

I never thought I would get Windows 8.1 up and running without noticable bugs on that laptop and was actually astonished when it was successfully installed with all the very essential drivers. I got through the install (using a USB 2.0 flash drive and a USB 2.0 port) somehow without BSOD and later installed GPU, audio, wifi etc. Drivers through driver booster (I know it caused issues for you but not for me in this case). I was surprised at how a Windows 10 Intel HD graphics 505 driver successfully installed on Windows 8.1!!

Also, that laptop has only 32GB of internal storage, so no updates. 

Gotta try that. Mom has 8gb ram model and 128gb ssd, but it is still soooo slow.

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19 minutes ago, Win10-Hater said:

I never thought I would get Windows 8.1 up and running without noticable bugs on that laptop and was actually astonished when it was successfully installed with all the very essential drivers. I got through the install (using a USB 2.0 flash drive and a USB 2.0 port) somehow without BSOD and later installed GPU, audio, wifi etc. Drivers through driver booster (I know it caused issues for you but not for me in this case). I was surprised at how a Windows 10 Intel HD graphics 505 driver successfully installed on Windows 8.1!!

Also, that laptop has only 32GB of internal storage, so no updates. 

These are the devices that have no drivers

There are these many q.ms in devmgmt.png

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4 hours ago, Win10-Hater said:

I never thought I would get Windows 8.1 up and running without noticable bugs on that laptop and was actually astonished when it was successfully installed with all the very essential drivers. I got through the install (using a USB 2.0 flash drive and a USB 2.0 port) somehow without BSOD and later installed GPU, audio, wifi etc. Drivers through driver booster (I know it caused issues for you but not for me in this case). I was surprised at how a Windows 10 Intel HD graphics 505 driver successfully installed on Windows 8.1!!

Also, that laptop has only 32GB of internal storage, so no updates. 

Wanted to addon: The graphics driver successfully installed but there is an issue that prevents the changing of screen resolutions, so on my Macbook Air clone the display can only show content on it in 1366*768 resolution {max. supported resolution}, so this is not a really big issue. 

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