Warning - my horror story with Win 8 on my Clevo

This is not yet another moaning thread about the UI, this is a genuine warning:

I installed Win 8 update over my Win 7 installation after uninstalling any incompatible software I had installed and everything went smooth.

I got into Windows and the first sign of trouble was lack of ability to switch off the keyboard lights. I ignored that and continued working, made sure everything has installed correctly, ran FancyCache (after making sure it is compatible with Win 8, of course), installed Start 8, Creative X-Fi Go Win 8 driver, used Windows Update to install 6 major updates and restarted. The windows started and then - a blue screen (it looks horrible in Win 8, a sad smiley face and the regular stuff). I restarted and again - blue screen. Then restarted and the Windows tried fixing itself, lo and behold - it didn't find anything and I was back to square one. After messing with it for quite a while longer, I eventually gave up and loaded my Win 7 image from about 3 weeks ago, losing quite a bit of progress in Borderlands 2 in the process.

Regardless of my poor experience with Win 8, everything they said about it was sugarcoated - I don't know if it was because I was upgrading from 7 and not installing from scratch, but Windows 8's startup and shutdown times are almost twice that of my Win 7 installation, and the UI is everything bad they've said about it - and more. It's confusing, cumbersome and not suited for a PC.

Hopefully you'll have a better experience, but all in all, I'm less than impressed. I think I'll give this system about 3-6 months before I even consider touching it again.

 

Guess you learned the hard way. I never install a NEW OS until at least a year has passed.

 

Or make a OS update over another. No no no!

 

I wonder if there is other conflicting driver or software, I tossed it on a couple of my laptops with no issue, and startup time is down atleast another 20%. both units were fairly recently cleanloaded and had CS6 masters edition and my basic e-mail applications etc.

 

thing is you did an update, you dont do that. you clean install.

 

as mentioned, that's your first problem. [ source]

i found that the most recent hotkey version, 6.0056, works as it should.

you should really consider doing a clean install of windows 7. it's never wise to install operating systems on top of each other. i think that that should be the real warning here. if you're uncomfortable doing a clean installation, you could take your machine to a shop or a friend that can install it properly.

as microsoft's been advertising and something i can personally attest to, windows 8 is less resource-intensive and runs quite a bit lighter than windows 7. i received windows 8 pro last week through my partner subscription and i'm cold booting in <10 seconds, using between 5-10% less memory at idle, and running ~5C cooler on all cpu cores at idle. :thumbsup:

 

I know that you should clean install, but I have the upgrade version only.

The next time I'll even consider trying again, I guess I'll clean install 7 and upgrade from that.

 

Correct me if I'm wrong but since Win 7 you can do fresh install with your upgrade version! And that statement came from MS. Imagine a situation where you're going 64bit from 32bit. You don't have a choice of upgrade, you have to do a clean install.

Product key will work for sure and it's totally legit.

 

Who do you contact to get the iso?

I also have an upgrade key.

 

Also, before doing anything major like upgrading, you should be sure to create an backup image. This would prevent losing any progress in games or work.

 

Clevo P150EM , Windows 8 Pro x64 - clean install , every reboot BLUE SCREEN (BSOD) with error irql_not_less_or_equal. I think we need new bios for windows 8 or I dont have any idea... This confirmed on two laptops,plus yours.

 

Or just back up the saved games from Libraries\Documents\My Games folder.

 

OR just stop having 20/20 hindsight vision on others' account. Same goes to the rest of the guys posting this stuff and blaming me/treating me like a mentally handicapped 6 year old who just got his first PC/defend the OS instead of simply taking my input for what it is. Sheesh. Coca also suffered my symptoms, so this is not just an upgrade case.

Anyway, all I did was use an undelete app and recovered my savegames and everything is fine. Only after jumping through hoops I found out I actually have the savegame on the Steam cloud. Now I moved all of My Documents and savegames to Microsoft's SkyDrive and scheduled a backup of the SkyDrive's folder to my other local drive every 3 hours, other than the regular weekly backup image.

 

Running fancy cache before your system stable with all the updates and drivers is asking for trouble. Their beta release is pretty old iirc.

 

I restarted 2-3 times with Fancy Cache on, so it wasn't the Fancy Cache. The last thing I did was installing windows updates, but yeah, it's probably a serious conflict with the drivers/software I had installed in 7.

If you haven't found that already, check here:
How To Clean Install Windows 8 Pro From an Upgrade Download

I will still take my time for a few more months before attempting again, though (if at all, I'm pretty content with 7).

 

I have 8 running on my np9150 and even though I freaken hate the metro UI overall it's not too bad. I had to download classicshell to disable the UI and re-enable the start button.

Once you upgrade the hotkey program to 8.00 something it works fine.

I also upgrade over my windows 7 install and haven't had any issues.

 

Thanks for the feedback, but now that I know there's a way to clean install an upgrade version, I would advise you to consider reinstalling from scratch. Upgrading an OS was awful back in the Windows 3.1 to 95 and it seems it only went downhill from there

 

Yea I might do a clean install at some point but for now it works fine.

 

Is a UEFI install from the upgrade disc possible?