Warning to Windows 7 users upgrading to 8.1


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Incredibly, Microsoft on their site and in the Microsoft store, is ENCOURAGING users who are running Windows 7 to choose Windows 8.1 when upgrading. What they don't tell you is that only Windows 8 will allow you to keep your currently installed applications. If you go straight to 8.1 you will lose any installed programs and have to reinstall them. This is not an issue if you buy Windows 8 and upgrade to 8.1 later.

To make matters worse, most retail stores are no longer selling 8.0 at all.

 

If you want to keep your programs, make sure to buy 8.0 if at all possible. If you want 8.0 Pro you'll probably need to go to Amazon.

 

I just can't understand why they do stuff like this!

 

-Forjo

 

 

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Don't forget that you'll also have to purchase Windows Media Centre after the upgrade (to 8 or 8.1) - ridiculous!

 

I agree. Upgrading from 7 to 8 should include a free install of the Media Center pack. Its absurd that going to Windows 8 will remove WMC from your machine and you have to pay MS just to get the exact same thing installed again.

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I think I used WMC 3 times in the time I ran Windows 7. I got a free license for my laptop when they were offered right after the release of 8. And then proceeded to never use it.

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I think I used WMC 3 times in the time I ran Windows 7. I got a free license for my laptop when they were offered right after the release of 8. And then proceeded to never use it.

I've used Windows Media Center almost every day since 2005ish, for a PVR on a Windows based PC nothing else comes close at the moment. Got mine setup with a Quad DVB-T2 tuner (Freeview HD) happily using the Xbox 360's as Media Center Extenders.

I think its a real shame Microsoft have basically given up on Media Center, the Xbox One cant even act as an extender.

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I've used Windows Media Center almost every day since 2005ish, for a PVR on a Windows based PC nothing else comes close at the moment. Got mine setup with a Quad DVB-T2 tuner (Freeview HD) happily using the Xbox 360's as Media Center Extenders.

I think its a real shame Microsoft have basically given up on Media Center, the Xbox One cant even act as an extender.

 

It's very useful for the PVR capability, but I'd never gotten around to trying that.

 

And I never cared much for the 360's Media Center Extender ability - I prefer to run TVersity on my tower system and just use the Xbox 360 system video player. IMO that setup is a lot more responsive than the extender.

 

And that feature is apparently missing from the X1, as well. Which means I have no urgent need to upgrade.

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Well, that sucks for those upgrading from Windows 7. :/ At least you can download the Windows 8.0 installer from Microsoft's website. Sure it may take longer to set everything, but you don't lose anything.

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Either way this isn't a real issue. You don't want to do an upgrade anyways. Clean install is always the best way to go to prevent problems in the long run. While the media center thing might suck for some its the most under used app for me. Maybe used it twice in Windows 8/8.1. Problem is it takes too much time to setup for something that I can do better with XBMC.

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Sometimes starting with a clean slates is not the worst idea

Get rid of all these little things you installed but never used.

 

I see upgrading or re installing my OS as a time to clean up my mess from the past few years

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Upgrading Windows installations has always been asking for problems. It works if you have a limited amount of low-impact software installed, but especially with special driver-related software from hardware manufacturers you really don't want to do an upgrade.

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I agree. Upgrading from 7 to 8 should include a free install of the Media Center pack. Its absurd that going to Windows 8 will remove WMC from your machine and you have to pay MS just to get the exact same thing installed again.

Windows 8 with MCP was free initially.

Even I still have a copy/key somewhere and I never had it on Windows 7.

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Either way this isn't a real issue. You don't want to do an upgrade anyways. Clean install is always the best way to go to prevent problems in the long run.

Yep, I do that with every major OS update regardless, Windows, *Nix or otherwise.  Even if it goes hassle free (which, at least for me, it usually does), it just cleans out some of the clutter.. old programs I've installed and forgotten about, tweaks/customizations that may not apply or work with the new OS, etc etc. 

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microsoft at it again what they can do best. provoke and money-milk innocent users. looks like a over 90% market share down from 98% is still way too much for microsoft to finally get the beasics right. if you do an upgrade/update, the most important thing users expect is that they can keep their files. its not the users having to worry about it, its the company should taking care of this. even more so if they happily take every single cent of your moneypocket. also: consistency! as a long time linux user, updates are updates thanks to an update manager based on packages.

how many different rootes microsoft had tortured users with? starting from win 95 where - afaik - you could use cds bought as updates as regular installations, moving to win 98 where had to insert both installation mediums and enter the keys to being able install a version bought as upgrade as full version, then what they did with xp was introducing many many more versions and that ridiculous thing called activation where you even if you upgraded to a new graphics card it basically flagged your win copy as pirated, and so on.

:shiftyninja:

Edited by zhangm
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Yep, I do that with every major OS update regardless, Windows, *Nix or otherwise.  Even if it goes hassle free (which, at least for me, it usually does), it just cleans out some of the clutter.. old programs I've installed and forgotten about, tweaks/customizations that may not apply or work with the new OS, etc etc. 

Exactly, the non-sense of upgrading to 8.0 then to 8.1 via the store is just like asking for it. You don't want to take a chance and roll the dice twice with something so dangerous. I service tons of computers and the store upgrade from 8.0 to 8.1 has had a lot of issues if your 8.0 install isn't fresh. In this case the 7.0 install would have to be clean install with nothing else. If going thru all the trouble to factory reset/clean install 7.0 or 8.0, you might as well just clean install 8.1. 

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I found this out the hard way a couple months ago when I upgraded my work pc from 7 pro to 8.1 directly.  I didn't think there would be any issues because I upgraded my laptop from 7 to 8 previously, then installed the 8.1 update a year later when it was released.  Had I known that I would have lost everything on my pc except my files I wouldn't have done it.  I had to set up everything on my work pc all over again which sucked.  There are still things I'm missing months later (like my set up for creating nuget packages, bookmarks, other settings, etc).  The installer doesn't tell you that you'll lose all of your installed programs either.

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I've always done upgrades and it's been extraordinarily rare that I've had problems. Rare enough to be completely overshadowed by all the extra work it takes to download, install, and configure all the software on my system.

 

When going from 7 to 8 I had a few issues but I later found out they were caused by roaming profiles -- and they followed me when I reloaded my laptop after getting a new SSD and being unable to clone the old one.

 

And clean installations can also be much more difficult when you have to go out and find drivers -- especially if you only have one computer and the first driver you need is the one for your network card.

 

Regardless, users have the choice when going from 7 to 8. Convincing them with verbiage on the web site that they have to buy 8.1 to upgrade from 7 is very misleading and detrimental.

 

-Forjo

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Windows 8 with MCP was free initially.

Even I still have a copy/key somewhere and I never had it on Windows 7.

that was just a promotion that was run for awhile. and if you haven't used the key then it's expired now as they had a time limit to be used

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microsoft at it again what they can do best. provoke and money-milk innocent users. looks like a over 90% market share down from 98% is still way too much for microsoft to finally get the beasics right. if you do an upgrade/update, the most important thing users expect is that they can keep their files. its not the users having to worry about it, its the company should taking care of this. even more so if they happily take every single cent of your moneypocket. also: consistency! as a long time linux user, updates are updates thanks to an update manager based on packages.

how many different rootes microsoft had tortured users with? starting from win 95 where - afaik - you could use cds bought as updates as regular installations, moving to win 98 where had to insert both installation mediums and enter the keys to being able install a version bought as upgrade as full version, then what they did with xp was introducing many many more versions and that ridiculous thing called activation where you even if you upgraded to a new graphics card it basically flagged your win copy as pirated, and so on.

:shiftyninja:

 

This thread is for Windows users.

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Incredibly, Microsoft on their site and in the Microsoft store, is ENCOURAGING users who are running Windows 7 to choose Windows 8.1 when upgrading. What they don't tell you is that only Windows 8 will allow you to keep your currently installed applications. If you go straight to 8.1 you will lose any installed programs and have to reinstall them. This is not an issue if you buy Windows 8 and upgrade to 8.1 later.

Um I'm pretty sure that they do tell you, when you put in your disc and click upgrade it checks a bunch of stuff and then WARNS you that if you proceed with this upgrade you will lose the following applications. I know that in the past whenever I've upgraded OSes it has given me that warning and I doubt MS suddenly removed it for 8.1.

I agree. Upgrading from 7 to 8 should include a free install of the Media Center pack. Its absurd that going to Windows 8 will remove WMC from your machine and you have to pay MS just to get the exact same thing installed again.

You can blame the media companies for that. It costs something like $10-$25 to get dvd / bluray playback on your PC and the license is only valid for that particular software. So even if they owned the licenses for DVD playback for Win 7, MS would have to pay for a new license for W8. Something that they weren't willing to do, and instead chose to make the cost of Windows cheaper. It's why Windows cannot natively play bluray, MS isn't willing to pay for it.

Now what they should have done was removed the dvd playback functionality and kept Media Center but still.

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I just did this last week and it upgraded everything straight from 7 to 8.1. The only things it wanted uninstalled or wouldn't migrate were things that weren't compatible like MSE.

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I've always done upgrades and it's been extraordinarily rare that I've had problems. Rare enough to be completely overshadowed by all the extra work it takes to download, install, and configure all the software on my system.

 

When going from 7 to 8 I had a few issues but I later found out they were caused by roaming profiles -- and they followed me when I reloaded my laptop after getting a new SSD and being unable to clone the old one.

 

And clean installations can also be much more difficult when you have to go out and find drivers -- especially if you only have one computer and the first driver you need is the one for your network card.

 

Regardless, users have the choice when going from 7 to 8. Convincing them with verbiage on the web site that they have to buy 8.1 to upgrade from 7 is very misleading and detrimental.

 

-Forjo

You have been lucky thats all. I am surprised you didn't have issues with the upgrades.

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Really? where does it say that?

Are you sure you are not upgrading 32-bit to 64-bit?

When you click the upgrade button on the installer it usually will do a pre-upgrade check and then give you a list of incompatible programs or programs that will be removed.

I don't know about the upgrade from Win 7 -> 8.1 because I've never done that but I know for sure that the upgrade from Vista -> 7 would give you a giant list and also in some cases the upgrade from 8 -> 8.1 does. Which is why I find it odd that MS wouldn't include the same functionality for an upgrade to 8.1 from 7.

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When you click the upgrade button on the installer it usually will do a pre-upgrade check and then give you a list of incompatible programs or programs that will be removed.

I don't know about the upgrade from Win 7 -> 8.1 because I've never done that but I know for sure that the upgrade from Vista -> 7 would give you a giant list and also in some cases the upgrade from 8 -> 8.1 does. Which is why I find it odd that MS wouldn't include the same functionality for an upgrade to 8.1 from 7.

It will let you go up one OS only not 2. The changes from 1 OS to 2 OS versions is too different. It should at least allow you to keep documents though. Either way I still say its better to clean install. http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj203353.aspx

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Just more confusion for users from Microsoft. For Microsoft Windows 8.1 and Windows 8 are two entirely separate OS releases; akin to Windows 7 and Windows 8. The average user has a hard time seeing this distinction. The average users sees Windows 8.1 as an update for Windows 8 and expect it to work as such.

 

Hopefully, Microsoft starts simplifying this stuff at someone point...

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You have been lucky thats all. I am surprised you didn't have issues with the upgrades.

Luck has nothing to do with it. These products are designed to be upgraded. If you follow some simple guidelines (like keeping your system free of junk) then you won't have many (or any) problems either.

 

-Forjo

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