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Windows 8 --> Worth Updating?


Duna Unha

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Hey Everyone,

Fist Thing I did not like is the fact that we cannot use it in our next PC... I mean, because its an upgrade for the current version of Win.

Did anyone made updates? What are your impressions so far?

Is it worth?

PS: I dont know if we can use that, but I heard that the Win8 Brazilian Offical Site, sells it cheaper... :Banane34:

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I would wait for better support and compatibility and then do the switch.

This is especially true for M17x-R4 and M18x-R2 users since there appear to be issues with UEFI and detecting discrete graphics. For M18x-R1 owners like myself, Windows 8 works perfectly good.

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I've upgraded since past friday. Until now, the only compatibility issue I had (without a proper solution) is with Street Fighter X Tekken. It just won't load. Except from that, everything has worked ok for me (apps, office, steam, origin, NVIDIA, soundblaster, etc.)

ProTip: Use WHQL NVIDIA drivers for all apps to work in metro, if you use beta ones some apps like Netflix won't work at all...

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I upgraded to win 8 last night, but I swich back to win 7 after a couple of hours.

first, dell does not have win 8 driver for alienware 14x R1, even if win 8 can support a lot of driver itself. such as the alienFX is not functional.

Second, I feel win 8 is just a pre-mutural upgrade from win 7, as some so-called fashing things are really good, but a lot of things are exactly same as win 7. Besides, I do not like its main manual, I think it looks like smart phone, not powerful alienware.

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I updated my M14X R1 last sunday and everything worked fine, I had no issues in in making the online purchase/upgrade. I neither had problems about the drivers or the alien fx suite.

Under the hood, I think it's the best os Microsoft relesed so far, whether you may or may not like the interface (to me that's a matter of taste).

I also noticed performance improvements, 8 is faster than 7 in almost every task; even steam takes less gime to get opened.

I didn't have time to make benchs but my feeling is that even games run better (not talking strictly about FPS but as an overall sensation, considering loading times too).

At work I noticed with my colleagues that 8 is capable to handle shared volumes much better than 7, with much less time in connectig-mounting-handling the remote fs; battery life got a good improvement too. The Hyper V service has to be mentioned too.

Repeat, under the hood is the best ms os so far.

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So i got windows 8 installed in my m14xr1 and here is the problem:

Intel rapid storage driver would make windows freeze ramdonly every 40 ~ 120 sec and lasts about 1 min of freezing time and repeadely.

sometimes it freezes at windows 8 logo loading screen

so i uninstalled Intel rapid storage driver to let windows 8 use its own standard AHCI driver and it works fine...

no problems with games and GPU performance.

im not sure how ssd and hdd performance will be without intel AHCI driver....

before i came with this conclusion i tried testing hardware driver 1 by 1 until i got intel AHCI driver.

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In order to benefit from Windows 8 and Alienware new UEFI support > backup all your data to external drive, set the bios to uefi enabled and legacy boot rom disabled... the boot windows 8 dvd and wipe the hdd/ssd with clean command from cmd> diskpart (shift F10). creating ONE partition, actually will create 4 partition (EFI, MSR, System, Windows partition)... after everything is set you will have the Alienware logo while Windows 8 loading and lightning speed boot :D (enable Windows 8 Fast Boot)

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set the bios to uefi enabled and legacy boot rom disabled...

Since Dell hasn't provided an UEFI compatible vbios so far, you will end up with only the HD4000 when doing this.

...at least for the R4 and M18x R2... can't remember the vbios of the M14x R2.

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I cant get my head wrapped around windows 8. I swear I think my alienware is a tablet. After upgrading to windows 8 I think windows 7 was so much better.

I agree with the tablet feel. I thought Gnome 3.6 was bad, but I did get used to it. I'll stick with Arch Linux any day.

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