Hi guys, I know this has been covered many times, but I am considering moving from WIn7 x64 to Win8 x64 as I've heard from several people that there is a definitive stability improvement...
I run an RME HDSP9652 PCI card on an Intel i7 2600 with 8GB Ram (about 3 years old).
 
Any ideas, suggestions or warnings, major benefits?

If I had to redo . I would never go with W8 and metro ever!! Just a waste of an OS and the learning curve sucks. I only use my windows machine for Sonar and music. If I had to I would stay with W7 64 bit. I didnt notice a difference at all accept , i dont know where anything is compare to xp. or w7 . Just to find the control panel becomes a problem. METRO is for smartphones and tablets should never be part of a real OS.
 
45% of people still use Windows 7
7.1% use Window 8
33% still use xp
 
As MS's track record goes. I believe Windows 8 will end up being something like Vista . better yet I hope !
 
 

Not much difference for a Win 7 user. Of course Win8.1 will be slightly better and is actually a great OS (not a Vista by any means). If your machine is over 3 years old I would upgrade when the time comes to replace your machine (OS is cheaper when included with a new machine).
 
If there's a feature however with Win8.1 you desperately need (I'd be surprised unless you want a touch screen) then go for it.
BTW I would have advised upgrading to 8.1 (even replacing your machine) if you had Vista or below.
 
Cheers...

Win 8 x 64 has been rock solid here. Much more stable than Win 7 Ultimate was for me. Just personal experience.
 
You get used to Metro, people just didnt like the change (me included). Win 8.1 brings back the start button and Win 8 still has "Windows God mode" which is quite handy for people who want to tweak and fiddle.

Thanks for the input guys. Other than features as selling points, how stable is 8.1? (which is more my reason for looking at the change). Does one still get odd pauses, a crash or two a day etc etc as with Win 7? How smooth does the system run, and how well does it manage resources? Thanks, I just saw Markyzno's reply regarding this..

I made the move from 7 to 8. Stayed on 8 for a little while until the scary storys about 8.1 settled down. I made the to 8.1 and I have not had a hitch with the whole process. I did set the 8.1 screen to go directly to the familiar desktop instead of the "Charms" screen. My rig boots up and looks just like 7 did. Other than the inevitable moving around of things and "some things only took one click now takes two" niggles, once you get used to it all seems faster and a little more peppy. As I said, after a few months of 8.1 I am VERY pleased. And Sonar 3 seems happier, too.  Geesh, sounds like a commercial. NOTICE: The main thing I didn't like about 8 was they took away the traditional start and power button. It was happily returned in the 8.1 update. Set your computer to boot directly to the desktop and you'll not notice much difference!

djjhart@aol.com
If I had to redo . I would never go with W8 and metro ever!! Just a waste of an OS and the learning curve sucks. I only use my windows machine for Sonar and music. If I had to I would stay with W7 64 bit. I didnt notice a difference at all accept , i dont know where anything is compare to xp. or w7 . Just to find the control panel becomes a problem. METRO is for smartphones and tablets should never be part of a real OS.
 
45% of people still use Windows 7
7.1% use Window 8
33% still use xp
 
As MS's track record goes. I believe Windows 8 will end up being something like Vista . better yet I hope !
 
 

Are people really this helpless? I did buy two books on Windows 8 in Kindle format but I had very little trouble adjusting to the new OS. One of the first things I did besides reading up on it in forums and in the books was get Classic Shell. But if you couldn't find the control panel you didn't do much research because a right click where the old start button was (left bottom corner) will bring up a quick menu with the control panel as one of the entries. 
 
Win 8 comes with a very good help system too. You could have found that by hitting F1.
 
I have found that Win 8 runs solid and overall faster. It also boots up quicker. Sonar X3 producer handles cores better with it. Other programs such as Vegas pro 12 and others run very well indeed. DPC latency seems not to be an issue with Windows 8.
 
Security is stronger with Win 8 and it is less prone to get infected. It handles HDs better overall and adds extra functionality for handling multi HDs. 
 
With Win 8 pro you get two OSs. The Desktop and Metro. If you have no actual use for Metro you can bypass it and never see it. I find it very useful. 
 
Soon there will be an update to it. We are presently on Windows 8.1. The new update will offer a lot of the feature we like to Metro apps. First Metro apps will have a title bar with a exit button. The idea is to better support mouse and keyboard users. A meter app will minimize to the task bar. Lots of nice tweaks to the OS for mouse users.
 
Look for it around April 8.
 
 

Make sure your devices have drivers for Windows 8 and Windows 8.1, prior to making the switch.
 
I have been running Windows 8 for a couple of years or so already - did not yet upgrade to 8.1 - I like most things about it.
 
I just pinned the apps I most often use to the Task Bar, and set up the Metro tiles with the next set of most-used apps as the leftmost tiles, so the new UI is really no big deal.  The performance is great.
 
Bob Bone
 

I struggle with giving you advice here. Not because Win8 is hard to use, it's a breeze to use actually and more interesting/polished than other systems. However, I'm having some performance issues with X3 that I'm beginning to attribute to Win 8.1 and how it addresses firewire. I've read about similar issues of lower performance with PCI and Win 8.
 
The only reason I am not being more firm in my stance is because I loaded Win 8 over top of Vista. We all know that is not recommended. So next up for me is a clean install of either Win 8 again or Win 7. Leaning toward 7. Dreading it either way -but I need to do something.
 
So my suggestion is if you need touch screen, go for the upgrade. If everything is working well, then... stay with Win 7 for the time being.

LJB
Thanks for the input guys. Other than features as selling points, how stable is 8.1? (which is more my reason for looking at the change). Does one still get odd pauses, a crash or two a day etc etc as with Win 7? How smooth does the system run, and how well does it manage resources? Thanks, I just saw Markyzno's reply regarding this..

 
If you have stability issues with Windows 7 you probably need to look elsewhere for the cause to make your system more stable (start another thread about this I suggest). I don't get the behaviour you describe with Win7.
 
In reality there will be not much difference at all between Win 7 and Win 8.1 unless your drivers are exclusively different in Win8.1 for some reason, and that doesn't automatically mean they are better. Before you update to Win 8.1 you might try a clean install of Win 7 (format the partition first), with all the latest drivers, firmware Windows update and service patches for instance, it might feel like a new machine afterwards.

BTW I am running Windows 8.1 and Windows 7. Sonar runs great on both at my end. In my view I would not waste your money on a 3 year old machine upgrading to an OS that runs exactly the same software, money is better spent elsewhere.