

The Utter Failure of my Windows 8.1 Upgrade - hk__2
http://uptake.co/the-utter-failure-of-my-windows-81-upgrade

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Osmium
Counter-point: my upgrade was "smooth" in that it worked and there were no
surprises.

That said, there were definitely issues. Firstly, I couldn't find the update.
It wasn't showing up in the store. Turns out I had to run _Windows Update_
first _then_ go to the store. Fair enough, but would it have killed Microsoft
to put a banner in the store saying "Want to upgrade to 8.1? First click here
to make sure your computer is up to date."

Secondly, it restarted several times (why so many?), often with completely
unhelpful messages about what it's actually doing (my favourite was a message
something like "now just doing a few more things..." – yeah, thanks). And
progress meters that would stall at e.g. 13% for minutes before suddenly
finishing.

As for 8.1 itself, it's definitely a step up for me. Just having a start
button back and being able to set the start menu background to be the same as
your desktop background makes the whole experience far less claustrophobic.
The settings to change that were quite deeply hidden away though; I'm
surprised I found them.

Also, it sets the mouse-over highlight animation on the start button to be the
same colour as the start menu, even if that _isn 't_ the colour of the
taskbar, which made it clash weirdly in my case. But that's a relatively minor
complaint on the scale of things.

Edit: Also, thanks to Hacker News, I knew to expect the "dark pattern" of not
giving you an option _not_ to login with a Microsoft account unless you try
logging in first with an incorrect password and then it gives you the option.
If it weren't for that, I think I'd be very irritated – but then, Apple are
guilty of something similar when setting up OS X (I think it's the "Do you
want to register your computer?" screen, which you can escape by pressing
Apple+Q and it gives the option to quit, but how anyone is meant to guess that
is beyond me.)

~~~
vyrotek
_As for 8.1 itself, it 's definitely a step up for me. Just having a start
button back and being able to set the start menu background to be the same as
your desktop background makes the whole experience far less claustrophobic. _

Yes! It's funny how different it feels. I wonder if it would feel even better
if they made the background transparent with your actual desktop blurred out
in the back. This way you never feel like you left your desktop to view the
menu.

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Tomdarkness
I'm not sure what the point of this blog post is? I don't think anyone expects
that the upgrade will be problem free for 100% of users, especially
considering the numerous different hardware configurations.

Also, if you look on the Apple Support forums you'll find people who have
encountered problems upgrading OS X, so it is not like OS X has a 100% success
rate at upgrading.

I've upgraded my machine from 8 to 8.1 and it went flawlessly, although I did
not write a blog post about that.

Perhaps a good place to start would be attempting to look into the BSOD rather
than just attempting the upgrade over and over?

------
jbk
> Windows 8.1 - Open the marketplace, click the button, download, prepare for
> installation, reboot, begin installation, verify installation, hang, blue
> screen, reboot, hang, blue screen, reboot, revert to previous installation,
> reboot.

This has not been my experience, at all, on 4 different machines. It was more:

Open the marketplace, click the button, download, ask for reboot, reboot, wait
for a bit of time (between 15' and 30' depending on the machine), and boot to
the new login upgrade.

I had a bit of a headache to understand how not to upgrade to a Microsoft
account and keep a local account, but that's it.

~~~
KevinEldon
I had the same experience. My upgrade was headache free, I started it, walked
away and came back periodically to click a few buttons or make minor
configuration choices.

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mtam
It is unfortunate that you had problems upgrading and I feel your frustration
(been there and it sucks) but... You cannot compare Windows upgrades with OS X
upgrades for the simple reason that Apple dictates and extensively tests all
the hardware components that go into the mac for compatibility. The number of
hardware components and combination of components that Windows has to support
is substantially larger than OS X's and it is not feasible to expect that
Microsoft (and its partners) will be able to test every possible combination.
I do not like Windows but comparing OS X upgrade issues with Windows upgrade
issues is naive.

~~~
vinceguidry
You can and should compare the two ecosystems. Microsoft could have and should
have enforced a more standards-based hardware certification program. Instead
we got Secure Boot, Microsoft's DRM kowtow to the content lobby.

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redorb
My biggest complaint on 8.1 is the removal of windows 7 backup[1]; at least
the easy way to do it. They left it in windows 8 - I was using it; dropped my
laptop ended up restoring to 8 again and that's where I'll stay for now.. I
think their push was to use skydrive but a mirror to the cloud isn't an image.

[1][http://www.howtogeek.com/167984/how-to-create-and-restore-
sy...](http://www.howtogeek.com/167984/how-to-create-and-restore-system-image-
backups-on-windows-8.1/)

------
jmcnevin
I'm not sure why MS decided that the release of a free upgrade of their
product that's trying to address pain points with Metro would be great
opportunity to shove the Windows Store down users' throats. I can't even open
Windows Store on my media center PC (hooked up to a 720p television) without
increasing my screen resolution past native. That's just irritating.

Do you realize that your Windows 8 license key will not allow you to download
and do a clean install of 8.1? You need to download 8.0, install 64 or so
important updates, and only then are you deemed worthy of being eligible to
download 8.1 through the Windows Store. Who thought this up?

I went the clean install route after my upgrade from 8.1 preview stalled out
on the "Almost There" screen for 15 minutes. I rebooted, and all references to
my installed applications were gone.

All in all, the 8.1 upgrade wasn't a pleasant experience.

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pwilson_gorge
I just updated from the 8.1 Pro Preview. Everything went smoothly. It's just
that the upgrade removed every program from my system and every form of
application data. I have backups but that means reverting back to the preview.
Four hours of re-installs later, I still have a two month gap in my
Thunderbird email data. Sigh! I think this is gratuitous - perhaps MS is
trying to stampede everyone into using their cloud based storage,

------
vyrotek
I upgraded 2 laptops and a PC to 8.1 without a single problem. I didn't have
too many complaints before but I'm definitely happy with the changes.

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th0br0
FWIW, Microsoft pulled the 8.1 RT update given the amount of bad installs:

[http://news.cnet.com/8301-10805_3-57608310-75/microsoft-
yank...](http://news.cnet.com/8301-10805_3-57608310-75/microsoft-yanks-
windows-rt-8.1-update-from-windows-store/)

------
woofyman
They had to pull the Windows RT 8.1 update because it left some devices un
bootable.

------
_random_
I had no problems. My friends had no problems. What were we doing wrong?

------
300bps
I upgraded to 8.1 yesterday on a home-built AsRock Extreme 4 with i7-3770 with
16 GB RAM and OCZ Vertex 4 SSD. Whole process took 10 minutes and performed
perfectly.

Sorry you had an issue, but wanted to point out that it is working smoothly
for many people.

