8.1 vs 8.1 Pro - does it provide ANY benefit to me?

Ok, as a gamer who doesn't use his PC for any sort of business... will going to 8.1 Pro provide me with ANY (even if it's .1%) efficiency or operating improvement? Does it have a more robust underpinning (stable), or anything else that can provide a benefit, or is it all just additional encryption and network bloat that I don't need?

feel free to get as technical as you like in your answer, I enjoy learning the nuts and bolts of how this stuff works.

 

I'd say no.

Windows 8 editions - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

No. The difference between Windows editions lies solely and entirely in the number of included features. Simply put, higher/more expensive editions have more bundled programs from Microsoft.

If you don't need or use any of the additional functiuonality in Pro, there is absolutely no benefit to you.

 

IF you ever want to use Windows Media Center and have PRO it is only $10, if you have home it costs ~$100 to add the pro pack then $10 more for WMC.. Another reason I chose Win 7 on my new machine

 

Nope, as others have said none of the additional features in 8.1 Pro would offer any benefit over 8.1. Even then, some of the 8.1 Pro features can easily be replaced by alternates that are usually better than what MS provides (eg: TrueCrypt vs Bitlocker).

 

If your computer comes preloaded with W8 Pro you may have the rights to downgrade to W7.

Downgrade from Windows 8 Pro to Windows 7 Pro for FREE? - Microsoft Community

 

thanks, but why?

 

For something like BitLocker v TrueCrypt, the latter offers more options for your security as well as a better trust. With Bitlocker, you just have to trust that MS won't hand over your data to whoever asks, but TrueCrypt answers to no data request (and the FOSS developers behind it couldn't anyway, since they didn't install a backdoor into the software and you control the encryption settings). That, and you can't verify that Bitlocker is as secure as claimed, whereas with TrueCrypt you can by looking at the source code yourself (or having security experts do it for you, assuming you have trust in them).

As for the other differences between 8.1 and 8.1 Pro, they won't benefit you at all unless you're building a Windows corporate network in your home. So stuff like Boot from VHD, joining Windows domains, and Group Policy are useless. Likewise with Hyper-V.

Really, the only good reason to go to 8.1 Pro is if you're planning on downgrading to Windows 7 Pro (which, imo, wouldn't be a bad idea since the 7 UI is more suited to laptops/desktops, but I digress.

 

VHD is very useful for dual booting Windows, especially when betas shows up and you don't feel like changing the number of partitions. Deleting a whole Windows installation is as easy as pressing Delete, and copying is just as easy.

No need for a gamer tho, which was the OP's question.

 

On the same subject, there's currently an ongoing security audit of TrueCrypt ( Is TrueCrypt Audited Yet?). Pretty dry reading, but it goes to Jarhead's point that security experts can, and in this case are, auditing a well-used piece of open-source security software, which is much more difficult with Microsoft's solutions.

But as for Home vs Pro for gaming, it makes no difference, unless you want to downgrade to Windows 7 from the Pro edition, which could be relevant for a small number of games. Stability, performance, and such should be for all intents and purposes identical.

For previous versions of Windows, you could make a point that the RAM ceiling is higher on the Pro versions, and perhaps there's some game out there where that would make a difference, although I can't think of one off the top of my head. For example, in Windows 7, Home Basic is limited to 8 GB of RAM, which actually is kind of low, Home Premium to 16 GB, and Pro+ 192 GB. Vista's the same, except Business+ is limited to 128 GB. But Windows 8 ups the limits to 128 GB for Home and 512 GB for Pro, so there's really no issue with either version no matter how RAM-hungry the game is.

 

Thanks for the info, and I'm by no means a computer expert... but isn't the fact that Pro can address 512GB vs 128GB for Home imply a different Kernel and therefore a different architecture in the OS?

 

If anything, it's just an artificial restriction on Home. It would be far too expensive to develop a separate kernel (and related low-level software) for every version of a Windows release, so iirc it's just one OS with certain things locked (at least until you buy the upgrade).

Anyway, how in the world are you going to require 128GB of RAM, let alone 512GB?

 

I can think of a few things, but then again, I have colleagues that can find a use for over 100 CPUs and even more RAM.

The restriction is indeed likely to be artificial rather than changes in the kernel. It's either that or a part of the code was left out of the regular version and is present in the pro version.

 

Well yeah, scientific computing I can completely understand. Though for gaming, that'd be massive, extreme overkill.

 

Actually, there is one big advantage that a lot of people seem to miss.

Pro versions allow a Windows desktop to be remotely access with RDP. Non-Pro versions can view remote desktops, but cannot act as a remote system.

However for gaming this is useless, because RDP, even though better than VNC, is still too slow to play games unless you have an insanely fast connection.

 

^^^ There are options like TightVNC which allows for this on Home versions, too.

 

The artificial restriction exists in both Home and Pro - the kernel itself can address at least* 4 TB of memory, as evidenced by Windows Server 2012.

* The 4 TB limit in Windows Server 2012 is probably an artificial restriction using the same mechanism as well...

 

Considering that 64-bit CPUs has a max theoretical limit of 16 exbibytes, 4TB does seem like another artificial limitation. Though in practice 64-bit CPUs can be limited to as little as 256 TiB usable and 4 PiB maximum (AMD64 only has 52-bit physical memory and 48-bit virtual memory).

 

good discussion gentleman, enjoying it a lot.

 

Artificial limitation as in Windows software limitation... not hard limitation which is what you are referring to based on the physical hardware limitations due to a 64-bit architecture.

 

Here's a link where RT 8.1, 8.1, 8.1 Pro, 8.1 Enterprise is side by side for comparison,,if you use these features in 8.1 Pro that are not in 8.1 then yes , else
no.

Compare Windows 8.1 editions


In Basic Command Words: IF THEN ELSE

Cheers
3Fees

 

Well, for $99, I went ahead and sprung for it... if anything for the home entertainment system integration features alone...

not sure of all those networking differences that are related to Enterprise are going to make for a more secure computer or just a more laggy one... oh well.