Windows 8.1 Professional Versions

Brumfondl:

You can have Upgrade or Full version. For Full Version you can have OEM or Retail. So for a cheaper full version buy an OEM copy.

All that aside, why the hell would you want 8.1 over 10? Windows 10 is what 8 should have ben.

Windows 8 should have been an incontrovertible improvement on Windows 7. Windows 10 Still fails to deliver that. In terms of providing a coherent and polished experience for desktop users, Windows 10 falls way short of 7.

However, I'm not all that concerned about the basic UI stuff. Even Windows 8.1 was always perfectly usable. I hated it at the time, but, in my opinion, 8.1's problems are superficial and utterly trivial compared to 10's. I can put up with not having a start menu, but crippled DX8 support is unacceptable to me.

I've been testing Windows 10 since before it's launch, but I like it even less now than I did when I first began using it. There are many reasons, but the main ones are:

Strike 1: Crippled WU and driver installation control. I object to having to mess with several group policies and a half-baked wushowhide tool just to maintain control over what drivers get installed on my PC. In previous versions of Windows, it was all in a single elegant WU GUI. And now I can't even be sure that those GP settings will still be there from one build to the next - maybe MS suddenly decides that they are enterprise only features and strips them out.

Strike 2: "Windows as a Service". I don't see a constantly evolving OS as being a desirable thing anymore. I don't want to deal with huge, disruptuve build updates every 6 months, breaking things and reverting my settings. I'm more interested in having a stable/predictable OS than always having the latest features - features that I might not even want anyway. Windows 10 is now like the Xbox dashboard; MS can make major changes to whatever it wants, whenever it wants, whether you like it or not. When buying previous Windows versions, you could be pretty sure that you'd have a consistent experience throughout the life of the product. Buying Windows 10, you have no idea what you'll be getting in 2-3 years time.

Strike 3: Lack of proper DX8 support. DX8 titles are forced to run in borderless windowed mode instead of true fullscreen. There's not a single DX12 title that I care about and, judging by current PC gaming trends, there won't be any time soon. There are, however, several DX8 titles that I still run on a regular basis.

I'll probably be using mostly Windows 7 until 2020, but I want to get one (or more) 8.1 Pro retail licenses before they become difficult to find.

1101:basically , you want home/pro 'retail' , not upgrade, not OEM , if you want transfer rights (to be able to uninstall & use on other PC's)

"transfer rights" , exactly what do you mean by that.

Exactly what you just said (to be able to uninstall & use on other PC's).

Oubadah

Brumfondl

1101

Oubadah

1101

Oubadah