Windows 8.1 Pro - 64-bit - OEM

Pros: If you use a tablet the interface is nice.

Cons: For the rest of us that still are in a business environment I believe Microsoft is going in the wrong direction. I don't need a touch interface, way too much hand holding, some apps will open in app mode or desktop mode depending where they are open from. Organization in the "Start Menu" is very lacking. No option to get a normal Start Menu but thanks for giving me a button that sends me to the meto interface because that is really what I wanted when I asked for a start button <sarcasm>. You have to now hunt for the power off as putting it under the start menu didn't seem right to Microsoft. I could go on but why. Microsoft doesn't listen to me.

Overall Review: Great for tables, not so great for desktops. As stable as Win 7. Interface very quirky. If I had a choice I wouldn't use it especially in a business environment.

Pros: After getting used to the new touchscreen based system that it is, a lot of the things that power users with advanced knowledge use are pretty much a few clicks away. Wicked easy to uninstall things. Synchronization with your Microsoft account is cool too (see Other Thoughts!)

Cons: Like I said, you have to get used to the touch screen based OS. The apps! I uninstalled about 90% of the apps, as they all seemed quite useless to me.

Overall Review: If you already have a Microsoft Account before installing Windows 8.1, for some reason, it made me want to redo my password right off the bat. Just thought I would prepare you for that.

Pros: It is a little faster than windows 7, and the operating system is an incremental increase in most ways.

Cons: Metro screen on no touch screen device. The menus are jarring and can get confusing for users coming from previous microsoft operating systems. Devices that worked in WIndows 7 may not work in Windows 8

Overall Review: I have wanted to comment of Windows 8, now 8.1 for some time. This is the first time I have purchased the system outright. If you do not have a tablet, and you need a better start menu. Go pick one up on line. I use Classic Shell - it is free. Microsoft try to be revolutionary, but that is something that they have never done well. Think about Vista and ME. When they make small but continuous changes, then you get operating systems that work - 95, 98, XP and 7. It is not in their DNA to do otherwise. I suspect Windows 9 or whatever it will be called, will be a lot better, when it comes out. Really this is a good operating system otherwise. Most people want to complain about it, instead work with or around it. There is one complaint that I do have. It is the driver situation. Some legacy devices get passed by in the upgrade cycles. I have Digital Voice Recorder that works on XP. It sill functions, but you can use it on Vista, 7 or 8. Its big brother works on Vista and 7, but not on 8. This is just wrong. A device that worked on previous systems should find legacy support. I know that the manufactures have something to do with this as well. Yet, the operating system can address this just like it does for software. As it is.

Pros: Very fast OS on new hardware. Supports SSDs and USB 3.0 natively. Boots quickly. The Task Manager and multi-monitor support is significantly better than how it was in Windows 7. Microsoft includes a PDF reader by default (FINALLY), and it works quite well. In general, my games run better in 8.1 than they did in 7. I do not experience the reported "mouse lag" that some review sites have claimed to see (note that it may have already been fixed when I started using the OS). The new modern (Metro) interface isn't a complete cluster once you get used to it being there. If you watch some people use Metro on YouTube, you can quickly figure out what the basic moves are in order to get work done (mousing to the corners, getting the charms bar to appear, right-click menus in Metro apps, etc.). I won't call the interface good, as it is definitely not. No... Instead, I would describe it as... tolerable, and nearly completely avoidable anyways. Windows 8.1 allows you to boot directly to the Desktop. Pretty much the only things I actually use Metro for is to view PDFs and to hit the windows key and type a command to execute. To shut down and do other useful things without going into Metro, you can right-click the Windows taskbar logo in the bottom left (where the start button used to be). It brings up a right-click context menu for things like control panel, shutdown, etc. Once I discovered that, I became much more mellow about the switch from Windows 7. One neat thing that I use Metro for is to open up a PDF file in one window, and then tile it to have two apps running side-by-side. I can then run the desktop as a second "app" on the other side. It reminds me of an old-school tiling window manager. My graphics drivers are fixed in this version of Windows! (See other thoughts -- very important!)

Cons: What can be said that already hasn't been said. The new interface is poorly designed for machines that do not have a touch screen. There is very little continuity, few (if any) instructions on how to use the new interface, leaving users feeling lost and powerless, and next to no context. Microsoft boasts about how Windows 8.1 can run up to 4 Modern (Metro) apps at once in split screen mode, if your monitor is large enough. Wow. Color me impressed. The largest and most important con is Microsoft's insistence on using their online services. If you are connected to the internet during OS installation in any way, it will default to asking you to create/sign in using a Microsoft account and use that account to sign in to your PC. You - CAN - still use local accounts, but they have made it much more annoying to get to than it needs to be. It will appear as if installation can't continue unless you sign in to a Microsoft account. There appears no way to use local accounts from these screens. TO USE LOCAL ACCOUNTS - Before Windows setup, disconnect your machine from the internet. It will not ask you to use a Microsoft account when creating your users if you do this. If you get stuck on the MS account signin stuff and you do not want to use a MS account, enter junk for the user id and password. It will then prompt you later, and offer to add a local account. Shame on you, Microsoft, for that service integration shenannigans! I smell another antitrust ruling in the future... Fonts and older programs can appear wonky and blurry after using this OS. To fix it, right-click on the regular desktop and go to screen resolution. Click "Make text or items smaller or larger." In this screen, check the box that says "Let me choose one scaling level for all displays," and then set the scaling level to 100% (for me, this was called Smaller). Things should look like they ought to now.

Overall Review: You might be wondering about the title of the review. Well, here it goes: I bought a Sony laptop in September 2012 thinking that I would be smart. I would be buying before the Windows 8 fiasco, and I'd be able to keep Windows 7. While this did mean that I was able to get Windows 7, Sony had other plans. The graphics driver for Windows 7 was woefully out-of-date. It had numerous bugs and graphical glitches. In addition, it uses a wonky switchable graphics solution that isn't standard. I can't just go and grab the OEM drivers from AMD and still enjoy the discrete graphics chip. Fast forward a few months, and they post a driver update. However, it is only for Windows 8. Sony is only releasing driver updates for their products for Windows 8 and above now. From a business standpoint this kind of makes sense. Every retail product is running Windows 8 now. Sony doesn't really want to spend money fixing stuff that they aren't "supporting" anymore at retail. However, their original driver was so old that I couldn't stand using it in Windows 7 anymore. I ended up biting the bullet and buying Windows 8.1 just so that I can use the new driver. I am happy to report that my video issues are completely fixed, as the Windows 8 driver is many years newer than their botched Windows 7 driver. Why is all of this important, you ask? Well, it could mean that it will happen to you. Sure, you can install Windows 7 on your laptop, but you might run into this stuff. You might not be getting Windows 7 driver updates for your laptop anymore because your manufacturer is only releasing driver updates for Windows 8. Blame it on your laptop manufacturer if you wish (I know I do), but that doesn't change the fact that the Windows 7 driver for my laptop is junk and I have no workarounds other than to use this new OS. FWIW, I own an S-series Sony VAIO with AMD switchable graphics.

Pros: Quick boot Can use Classic shell Good game performance

Cons: When you need to reference the document(s) you are reading to pull up another document, there is no world in which it is helpful to click "start" and have it cover up the document you need to reference. Example: Wind 7: Click "Start" Point to "Word" ->pop-out of recent documents appears. Reference the document number from document you are currently reading. Select the appropriate document from pop-out. Done. Win 8.1 Same situation click "Start" ---WALL APPEARS--- CANNOT reference current document No pop-outs possible Completely anti productive in a workplace environment.

Overall Review: You seriously need Classic Shell to make this OS productive for those who necessarily have to reference documents multiple times a day (especially when there are nearing 75 documents in Word, Excel, ppt, etc and they are all referenced by numbers). It has all been said before (and defended against by those who do not require serious productivity, yet claim they do).

Pros: Windows 8.1 is an improvement over the initial offering of Windows 8. The improvement can be seen in the ability to use Windows 7 knowledge for finding your way around for one thing. The installation was the best that has ever come out of Redmond. It's ease of use generally throughout and speed if you are using a newer CPU, enough RAM (8GB) and boot it from an SSD - it's like a JimmyJohns delivery - freakie fast!

Cons: Really haven't experienced any. I am also testing Windows 10 though and it appears to have vast improvement over 8.1.

Overall Review: If you have the horsepower, upgrade to 8.1.

Pros: Physical disk

Cons: The key code on the package is so tiny I needed a jeweler's loupe to decipher it.

Overall Review: Just the disk, no manual.

Pros: Support for and provision of options for media, and data and file storage.

Cons: No warning in the product description that the Windows 8.1 32/64 bit version supports UEFI systems on a Windows 7 machine. I was unable to determine at first why the following message was displayed on the screen: "Windows cannot be installed on this disk. The selected disk is of the GPT partition style." According to information from the MS product support website, "Booting from GPT is only supported for 64 bit editions of Windows 7 (and Vista) on UEFI based systems."

Overall Review: To install Windows 8.1 on non-UEFI systems (from Microsoft): Option 1: If system does not support UEFI, delete all hard drive partitions and then create a new partition after backing up the data on your system; (b) boot from the Windows DVD and then click Install Now; (c) click Custom (Advanced) at the setup screen; (d) click Drive Options, select the partition (partitions) that you want to format, and then click Format to delete everything on that partition (partitions); (e) create a new partition and then select a partition on which to install Windows 8.1. Option 2: If Option 1 does not work, then you will need to do the following to reformat the hard drive: (a) download and burn a Gparted ISO (the URL for the Gparted ISO is provided on the Microsoft site); (b) boot from the Gparted disk; (c) use Gparted to delete all partitions on the hard drive; (d) create a partition table to make a new partition table; (e) create a NTFS partition; and (f) boot from the Windows install disk and then install Windows.