Customer Ratings & Reviews

Overall, I would prefer to stay on XP, then Win 7 Ultimate, but if for varied reasons you must bump up to Win 8, then 8.1 and Pro is best option. I do ALOT of remote desktop from my main rig, with Win 7 you must have Pro or Ultimate to host remote desktop, with win 8 you must have PRO. I install "Start IS Back" immediately upon install and then I use various web guides to close down the god awful metro ui as best as possible. I do hate metro, because if I wanted my 4.8 GHZ OC'd 64GB RAM machine to function as a smart phone I would just buy a darn smartphone with linux based OS on it lol I do have an identical rig still running Win 7 Ultimate, I can say from benchmarks on both, Win 8.1 is more efficient then Win 7 by a hair. I don't know if that warrants a victory though, because had I the choice I would never have left XP pro lol

Windows 8.1 Pro is fine, really not much of a learning curve coming from 7, and will be supported longer than 7, I use it in medicine so won't go to 10 due to HIPAA concerns with 10.

I needed a version of windows for my boot camped mac. This installed very easily and is providing the ability to play windows games as well as do c# development on my laptop.

I was hesitant in trying this OS, based on all the negative reputation I've heard, but since I am tech savvy, I really enjoy it.

I love windows 8.1. This program rocks my world and yours too

Delivery was fast. Best Buy customer service was courteous and helpful. Product was as expected.

As I stated in the review summary, "Windows 8.1 is just to replace a damaged drive." I brought my Tower into BB for the Geek Squad to evaluate if they could retrieve information on the hard drive. They, asked for the Windows 8.1 disk and I told them that it was a internet download from Microsoft. They suggested that I contact MS to see if they could send me a new 8.1 disk. MS told me that they are no longer supporting version 8.1 because my warranty had expired. I found a MS 8.1 disk at another Best Buy Store and purchased it. When it arrived I immediately brought it to the BB that was waiting for the program. Now, since the next question is asking me if I would recommend this to a friend. Well, I would have say no because of Windows 10..

Got this for my surface pro and works really well for my apps!

Only bought it to legitimize my Windows 8 and get the free upgrade to 10. Had to do a complete new installation. Not worth it

As expected. Bought it to get the free Windows 10 ipgrade

I had to downgrade a new computer and this software did the job.

A lot of people give Windows 8/8.1. a bad rap. By far, imho ,this is the best OS by Microsoft thus far. If you are not particularly fond of Metro, (Start Screen), install Classic Start and you will now have the look and feel of Windows XP, Vista, or 7, (whatever you choose in settings), with all the great features of Windows 8/8.1.

The additions made to try and get Win8 closer to Win7, has improved Win8.1 to a large degree. Booting straight into the desktop, and adding the Windows button hasn't fixed all the issues with Win8..but Win8.1 is better for it now. Game devs are updating their titles to perform better on Win8.1, and I can attest my games are running quite a bit better for some of them (like BF4). The OS still needs a bit of work, but the future of Windows 8 is brighter after 8.1.