I was very pleased with the install of Windows 8.1 yesterday. So I will keep my commentary to the product as I have experienced it thus far (very little actual usage).
1. Packaging/shipping: Seemed fine, it was in one of those bubble wrap lined envelopes. Disks were further protected in sleeves within the cardboard box. Packaging is fairly minimal for once, for a two disk purchase this actually didn't have much else besides the cd key card and a quick install guide.
2. Install: I was replacing windows 7 on my wife's HP laptop... so it was full of all the "fun" HP junk addon software. My wife is also decidedly not a computer nerd (like I wish I were good at being) and has not kept things very well tuned or clean from a software/file management perspective. Thus I decided a clean sweep for windows 8 was the way to go. After our previous efforts to back up all important data I started in on the process expecting an evening of effort - instead it literally took minutes. I first popped in the 64bit disc, then restarted the computer and opened up BIOS then told it to boot from the disc drive. It did that and I was able to make a few basic choices (english, US, etc.) before it opened up the list of hard drive partitions. HP drives me nuts with this, they had 4! On a 500gb drive. Anyway, you can delete all the partitions in seconds and you are left with a nice clean drive with nothing on it ready to accept windows. I seem to recall previous "fresh" windows installs involved drive formatting but I assume that wasn't necessary since this was not a new drive. I proceeded to press install... and within minutes, maybe 10? Windows 8 was installed and it asked for wifi info. Plug that in and you're ready to use the computer. Oh you do need a windows account, or at least it asked me to put one in. Luckily my wife had an account already. It shows you as signed in in the top right corner of the home screen.
3. Operating system user experience (after one night): So far so good here. Had to learn where to go for the home button (bottom left) and where to go for the settings etc. (top right). After that... you can flip between the old windows desktop view and the new windows 8 tile view with a press of the windows key or just clicking the appropriate tile/button. Super easy. I installed a number of programs using the normal desktop view - firefox, chrome, dropbox, etc. No issues with any of these. All work fine so far. Finally, I installed VLC media player to play DVDs, and that worked right from the get go. So I guess the windows lack of DVD playing software can't exactly be called a major stumbling block.
So that's about it, I'll update this if I have any weird or negative experiences, but so far all signs are that this will be easy to use and fun to play with both the tile view and the traditional desktop view. If you're looking to keep all your files/settings then you probably want to look at other peoples' reviews to see their experience. I took the files I wanted off earlier, and wiped it clean for a fresh install. For that it was perfect!
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Windows 8.1 - An easy, clean install for me!
It appears that Windows 8.1 nay-sayers are a VERY passionate group, and I *think* Microsoft has actually listened to the gripes and concerns...the version I got actually works pretty well!!I had the opportunity to do a DIY "fix-up" on an old HP Pavillion dv6000 series laptop (swapped out the motherboard, upgraded the CPU from an AMD TL-56 Dual core to an AMD TL-66 Dual core, upped the RAM to 4GB and changed out the HDD to an SSD)...since I have another laptop AND a desktop on Windows 7, I thought I'd go for broke and upgrade the DIY upgraded laptop from Windows Vista to windows 8.1 ...Result: I like it! I did a clean install, and got the default bootup to the desktop without the need for 3rd party software! I've set it up the way *I* like it, (like windows 7) and the only "glitches" I've experienced have been the mouse cursor going invisible after waking up from sleep mode (I am using a wireless mouse) - windows 8 forums show a workaround of left-clicking the mouse immediately after wake-up, and so far it's worked for me.(If Amazon allows my two pictures, I will post...)bottom line - It took me a bit of effort to get the laptop set up the way I like it, and so far it's working fine!
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Nuno Lima Bastos
OEM version, not retail version
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 7, 2014
