Run Windows 8.1 For 90 Days Free

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I wonder if a 90 day test drive would change some people's opinion of Windows 8.1?

For Windows 8 users, the decision to upgrade to 8.1 is virtually a no brainer. But those of you running previous versions of Windows would have to shell out $120 for Windows 8.1 or $200 for Windows 8.1 Pro. Instead, you can install the Enterprise evaluation edition first to see if 8.1 is worth your hard-earned money.
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Why would I want to mess-up a perfectly running Windows 7 Ultimate x64 install? :confused:
 
AceGoober said:
Why would I want to mess-up a perfectly running Windows 7 Ultimate x64 install? :confused:
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Troof. I actually need to wipe a windows 8 laptop and get 7 installed so I can actually get some work done. No thanks to 8.1, free or otherwise....
 
I just switched from Win7pro X64 to Win8.1 on my main rig 2-3 days ago. I like it. Even the "metro ui" is pretty nice and more convenient than the start menu once you figure out how to use it
 
So far I (as well as pretty much everyone I've installed it for) am mostly liking 8.1 and most of the tweaks/changes Microsoft have made are pretty good...

Except for the boneheaded decision to try to force everyone from switching over from a local user account to a Microsoft Account instead.

Now I know the cloud is supposedly here to save us all... but seriously, aside from the fact that my Microsoft account password is a super long string of random characters, digits, and symbols that I can in no way remember every time I wake up my PC, there is just no way I'm saving and syncing *ALL* of my data straight to SkyDrive.

I might use SkyDrive for certain things, but changing the default save location from my hard drive to SkyDrive? Fuck you... And also now apparently you can't easily even *USE* Skydrive without changing your local account to a MS account...

And boy are they intent on forcing that switch. Every time you go to log into an app for the first time they try to switch you to a Microsoft account for everything, and tell you while you *can* login to each app individually (in a very tiny link on the bottom of the window below the big "Switch Your Account to a Microsoft Account" button) they also say that it is "not recommended...."

Obviously this is going to get most people to switch without even realizing what exactly they are doing, and I can pretty much guarantee some blowback on Microsoft over this.

8.1 is nice overall, and even faster than 8 was (and pretty much blows 7 away in real world performance) but shit like this has me considering switching to linux if gaming continues to improve over there.
 
Still trying to get a definitive answer if windows 8-8.1 will show an improvement in games. If that's the case I'll switch, if not then I wont
 
AceGoober said:
Why would I want to mess-up a perfectly running Windows 7 Ultimate x64 install? :confused:
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Yeah this offer is mostly "install this for free, then realize in 90 days what a massive pain in the ass it will be to go back, so just buy it then."

Windows Ransomware :|
 
I'll try it for free...why not?...thanks MS...will install it on a separate hard drive...and then go back to W7 64-bit after the 90 days
 
Aluisious said:
Yeah this offer is mostly "install this for free, then realize in 90 days what a massive pain in the ass it will be to go back, so just buy it then."

Windows Ransomware :|
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Further...this is an Enterprise upgrade install. Good Luck figuring out the licensing to purchase it.
 
I tell everyone to wait 90-days before upgrading to Windows 8.1 from 8.0, Microsoft is notorious for releasing an update too early without allowing hardware vendors to catch up on there drivers to make sure your hardware will work properly under the new os.
 
Tgrove said:
Still trying to get a definitive answer if windows 8-8.1 will show an improvement in games. If that's the case I'll switch, if not then I wont
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Most of the benchmarks don't show a huge gain, but these days benchmarks are pretty much only useful for the guys who want to compare their e-peens with each other...

The tweaks to all the code to make Win8 run on lower end tablet/phone hardware have pretty much made across the board gains in performance. Everything from network traffic to file transfers are quite a bit faster than Windows 7, and the overall "feel" of Win8 is much snappier.

Obviously this will vary by hardware, and I've noticed that older/slower machines show more of a difference, but yeah... 8 is faster. You might not "see" it much in benchmarks (though I'm sure that will continue to change more with newer DX games) but spend some time gaming on Windows 8 and then go back to 7 and it will feel incredibly slow.
 
Skripka said:
Further...this is an Enterprise upgrade install. Good Luck figuring out the licensing to purchase it.
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If it was anything like the last one, it's a trial, but not able to license to unlock the full. It's dead after 90 days. It would require a full reinstall using different media to get everything legit.

I like Windows 8. Our IT dept. has machines and have a pre-installed Windows Start button replacement. I uninstalled that as I can't get any work done with it. With Windows 7, no problem. With Windows 8 and a touch screen, it just really got in the way. I had to toss it. Same with my home desktop and laptop (and soon to be Surface), I have Metro as my main launch menu... It's far from perfect, but with 8, it works great.
 
Running Windows 7 with an SSD cache on a Haswell and 760, I don't think I'd be able to tell if it was faster on 8 anyway.

I gave up on overclocking after I realized with my 920 that I couldn't tell the difference.
 
I was seriously expecting MS to re-open the $40 upgrade system for a week or two as hype for the 8.1 launch.

They should have... all digital distribution = plenty of cash for MS and massive incentive for people to just get the switch done now.

They need adoption numbers, especially with the interface change. Got to get enough people using the new interface that it becomes the norm rather than the oddity.
 
anyone can tell me what would be the points to upgrade to 8.1 , if i m already on 8.
never had a problem of no start button on the desktop.
and don t have a dx 11.2 vid card.
 
maboblivion said:
anyone can tell me what would be the points to upgrade to 8.1 , if i m already on 8.
never had a problem of no start button on the desktop.
and don t have a dx 11.2 vid card.
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I think of it as Windows 8 service pack 1
 
maboblivion said:
anyone can tell me what would be the points to upgrade to 8.1 , if i m already on 8.
never had a problem of no start button on the desktop.
and don t have a dx 11.2 vid card.
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Better search features, can use the same wallpaper on the start screen as your desktop, better start screen organization, etc.. The Start Button is just an image in the corner, no big deal. It's a minor upgrade. Nothing to lose, a little to gain.
 
There was a 8.1 evaluation that came out in June, is this different somehow? RTM code instead of beta code maybe?

The other 8.1 preview was okay. Boot to desktop combined with using the start button to get to the all-applications list instead of live tiles made it tolerable. It still felt like the OS was fighting hard to be a mobile device though. :rolleyes:
 
Mr. Perfect said:
There was a 8.1 evaluation that came out in June, is this different somehow? RTM code instead of beta code maybe?
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yes I think the Release Preview was still beta while this Enterprise version is the final code version
 
TMCM said:
I just switched from Win7pro X64 to Win8.1 on my main rig 2-3 days ago. I like it. Even the "metro ui" is pretty nice and more convenient than the start menu once you figure out how to use it
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Same here!

I was a hater of the Metro UI initially then I upgraded to 8.1 and now I have to say, I really enjoy it. The UI is visually appealing and provides me instant info on the applications that I have chosen to keep in front of me at all times.

There are some cool steam apps that display live tiles for your most played Steam games showing stats while allowing you to launch with a click.

When you want the traditional W7 dektop experience just press the Windows key/click desktop/or Alt+tab and you're back in familiar terriroty.

Overall I'm pleased with the experience. The OS was using ~GB at the time of install which is less than my Hitman & Skyrim install which is pretty funny..


In short - Outside of the Metro UI everything else is identical. I'm not aware of any functionality I lost as a result of the upgrade.

MS added a full-screen start menu (Metro), decreased resource usage, decreased HDD usage, and decreased boot time.

From what I've seen I gained a few frames in my games upgrading from W7 to W8.1 but nothing too significant. being able to hit the Win key to display the Metro UI mid-game is pretty cool too. Even in FS mode, no borderless required.
 
Advil said:
I was seriously expecting MS to re-open the $40 upgrade system for a week or two as hype for the 8.1 launch.
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This is exactly what I was anticipating. If they would have done adoption/upgrade incentive pricing like they did at 8.0 launch, I'd have upgraded my Win 7 64-Bit Ult license.

At $120 ($199 for pro), I'll pass. I have no use for metro and I'd be booting directly to the desktop anyway. I'll save the money for 5 to 10 steam winter sale games.
 
I thought about downloading the ISO and installing on a spare PC until I saw the hoops MS wants me to jump through. No thanks!
 
FML. My laptop was running perfect on Windows 8 but after the 8.1 update it keeps spitting out false disk error notifications. Chkdsk and BIOS disk diagnostic comes up clean.
 
Microsoft should just have an advertising campaign consisting of white billboards with big black letters spelling out the words "BUY THIS SHIT, ALREADY!!! 7 IS SO OLD!!!!"
 
Battlefield 4 Beta ran a lot better on Win 8 64 than Win 7 64. To see if it this performance boost will hold true for the final release, installing this free 90 day copy of Win 8.1 64 will allow you to evaluate it on your home system. So now nobody has an excuse for neglecting to test their own hardware to see how much better Win 8.1 64 runs.

Thx Steve for the link. :)
 
mi7chy said:
FML. My laptop was running perfect on Windows 8 but after the 8.1 update it keeps spitting out false disk error notifications. Chkdsk and BIOS disk diagnostic comes up clean.
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Did you reset your install? I had to reinstall 8.1 to clear up some drivers not surviving the transition to 8.1.
 
wrugoin said:
This is exactly what I was anticipating. If they would have done adoption/upgrade incentive pricing like they did at 8.0 launch, I'd have upgraded my Win 7 64-Bit Ult license.

At $120 ($199 for pro), I'll pass. I have no use for metro and I'd be booting directly to the desktop anyway. I'll save the money for 5 to 10 steam winter sale games.
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Smart man. Its obnoxious that they'd ask $120-$199 for an upgrade to an OS that is then loaded with ads in default search, ads in default apps, defaulted to SkyDrive (to the point it throws errors in the event log if you do not comply with setting it up), and tries to force you into an online Microsoft account so they can peddle their online services easier going forward.

For anyone already on 8.0 I'd suggest staying there, only headaches in 8.1 as its just more MS tightening the noose of getting people into their online services, and the changes are 99% metro related so if you don't have a touchscreen its a misplaced tablet UI that most people tolerate and try to work around (many of the outspoken fans of Win8.1 even admit they 'never see it' which tells you something).
 
cageymaru said:
Battlefield 4 Beta ran a lot better on Win 8 64 than Win 7 64. To see if it this performance boost will hold true for the final release, installing this free 90 day copy of Win 8.1 64 will allow you to evaluate it on your home system. So now nobody has an excuse for neglecting to test their own hardware to see how much better Win 8.1 64 runs.

Thx Steve for the link. :)
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Or just wait until Tuesday for benchmarks flooding all the tech sites. Its doubtful we'll see more than a 5% difference between Win8 and Win7 since they have optimized the Win7 code since the first days of the beta, and people can decide if that small margin is worth $120-$200 for Win8 versus putting that same money toward something more tangible like a GPU upgrade which will net them considerably more performance per dollar.
 
Dildonose said:
I thought about downloading the ISO and installing on a spare PC until I saw the hoops MS wants me to jump through. No thanks!
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I'm thinking about downloading this just to try so that I can decide for myself, although I don't have a touch screen. What hoops are they making you jump through? I don't have a Microsoft account so I would have to make one, but other than that what else would I need to do?
 
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