Upgrade to 10 From 8.1?

[olds]

I have 8.1 on my non-touch desktop. (60' TV for monitor)
I need to upgrade to a larger SSD for my C Drive.
I am leaning towards ghosting the image on the old SSD to the new one. Any particular reason to buy Windows 10 and do a fresh install?
I do run Start 8 and I imagine I will run Start 10.
I do game, running an i7, 16 GB RAM and a 1070 right now. (Rust, GTA V, COD4 online)

TIA

 

[Fardringle]

In my opinion, 8/8.1 is NOT an upgrade from Windows 7, but 10 IS an upgrade from 8/8.1.

You don't need to buy 10, even though the free "forced" upgrade period ended a while ago. Just download the full Windows 10 image (matching the version of 8 that you have now) and install it clean on the computer. It will ask you to input your 8/8.1 license key and should activate automatically. I did this two weeks ago with a laptop that was previously running 8.1 as part of an upgrade to SSD on that machine.

 

[JackMDS]

Unlike the story of the past a lot of Clean Install of Win 10 do not gain much from the "Fresh".

So it is really depends on what you have installed on your Win 8 installation if you have a lot of additional software installed on your computer you might be better off performing Upgrade

Not sure what Win 8 Start is? Regular Win 10's consumer version comes only with Home version and Pro version. If your Win 8 is not Pro then download the Home version.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10



.

 

[Ketchup]

He's talking about the start menu replacement.

OP, you might want to give the default start menu a try before replacing it.

 

[olds]

Interesting on the upgrade.

I do have a lot of programs on the PC, It would take a solid day to do the fresh install. I have Windows 8.1 Pro with Media Center.

Yes, I run the Win 7 look of Start 8. http://www.stardock.com/products/start8/

Thanks.

 

[daveybrat]

I wouldn't even hesitate to do it. Like Fardringle said, you can do a clean installation of Windows 10 with your 8.1 key and it'll activate just fine. You have a GTX 1070 video card. Why not take advantage of it's DX12 hardware capabilities with an OS that supports it? Only Windows 10 has DX12 support.

 

[JackMDS]

Like many other things it is grossly a personal preference.

I used a 3rd party Start Menu in Win 8.

With Win 10 Upgrade/change of the Start menu, and the current addition of the right click Start menu, I stopped using 3rd party Start since the Win 10 provides better support.

http://home.bt.com/tech-gadgets/com...dows-10-start-menu-do-you-know-11363997821398

 

[Linflas]

I updated from 8.1 to Windows 10 on my Hauppauge cap machine so I wouldn't have to reinstall and configure everything and it went pretty much flawlessly.

 

[Nashemon]

Interesting on the upgrade.

I do have a lot of programs on the PC, It would take a solid day to do the fresh install. I have Windows 8.1 Pro with Media Center.

Yes, I run the Win 7 look of Start 8. http://www.stardock.com/products/start8/

Thanks.

Be aware, Media Center was removed from Windows 10. You'll have to find an aternative if it's important to you.

 

[Nashemon]

I updated from 8.1 to Windows 10 on my Hauppauge cap machine so I wouldn't have to reinstall and configure everything and it went pretty much flawlessly.

It's probably fine for some, and I'm happy it worked for you, but many (mostly the hapless folks who got upgraded inadvertently during the "free period" of the Windows 10 upgrade) had major issues after their computers were upgraded.

Initiating a "Reset" of the OS after installing Windows 10 in any manner made it perform a lot better for them, with the exception of those with computers that did not support Windows 10. For some reason Microsoft decided not to check that before forcing the installation, but that's another topic.

 

[tcsenter]

You don't need to buy 10, even though the free "forced" upgrade period ended a while ago. Just download the full Windows 10 image (matching the version of 8 that you have now) and install it clean on the computer. It will ask you to input your 8/8.1 license key and should activate automatically. I did this two weeks ago with a laptop that was previously running 8.1 as part of an upgrade to SSD on that machine.

Confirmed. I located a "Upgrade to Windows 10" .exe from MS that I had saved on a thumb drive from back in Summer 2016. Decided to give it a try on Sunday on an older OEM system that came with W7, never had any GWX stuff on it, never "reserved" W10 upgrade prior. Now running activated copy of Win10 Pro 64 for free!

 

[olds]

Thanks everyone, appreciate the input.