Upgrade to Windows 8.1?

March 26, 2015 9:05 AM

My Dell desktop has Win 8 (with Classic Shell). I can download Win 8.1 for free from the Windows Store. Requesting pros and cons for doing this, please.
posted by lungtaworld to Computers & Internet (8 answers total)

Best answer: Personally, 8.1 was an improvement over 8 in every way. I'd recommend upgrading.
posted by Pogo_Fuzzybutt at 9:08 AM on March 26, 2015 [3 favorites]

Best answer: No real cons.

8.1 fixes many, many things wrong with Win 8.

Think of it as a service pack so large they actually had to increment the version number.
posted by Oktober at 9:09 AM on March 26, 2015 [3 favorites]

Best answer: Go ahead and upgrade, I think it's an across the board improvement. If it fails to upgrade and falls back to 8.0, you might have to check that all your device-specific drivers are up to date before doing the upgrade again (I had this experience on another device).

-Nick
posted by nickggully at 9:11 AM on March 26, 2015

Best answer: If you're using Classic Shell, then 8.1 should be an upgrade to your liking. I can't think of any cons for you.
posted by Aleyn at 9:19 AM on March 26, 2015 [1 favorite]

In my experience, there are exactly zero ways in which 8.1 is worse than 8.0.
posted by jeather at 9:45 AM on March 26, 2015

Response by poster: Thanks all! All pro's so am going ahead!
posted by lungtaworld at 9:52 AM on March 26, 2015 [1 favorite]

Actually you will probably be just as well off upgrading to windows 10 technical preview. It's reached a very stable state and the upgrade is free now and in the future. Microsoft
posted by ptm at 9:17 PM on March 26, 2015

Response by poster: Update: I'm writing this on the upgraded Windows 8.1 computer. All went very smoothly and I can recommend that this is the way to go.
PTM's idea is OK but means dealing with an ISO.
Thanks again!
posted by lungtaworld at 11:46 AM on March 27, 2015