Should I make the move from Win 7 to Win 8.1?

Currently I am stuck with Win 7 mainly because it just works and I don't have to mess with the changes in windows 8. However I am interested in working with windows phone 8 for a hobby project and therefore I am considering the upgrade. Have any of you had any insightful experiences with Windows 8? Better to wait for Win 10 or go for an upgrade now?

- Any trouble with programs/games not working?
- Which is better for C# and web development?

Thanks for your help, thoughts and ideas. I hope it might be helpful to others as well

 

I'm actually a Linux user and have never used extensively any version of Windows succeeding XP. Still, I would ideally wait for Win10 to be out since it's being said that this new version will bring major improvements and a much better performance to the table. But if you're really in a hurry, I would suggest to install Win 8 in a different partition, i.e. go for a dual boot system (with one OS as Win 7 and the other as 8).
I opened a thread some time back where I'm eager to listen what users around the world have to say about Mac, Win and Linux - https://forums.digitalpoint.com/threads/mac-windows-or-linux-which-is-the-best-why.2743313/. Would love to hear what you gotta say.

Hope this helps.

 

Most computer technicians I personally know told me the windows 8.1 is very stable. so there won't be problem upgrading..

 

All that I have heard about Win8 from friends, colleagues, etc., is to stay far away from it. Win10 is going to be a free upgrade for Win7 and higher, so I would suggest waiting for that release.

 

I am also stuck with windows 7. I am a Wordpress developer and Graphics designer. Is there any chance of facing problem, if I upgrade to windows 8.

 

There is always a chance....

Thanks for all the other feedback though. I used to dualboot linux before but ended up with some issues, not sure if it was the bootloader or what but yea, just a bad experience. Might look into it again though, might be the best way to at least try win 8.1.

 

The earlier versions of Linux were a bit troublesome when used with Win on the same system. However, the problem has been worked out with newer versions. I use Ubuntu 10.10 along with Win XP and sometimes 7. By default, the GRUB bootloader that comes inbuilt with Ubuntu controls all partitions on my disk perfectly and there is seldom any trouble loading multiple OSes. I guess you either need to change your current bootloader or switch to a newer version of Linux.

 

Instead of doing a dual boot you could try virtualizing Windows 8.1 using Oracle's VirtualBox. It would be much simpler and you could run multiple OSes on one machine at the same time. It is really nice. And it is free.

 

That's actually a very good idea but with virtualization, I guess you can't use your hardware resources completely.

 

If you are playing video games or doing fancy video rendering or other things that require large amounts of sustained computing power, no, you probably would not want to use virualization. For most other things it is fine. It is much simpler than doing a dual boot.

 

You're right. I use Virtualbox in Linux; Ubuntu 10.10 is the host OS whereas WinXP is the guest one. There are some games and applications like AutoCAD, Maya, Dreamweaver, Photoshop etc. that run *exclusively* on Windows and require the complete hardware capacity of my PC (- even that falls short a lot of times now ). That's why I prefer a dual-boot machine. There's, however, another solution I use - the WINE or the Windows emulator which simulates a Windows environment on a non-Win platform. 85-90% of the popularly used games and apps are known to run on WINE in Linux without any troubles. However, sometimes, there are still a lot of compatibility issues – the screen won't display properly or graphics won't be rendered as effectively as they appear in Win, esp. for games and video-editing/encoding apps. So, the only way out for me is to use a dual-boot.

 

I wasn't aware that Win 10 will be a free upgrade, that's good to know!
I think Win 7 is a great OS, especially after the Vista disaster. I'm in absolutely no hurry to move on right now.