Upgrading my R3 from Win7 Pro to Win8 Pro, with option of reverting back to Win7?

Hello!

I have been a proud Alienware owner for several months now, and I love everything about my awesome system. However, I have made the decision to update my OS to Windows 8 Pro from Windows 7 Pro, and I have already purchased the downloadable upgrade from Microsoft for Windows 8. My system is an Alienware M17x R3. Please note, I have not yet performed the upgrade to Windows 8 Pro due to the following concerns.

Naturally, I have a few questions on my mind. I have talked to a friend who has upgraded to Windows 8 on his Dell XPS, and he is a big fan. His excitement over his new Windows 8 upgrade is what finally pushed me to go for the upgrade myself. Now, I have to be honest -- I'm a little worried about the scenario where I go to install Windows 8 Pro on my Alienware laptop, then things aren't working properly, drivers are missing, wifi won't connect, etc. etc., and then I find myself desperately looking to revert back to my Windows 7 installation. So, my question is this: I understand that the Win8 upgrade license replaces your old Win7 license, so will I be able to revert back to Win7 with my old Win7 product key if I find that I dislike Win8? Also, could I simply make a backup of my current Win7 installation (using AlienRespawn Basic) and revert back to that if I so choose without having an issue with validation, seeing that my Win8 upgrade will replace my Win7 license, presumably making it invalid?

Second, I am assuming that I can upgrade to Win8 without losing most of my system settings and keeping all of my files intact, but would the same be true if I reverted back to Win7 from Win8 using an AlienRespawn back-up of my current system? Does anyone have a suggestion of a better back-up tool for my OS, settings, and files (preferably a cheap/free one) than AlienRespawn, or will it suffice for what I need?

And last, but certainly not least, how has driver support for the typical Alienware drivers and programs (such as AlienFX and the Synaptics touchpad) been on the M17x R3 after the upgrade to Windows 8 Pro? Does anyone have any firsthand experience in this regard, or do they know of any articles that they can point me to for my own personal enlightenment on this subject? From what I've read so far online, compatibility is nearly flawless after the upgrade to Win8 Pro, but I'd like to hear from the community here, as well, please. On a side note, hopefully some of the Win8 touch gestures will work with the Synaptics touchpad.

Thanks in advance for your help!

 

I only help you about the windows 8 license question. I've done a lot of search before purchasing windows 8, and as far as I know, your windows 7 license is still valid, you can reinstall windows 7 in your laptop, and still install windows 8 on another computer, AS LONG AS THE OTHER COMPUTER ALSO HAS A VALID LICENSE KEY OF ANOTHER MICROSOFT OS!!! As for the 32 or 64 bit version, I dont know is legally you can install win8 x64 on a pc that has xp 32bit, for instance... What you cannot do is have win7 on your laptop, and the win8 version you purchased on another computer that doesn't have a valid OS key! This is because the versions of W8 that are being purchased right now are upgrade versions, and not retail...
As for the drivers, before installing, the installer tests your laptop for devices compatibility. But if your laptop ir relatively recent, it shouldnt have any problem with the drivers... Search you laptop site support, there may be something relative to the windows 8 upgrade.
And as for the backup, with my laptop (samsung), I did a system backup before installing windows 8, and I reverted to it a few times, to get some files I forgot to save, and then reverted again to W8. If you have a full system backup os each os, you can switch between them. Not very practical, but doable... For a full system backup, I use Clonezilla. Free, open source, flawless. Takes a little time to understand how it works and how to do backups and revert, but its a very good software.
P.S.: with windows 8, I dont think MS will really care if you install W8 upgrade on a computer that didnt have a valid OS key... There are a lot of people buying them with cracked windows 7 installed... They dont even check the key, they just want people to use W8, not android nor iOS...

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One extra note is that if your upgrade fails for whatever reason e.g. bios conflict it will revert back to windows 7 with all your files intact which is nice.

Happened on my aurora r4, it wouldnt upgrade due to bios conflicts and just reverted back to windows 7 after failed installations.