I'm an IT professional (over 20 years). I feel qualified to make these statements in this post.  I also know that the download sites for Windows 8.1 never give any warning as to what works, what doesn't, driver updates needed etc.  In fact it's being sold as the next best thing! Just download and upgrade.  There's even a tool I ran that told me my laptop was ready to go!

My environment is an HP 6530B laptop that worked flawlessly on Windows 7 professional with IE10.  I upgraded to Windows 8.1 about 6 weeks ago (upgrade went flawlessly) and have had nothing but nightmares.  Here's the list, so beware.

1. Blue Screens are frequently seen.  I was able to reduce them by clearing out all the UPDATEs and applying a select few of them.  How can updates make things worse?
2. System Hangs, forcing a power down 3 to 4 times a day.
3. IE11 crashes, sends a dump to MSFT and reboots itself at will about 5 to 7 times a day.
4. Certain Monitors used as a second monitor that worked in Windows 7, cause the system to go haywire and become unusable no matter how many times you reboot.
5. Automatic updates and manual update checks frequently don't work well.  If you press the Check Upates button multiple times, you will get different results.
6. Some updates make matters worse
7. There appears to be random memory leaks in the Service Host process
8. Service Host process group frequently hogs memory 1.5 GIG or more. (These are all MSFT services)  It is believed that some of these processes have a memory leak.
9. Office 2013 is unstable when using either Word or Outlook (will hang system)
10. Excel 2013 throws errors when connecting to the TFS Team client to download Workitems, it can seem to interpret the data.
11. Excel 2013 (issues, problems, crash) will crash on simple moves of area data from one group of cells to another.
12. VS2012 will hang and WINDBG cannot be attached to debug the process
13. VS2013 works much better!
14. Starting up Cisco's VPN client 5.0.07.0290 will hang the system 1/2 the time.
15. Some installed products such as Infor's EPAK crash and burn when used.

The only good thing about Windows 8.1 is Google Chrome because it ran fine!

To me this is the worst production roll out I've ever seen from the team that produced the platform we've adopted.  I can't flog anyone, but I can post an honest assessment of my experience.

1. Are there any errors and warnings in logs (setup, update, event viewer, etc)

2. You can take minidump to another computer and look at it with simple Nirsoft BSOD viewer

3. For sure do diagnostics of HDD and RAM. Make sure that overheating is not the case.

4. Disable add-ons and start Excel in safe mode

5. I understand your pain but do not mix Chrome here.... Try to cool your emotions. This will help you come to good result :-)

Regards

Milos

• Edited by Milos Puchta Thursday, November 28, 2013 10:28 PM

1. Are there any errors and warnings in logs (setup, update, event viewer, etc)

2. You can take minidump to another computer and look at it with simple Nirsoft BSOD viewer

3. For sure do diagnostics of HDD and RAM. Make sure that overheating is not the case.

4. Disable add-ons and start Excel in safe mode

5. I understand your pain but do not mix Chrome here.... Try to cool your emotions. This will help you come to good result :-)

Regards

Milos

• Edited by Milos Puchta Thursday, November 28, 2013 10:28 PM

Mr. Javaman II, that sounds bad.  I'm (thankfully) not seeing these issues on my desktop workstation.

Just to be completely thorough...   Did you install Windows 8.1 as an in-place upgrade to what you were already running (i.e., "keep applications and settings")?  Or did you do a full, fresh install?

As a software engineer of 37 years, it would never occur to me that installing an OS as an in-place upgrade to an older OS is a viable thing to do.  It simply isn't, for numerous reasons.   Yet that's exactly what Microsoft is pushing.  For most folks they don't even provide easy access to ISO files from which you could make a disc or USB drive and do a fresh install if you wanted to.

My own Windows 8.1 installs are all fresh and clean, and they're running solidly so far (knocking on wood).

The event viewer is pretty much clean, there are plenty of errors but they seem to be logged when I am forced to power down the system!  Root cause errors are not apparent, it's almost as if there is a memory leak that just slowly knocks the system senseless.

Most of the time I am unable to take minidumps because the system hangs at random times (frequently).

I rely on TFS add ons for Excel to run Bug reports, so I can't disable add-ons because it crashes when using the add-on I need.  But it will also crash when not using any of them and simply moving one column to another location on a single spreadsheet.

I've been through two or three diagnostic checks on HDD as the frequent need for me to just power it down when it's hung has forced the System Check program to scan the drive three or four times now.  Each time nothing showing up as problematic.  

Why would I need to check RAM?  Remember this was an in-place upgrade from Windows 7 where everything was working perfect.

IE 11 issues are most likely not directly related to Windows 8.1, it just sucks period.  

I had to mention chrome for those with similar problems as mine.  It's the only browser that works and I use my browser for my job daily.

Emotions aside, Windows 8.1 upgrade in-place from Windows 7 on an HP6530B simple doesn't work.  I've been totally screwed by MSFT and this experience.  

Noel;

  Yes I did an in-place upgrade but not before using their tool to see if everything was cool.  That tool green lighted the experience.  

I've already made the decision to downgrade which will be a pain for me personally.  However, I just wanted to get some Air-Time concerning this issue being that I work in QA, and often write bugs internally at my company.  Often times, folks can benefit from these reports and make a better decision than I did on doing the upgrade based on others experiences. 

  I am completely baffled by this upgrade because it's too encompassing.  But I will take your advise and try to avoid in-place upgrades in the future and also remember to follow my own rules of yesteryear which were "Don't do an upgrade until 1 or 1.5 years after it first comes out"...

Well, you could be forgiven for thinking Windows 8.1 is Windows 8's "1 or 1.5 years after it first comes out".  In other words a rough equivalent to "Service Pack 1".

I can only encourage you to consider trying a full, clean install of Windows 8.1 (yes, I know how much of a pain that is).

I put Windows 8.1 in fresh on my Dell Precision T5500 workstation.  I ran Windows 7 since 2009, and I have tested Windows 8 and 8.1 thoroughly in virtual machines first before making the plunge.  Now I have been through that pain, but fortunately after the dust has settled I have a reliable system that I've been able to get to work just as well as Windows 7.  I wish I could say better than Windows 7, but I can't.  It's not faster nor easier to use in any way.  Its only advantage is that it's current.

Turns out I have a computer that doesn't have a specific driver for MSFT's brillant move to change things up in Windows 8.1. This content came straight from Intel site.

Go here to find MSFT driver updates.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/apps/dn344644.aspx

My chipset "the last one in the list" has neither Intel or MSFT drivers.  This is most likely the root cause of all my problems.  This particular chipset is native to the HP6530B laptop.  

Ouch, I'm sorry to hear that, and I agree - that's quite possibly the reason you're having problems.  You'd think Microsoft's little upgrade advisor might have been so nice as to let you know that ahead of time, eh?

I suppose you could petition Intel to push a driver through WHQL testing.  Perhaps if they hear from enough folks with your type of system...

I take it HP didn't offer any help in the matter.  With laptops you generally have to go through the laptop maker for drivers anyway.

. . .  IE 11 issues are most likely not directly related to Windows 8.1, it just sucks period.  

I had to mention chrome for those with similar problems as mine.  It's the only browser that works and I use my browser for my job daily. . . .

Kudos on the article!

I am a developer, also having problems saving notepad documents in program file directories (I frequently need to save there). Also a pain trying to install my own programs.

Windows 8.1 sucks. It's the biggest flop since Win ME.

I would know, I was there ;-)

Jason, have you tried disabling UAC yet?  I mean really disabled it, via the EnableLUA value in the registry.  Then you're privileged all the time and can save things where you need.

For knowledgeable users who need to do serious computing this is one of the single best ways to return Windows 8.1 to the functionality of yesteryear.  And, you lose the ability to run Metro/Modern applications - another plus.

Add ClassicShell and Aero Glass for Win 8.1 and the desktop gets downright friendly again.

Yeah, seems to suck for me too!  No X button is gonna cause so much grief to users!  Need to fix that, got the start button back kinda, but really need the x back.  Don't care what the rest of ya say cause it is the truth!  So lets close this one out!