I've installed the original Windows 8.1 on my laptop and...

[Oscar92player]

So, after all the bad experiences with Windows 10 (almost all of them related with driver or program compatibility), I've decided to change back to the original state of my computer running the Recovery partition of my HDD, which means going back to Windows 8, and then update to 8.1.

I thought it would be the best for my computer... and my mental stability... so as soon as I was able to use again the laptop, I've started doing all the backup of my personal data and all of that, in order to make sure nothing could be lost.

And after all this days installing the SO, original programs, and updates, I just can't belive it... everything runs fine and even smoother than Windows 10. Not only the default programs, but things like Chrono Trigger (with previous problems with the animated cutscenes), Photoshop, Audacity, Sony Vegas... are running fine this time. Even the RAM consumption is better.

And if we talk about RPG Maker, I can say this is the first time I saw MV v1.6.1 Stable running fine and 'stable' in new projects and older ones. It's like a miracle!

All I can say is that I've learned a valuable lesson: if it's possible, never, never, never (and when I say never, means NEVER), update again to Windows 10, or change the default OS from this computer.

P.S.: Also, now I can control every update through Windows Update, so I can download, cancel, or block updates when I want, instead of just suffer the automated updates from Windows 10...

Phew... I needed to say that. Now I'm happy again with this computer.

Regards!

 

[Andar]

there is no problem with any windows in itself (I have no problems with a Win10 computer), but there are two points that really affect windows stability:
1) if you don't have drivers done for your specific hardware, windows switches to general drivers. Those general drivers are intentionally programmed for slow speed and maximum compatibility, because you can go very wrong trying to use hardware to maxspec without specific info what that maxspec are. And if your hardware manufacturer no longer provides the direct drivers because your hardware is too old, then this can really bite you in the back.
2) installing older program that are trying to "optimize" windows behaviour without knowing the newer OS version. Nothing can ruin a windows faster than installing a very old program that believes itself to be the best... (for example some older games do not use the microsoft installer for checking up on DirectX version, they simply copy them. Ever had an installed DX9 or 10 with parts of its files overwritten with versions from DX6 or 7?)

 

[Oscar92player]

Now that you mention it, I bought this computer back to 2013. After installing the first Windows 10 version (the same year the OS was free for everyone), the first problem I've found was an incompatibility with the Graphic Card driver. That triggered the infinite restarting glitch on Windows 10, so the best solution was an OS recovery without loosing the data.

Then, after the successful installation of Windows 10 two days after, I discovered that AMD wasn't suporting anymore my GPU, so all they tell me to do, was to wait until Microsoft made a compatibility update for AMD graphic cards. That worked pretty well, since I was able to use again the Radeon Settings like in the older OS.

However, I've learned that some programs or games were not running right after changing to W10. For example, Resident Evil 6 used to work better on W8/8.1, but after installing W10, the game suffered with lag, FPS drops and other graphical issues. It was completely unplayable. The same happened with Sonic Generations. Other programs such as Photoshop CS6 started to have some lag too.

Things like that never happened with the default OS of this laptop, but after changing to W10, everything was going from bad to worse, even with the newest versions and updates.

In the end, some friend of mine told me that some laptops work better with the default OS or even a previous one (if the drivers were compatible), because they were not planned for newer OS. So he recommend me to try and go back to the original W8. Fortunately, this computer has a recovery partition with HP Recovery Manager, which has the previous OS, all the programs and original drivers needed to restore the laptop to its original state.

And indeed, he was right about that. Everything seems to be working better now. I hope I can have a rest at last, and forget about all the problems I've had.

 

[dulsi]

RPG Maker MV is available for Linux...

 

[Oscar92player]

RPG Maker MV is available for Linux...

Not a chance!

 

[bgillisp]

A 2013 computer I could see not working well with Windows 10. My new computer I bought in 2017 and it has windows 10 and has no issues, but it also has hardware that windows 10 supports. I'd say if your laptop comes with an older version of windows (which I think it has to if bought in 2013), stay with it. That way you know all of your hardware is supported and has proper drivers for it (most likely).

 

[MushroomCake28]

If it wasn't for video games I'd be on Linux. I know there's Wine... but I'll wait until it gets better.

 

[Oscar92player]

RPG Maker MV is available for Linux...

If it wasn't for video games I'd be on Linux. I know there's Wine... but I'll wait until it gets better.

Why everyone is talking about installing Linux? For what I can say about that (because I used to use Linux in the near past), it is just a waste of time. It is very limited in comparison to other OS, and you don't have all the programs Windows can run.

Also, talking about using Wine on Linux, tell me that is a joke, please... Why would you install Linux OS just to use a Windows emulator inside it? It is more simple to install and use Windows directly.

I know some of you would prefer to use Linux instead of Windows or MAC, maybe because you are confortable with that OS, or because you don't like how Microsoft is doing things lately.

But for me, Windows is more versatile, not only for programs or games, but for having a more user-friendly interface. When using Linux in the past, I needed to use tutorials for almost everything I wanted to make...

 

[dulsi]

If your happy with Windows, it's fine to stay with that. I don't think Windows has a more user-friendly interface at this point. You are comfortable with it. If you sit kids in front of Windows and Linux machines, kids will be able to run both easily. My kids only have Linux at home. I believe they use Windows at school some of the time. (They also use chromebooks some of the time which are limited Linux machines.)

As a programmer, I can't understand why anyone wants to program on Windows. If I'm not using RPG Maker and want to write a program using SDL assuming I haven't done but have the compile installed on Fedora Linux I do:

dnf install SDL2-devel SDL2_image-devel SDL2_mixer-devel boost-devel
g++ -o game main.cpp `pkg-config --cflags --libs sdl2`

If I'm on Windows machine I have to:

Download SDL2 from libsdl.org
Download SDL2_image from libsdl.org
Download SDL2_mixer from libsdl.org
Download boost from boost.org
Compile boost
Setup include paths and library paths

This gets worse the more libraries you use and you want to use libraries because that means you aren't writing the same code. Now if I want to build a windows version of my program, I can do the same dnf command but add mingw32- or mingw64- in front of the packages to install cross-compiler tools. So it is easier for me to setup a Linux box to compile a Windows program than using Windows.

As for missing programs and using Wine, I don't generally. I use the PS4 for much of my gaming but have Linux games as well. For non-game program, I haven't found anything that I need without an open source equivalent. But that may not be the case for everyone.

 

[bgillisp]

Every time Linux installing comes up I'm always reminded of this video:

 

[kaukusaki]

As a programmer, I can't understand why anyone wants to program on Windows.

As a fellow Windows programmer i ask myself this all the time
〒_〒

 

[Oscar92player]

As a programmer, I can't understand why anyone wants to program on Windows.

As a fellow Windows programmer i ask myself this all the time
〒_〒

Since I'm not a programmer, and my interests are put on image editing, music, drawing, RPG Maker, movies, and videogames... I think Windows is enough for me.

 

[Poryg]

Well, I've had problems with linux ever since I got an idea to dual boot linux.
I can't run any other linux distro than Debian. Which is quite a nightmare due to the amount of packages you need to install and I spend more time in the shell than I'd like.
As for programming, windows has multiple utilities that make programming easier. Visual studio is a handy IDE, although it takes a lot of space... And there's no equivalent to Windows API. DirectX makes game making easier as well. On my debian build I couldn't even get my opengl project running, because I couldn't even build the gl library (missing files for the makefile).

Anyway, to not speak off topic...
I'm back to 1920x1080 for windows with today's successful windows installation.
On debian I have 1360x768... And cannot go higher.

 

[Oscar92player]

Anyway, to not speak off topic...
I'm back to 1920x1080 for windows with today's successful windows installation.
On debian I have 1360x768... And cannot go higher.

You made a I wise choice. I'm very proud of you!

Now that everything is going fine with this computer, there's no need to worry about driver compatibility issues anymore. I've noticed that even the touch panel for the mouse went crazy on Windows 10, but with the original drivers running on Windows 8.1, is working fine right now.

And not only that, now I can assure Windows Update will never download or install updates without my consent. Windows Update on 10 was like a virus trying to install updates automatically, at the worst moment, and without making sure my computer was able to run the newest versions.

 

[Poryg]

Yup. On my pc win 10 runs with no issues and I've never had issues with it on any machine, unless I do something crazy and blow up the entire system. Which I've been doing practically nonstop for past 6 hours, blowing up both windows and debian

 

[Darth Equus]

I upgraded my gaming laptop from Windows 10 to 7. (You read that right). I lost use of the S/PDIF output, but have been happy with everything otherwise. I guess I'll just sit out Win10 until they make a successor, if at all.

 

[Oscar92player]

I upgraded my gaming laptop from Windows 10 to 7. (You read that right). I lost use of the S/PDIF output, but have been happy with everything otherwise. I guess I'll just sit out Win10 until they make a successor, if at all.

For what I know, Microsoft has no plans about releasing another Windows. They said in the near past that they will keep working on more "big" updates for Windows 10. And unfortunatelly, Windows 7 will end its official support on 2020, and the same goes for Windows 8.1, that will end its support too, but on 2023.

They are trying to make Windows 10 the only official Windows for home and family computers. In the future, they plan to do the same for professional computers, enterprises, and multinacional computers, but it will need some time until all of them can migrate all the systems and data.

It's a pity, since I recently learned that the latest update for Windows 10 and Windows Defender is giving a lot of problems for thousands of people, who can't even start its computers due to a serious glitch. And instead of remove the update from the servers, Microsoft just says that only "a minority" of computers are having problems, so there's "no need to remove it".

In my opinion, it's unbelievable, but not for good, I'm afraid...

 

[Darth Equus]

That plot by MS has made me want to go "REEEEEEEEEEEEE!" for a few hours. See you all in the morning.

 

[LTN Games]

Linux is garbage in many areas except for server use and that is coming from someone who has used it since 2011. The #1 problem with Linux is drivers, mainly graphics. Once you start installing drivers and applications there is a 95% chance you will be googling "how to fix ???? On Linux" or "why is there a flicker when scrolling" and on and on it can go. Really some people luck out and there are some fantastic distros out there but sooner or later something won't work as flawless as it does in Windows. I still use Linux but I'm not a fanboy and choose to leave out its flaws when discussing it and as a programmer I can't understand why you would anyone choose to use only one OS to program in. In fact, it's very common I need both Windows and Linux to ensure maximum compatibility and if I could afford a Mac then I would have that as well.
Anyways, Linux aside, my old laptop from 2011 worked flawlessly with widows 10I. love widows 10, by far their best version and it only gets better. I'm also a Windows insider and with all their changes I never have issues with it, which is surprising with all people a having bugs and problems with it. I even have a new PC and still don't have issues and I'm still an Insider. It's too bad you did but have better luck with driver compatability because win 10 is awesome.