I got Win 8.1 Pro about 6 months ago and I've been getting the free upgrade to win 10 offer.  So I wouldn't
be buying a new Win 10 key. From what I was told in a computer forum, I’ll be able to use a dual
boot system with Win 8 and Win 10 and not have to be stopped every time I boot to a different OS.
 
If I upgraded I assume that I’d run into all sorts of problems, which is expected with a new OS and I’d need to run a dual boot system for a while until I got Win 10 working as well as Win 8.1 Pro. Has anyone done this? Are there any unexpected problems with this dual boot scenario? Any fans of Win 10 here?

Well, your license for the free upgrade will not be valid with your previous version (the one you upgrade from) installed on another computer or on the same computer in a dual boot setup. The theory is that the upgrade cancels the version copy from which it was upgraded. I really do not know how or if Microsoft is enforcing that on a home user machine. Also, if you bought the retail full version of Win8 you could legally move it to another machine, but once upgraded with the free upgrade, your Win10 will be locked to your current machine and cannot be moved.

I agree, from what I've read once you upgrade, unless you fall back within 30 days, you no longer have the old OS license.
 
If ALL your hardware and software is Win 10 compatible (and if it is Win 8.1 it should be) then Win 10 is a viable option.  There are several threads on this forum about it and mostly (almost all) positive. 
 
On my Roland Octa-Capture I went from 6ms Latency (best I could get reliably) on Win 7/8.1 to 4ms (reliable) with Win 10.

slartabartfast
Well, your license for the free upgrade will not be valid with your previous version (the one you upgrade from) installed on another computer or on the same computer in a dual boot setup. The theory is that the upgrade cancels the version copy from which it was upgraded. I really do not know how or if Microsoft is enforcing that on a home user machine. Also, if you bought the retail full version of Win8 you could legally move it to another machine, but once upgraded with the free upgrade, your Win10 will be locked to your current machine and cannot be moved.

Are you saying if I do this upgrade, I can't deactivate it's license and then put Win 10 on one of my other computers and reactivate the license? If so this is different from the past
 
In the other forum a guy said: 
"You can still dual boot and use both OS's until you settle in to 10. Legally, you are supposed to get a second license to dual boot, but no one actually does, as there is no practical barrier to dual booting with the upgrade."
 
So this is exactly why I'm asking here if anyone has done this. I want to know if does indeed work this way with no ramifications or unexpected problems.

As firebird said, make sure all your hardware has good driver support (if they worked well in Win 8, they should work better in Win 10). I made the free upgrade from Win 8.1 to Win 10 (about 6 months now) and found it to be more snappier/responsive......and most of all.....no issues.
 
Good luck!!

gmp

slartabartfast
Well, your license for the free upgrade will not be valid with your previous version (the one you upgrade from) installed on another computer or on the same computer in a dual boot setup. The theory is that the upgrade cancels the version copy from which it was upgraded. I really do not know how or if Microsoft is enforcing that on a home user machine. Also, if you bought the retail full version of Win8 you could legally move it to another machine, but once upgraded with the free upgrade, your Win10 will be locked to your current machine and cannot be moved.

Are you saying if I do this upgrade, I can't deactivate it's license and then put Win 10 on one of my other computers and reactivate the license? If so this is different from the past
 
In the other forum a guy said: 
"You can still dual boot and use both OS's until you settle in to 10. Legally, you are supposed to get a second license to dual boot, but no one actually does, as there is no practical barrier to dual booting with the upgrade."
 
So this is exactly why I'm asking here if anyone has done this. I want to know if does indeed work this way with no ramifications or unexpected problems.

 I wouldn't bet the farm on that. It is an upgrade. BTW check and see if your W8 is an OEM. Upgrading a motherboard or CPU will require a new license in W10 if it is an OEM.

kitekrazy1
It is an upgrade. BTW check and see if your W8 is an OEM. Upgrading a motherboard or CPU will require a new license in W10 if it is an OEM.

It is my understanding that regardless of the original version that you base the upgrade on, the upgrade itself is non-transferrable to a new machine. The activation robot will probably see a new MB or CPU as a new machine and refuse to activate the new installation. If you need to repair or replace a core component, then you may be able to get a telephone support agent to let you activate the Win 10 upgrade on the altered machine. But the point of upgrading a MB is that you do not have the same machine, you have a new machine using some of the old components, and there is no guarantee that will be considered a repair by telephone support. If you put a new Gigabyte retail motherboard in your Dell computer case, then it is easy to see that it is not a Dell machine anymore, so more likely that you will be denied. But if you exchange a Gigabyte MB for an Asus MB or even a different model by the same manufacturer an astute telephone service rep may deny you activation regardless of whether you upgraded from an OEM (non-transferrable license) or retail (transferrable license) on the original MB. The fact that Microsoft has a history of being pretty generous with telephone activations does not guarantee that you will not be required to buy a new license. In any event, the new copy of Win 10 can not be moved to a new computer altogether.
 

My experience has been more than positive upgrading to windows 10 from 8.1!! I can't speak for your machine but I upgraded an Asus desktop with 7 on it and a Toshiba Satellite laptop with 8.1 on it and they both have not given me one bit of problem. Neither one of them has ever run as good as they do on 10. 10 does take some getting used to but the upgrade is pretty painless, takes a while but the whole download and install process is around 3 gigs.
It really is the best thing I have done since I started computer jockeying! Like the man said, just make sure you have any drivers that you may need for hardware that was not included in 10. Other than that, I would jump on it NOW!

gmp
 
Are you saying if I do this upgrade, I can't deactivate it's license and then put Win 10 on one of my other computers and reactivate the license? If so this is different from the past
 
In the other forum a guy said: 
"You can still dual boot and use both OS's until you settle in to 10. Legally, you are supposed to get a second license to dual boot, but no one actually does, as there is no practical barrier to dual booting with the upgrade."
 
So this is exactly why I'm asking here if anyone has done this. I want to know if does indeed work this way with no ramifications or unexpected problems.

That is exactly what I am saying. You cannot, within the terms of the license, deactivate and move your free upgrade version to another computer other than the one on which it was finally installed. There have been comments that you will be able to do that within the period of the free upgrade i.e. until July 29, 2016, but I have not been able to find why people believe that. In any case no one is saying that you can move the Win 10 free upgrade copy once the installation has been considered final.  Final might be either a month after initial installation when rollback is no longer possible, or at the end of the free upgrade period. Whether you can do that without having your installation stop working is another question altogether. Before Windows XP and the activation system, you could install Windows versions on multiple computers (illegally) and they would still work normally. Retail/full versions of Windows since then have required that you activate them and only allowed a single activation per copy so that you could move full retail copies to another computer if you wanted so long as you did not have two computers with that copy activated at once. That had some robotic enforcement as anyone who has struggled with activation error 0xC004C008 will attest. Understand that if you follow the normal activation path (or the newer activation via a qualifying version product code), the Microsoft robot will have your unique product/activation key that identifies the copy of Windows 7 or 8 used to get the upgrade, and the hardware hash that identifies the particular machine that qualifies. If you try to use the original product key on another computer it is technically possible to detect that mismatch and legally defensible to disable one of your illicit copies, and require you to pay for an additional copy or refuse activation. Whether Microsoft will do so is a gamble. I too would be interested in hearing reports about whether or not this workaround/piracy is working. But even if it is currently working, I would be reluctant to gamble that it will in perpetuity. 
  

Hhhmmm , very interesting thread with all the legal aspects ...
After picking up a Win 10 computer w W10 as the pre installed OS I much prefer Windows 10 to all the other versions of Windows I've used so far .SONAR runs great on it .
Yet, I'm still siting on the fence about upgrading my Win 8 computer over to Win 10 ...
the thought of having to go to Win 8.1 first and then doing the upgrade has me concerned about having to reauthorize a bunch of software only to have to do it all over again for Win 10 
thankfully there is still time left ...
 
Kenny