sedrosken
Florida Man
So I just installed 8.1 Pro x64 this morning and only just finished getting all my stuff back to the way it was about an hour ago. I'm home from school (water heater came on way too late for me to get a shower at a decent time, and I hold myself to higher standards than some certain freshmen I could name... okay you got me I just wanted a reason to not have to go to school, doubly so since it gives me another day to finish the homework that I totally blew off over spring break).
I am pleased to report that I managed to get proper Intel drivers for my graphics installed! It involved a workaround in much of the same fashion as putting Windows 7 on an i865 board did, only with a much lower chance of it backfiring. I fired up BCDEDIT and set "loadoptions DISABLE_INTEGRITY_CHECKS" and "TESTSIGNING ON", and rebooted. Using a specially made setup program I got the drivers for Windows 7 installed, set BCDEDIT back to normal, and rebooted again.
As for why that would have less of a chance of backfiring than using XP drivers on 7, well, I was under the impression that 8.x and 7 weren't very different at all under the hood, or even 8.x and Vista, for that matter. The major version number (NT 6.x) is the same, so I figured it'd be fine. And it was, I haven't had a single issue related to the drivers yet.
Now things requiring OpenGL don't slow to unacceptable levels! I can play Minecraft and OpenArena, as well as SuperTuxKart (side note on that, anyone else have that feeling that it's Windows port is kinda shoddy?). Haven't quite got UT99 working yet but I imagine that if I set compatibility mode to just the right settings I will be able to pull it off in D3D mode, and if nothing else I can switch to software rendering as a last resort. Who knows, it might be as simple of a fix as launching it in windowed mode! GTA III works flawlessly, as well as on 7 and XP before it.
Windows 8.1 Update 1 is by no means perfect, but it is a definite step in the right direction. I haven't bothered with installing ClassicShell yet - most of the school computers will be migrating to 8.1 at some point or another and you can't install ClassicShell on them, so I might as well get used to using the somewhat clunky start screen. And while I don't feel it very much, I don't doubt that 8.x is a hair faster than 7 - and the pros very much outweigh the cons for me in this case. I like how all file operations appear in one window, and how you can pause them now. I also like the flat, minimalist look of Windows 8.x - while 7 is shiny and beautiful in its own way, I simply prefer minimalist looks. Perhaps that's why I used to stick with the Windows Classic theme.
I use Dropbox now instead of OneDrive - Dropbox's desktop client will work on almost literally anything I can throw at it, including Windows, Android and Linux. OneDrive can't claim that, heck I had mounds of trouble getting OneDrive installed on my AXP w/ Win7 Ult x86. In the end I couldn't get it installed and I gave up. The only con of using Dropbox over OneDrive is that you only get 2 GB with Dropbox for free while you get 7 GB with OneDrive. I am quite the cheapskate if you haven't figured it out already, and just in general can't afford a plan. Whatever, 2 GB should be plenty for syncing .docs and .ppts.
TL/DR I installed Win8.1 and managed to trick the system into installing drivers meant for Windows 7. I use Dropbox instead of OneDrive for compatibility reasons, but the amount of storage you get for free with Dropbox is rather disappointing.
I am pleased to report that I managed to get proper Intel drivers for my graphics installed! It involved a workaround in much of the same fashion as putting Windows 7 on an i865 board did, only with a much lower chance of it backfiring. I fired up BCDEDIT and set "loadoptions DISABLE_INTEGRITY_CHECKS" and "TESTSIGNING ON", and rebooted. Using a specially made setup program I got the drivers for Windows 7 installed, set BCDEDIT back to normal, and rebooted again.
As for why that would have less of a chance of backfiring than using XP drivers on 7, well, I was under the impression that 8.x and 7 weren't very different at all under the hood, or even 8.x and Vista, for that matter. The major version number (NT 6.x) is the same, so I figured it'd be fine. And it was, I haven't had a single issue related to the drivers yet.
Now things requiring OpenGL don't slow to unacceptable levels! I can play Minecraft and OpenArena, as well as SuperTuxKart (side note on that, anyone else have that feeling that it's Windows port is kinda shoddy?). Haven't quite got UT99 working yet but I imagine that if I set compatibility mode to just the right settings I will be able to pull it off in D3D mode, and if nothing else I can switch to software rendering as a last resort. Who knows, it might be as simple of a fix as launching it in windowed mode! GTA III works flawlessly, as well as on 7 and XP before it.
Windows 8.1 Update 1 is by no means perfect, but it is a definite step in the right direction. I haven't bothered with installing ClassicShell yet - most of the school computers will be migrating to 8.1 at some point or another and you can't install ClassicShell on them, so I might as well get used to using the somewhat clunky start screen. And while I don't feel it very much, I don't doubt that 8.x is a hair faster than 7 - and the pros very much outweigh the cons for me in this case. I like how all file operations appear in one window, and how you can pause them now. I also like the flat, minimalist look of Windows 8.x - while 7 is shiny and beautiful in its own way, I simply prefer minimalist looks. Perhaps that's why I used to stick with the Windows Classic theme.
I use Dropbox now instead of OneDrive - Dropbox's desktop client will work on almost literally anything I can throw at it, including Windows, Android and Linux. OneDrive can't claim that, heck I had mounds of trouble getting OneDrive installed on my AXP w/ Win7 Ult x86. In the end I couldn't get it installed and I gave up. The only con of using Dropbox over OneDrive is that you only get 2 GB with Dropbox for free while you get 7 GB with OneDrive. I am quite the cheapskate if you haven't figured it out already, and just in general can't afford a plan. Whatever, 2 GB should be plenty for syncing .docs and .ppts.
TL/DR I installed Win8.1 and managed to trick the system into installing drivers meant for Windows 7. I use Dropbox instead of OneDrive for compatibility reasons, but the amount of storage you get for free with Dropbox is rather disappointing.
