# Upgrading an old reliable-Win8?



## iamstubb (Nov 23, 2013)

I've been using Win7 as my HTPC OS but have been sitting on a Win8 upgrade for almost a year. I know my hardware can run it and it is a nice low-watt setup. I'll be upgrading to a couple terabyte hard drives so I am thinking of at least doing an OS upgrade. Anyone have any recommendations for media center software or likes/dislikes about the interface?


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## robbo266317 (Sep 22, 2008)

I did an upgrade to win 8, purely because I work in IT, and chose to keep the option to dual boot into win 7 if needed.
My hardware is less than 5 years old and has run win 7 reliably since I installed it. However I have had win 8 crash at least 9 times in the last 3 months since the upgrade.

One of my colleagues at work upgraded at the same time and has had no issues at all so I would recommend trying it. The XBMC Player seems to work well and the music library also works well.

I look forward to your experience after the upgrade.


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## phillihp23 (Mar 14, 2012)

I have Win 8.1 Pro running on my laptop and Desktop. No issues so far. As far as hardware compatibility I have not noticed any issues, unlike in the past with other win os upgrades.


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## Cleaner (Jan 29, 2009)

Keep your windows 7 and run XBMC, I don't see any upside to upgrading to Windows 8. XBMC setup and running is great and super easy to use. Have you considered some type of NAS box and adding your new hard drives to it? Doesn't leave you tied to any OS......


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## nova (Apr 30, 2006)

I don't see any advantage to going to Windows 8.1, I find it to be a rather annoying OS. I'd also stick with Windows 7.


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## Cleaner (Jan 29, 2009)

I am a firm believer that Microsoft only releases finished and acceptable operating systems every other version.


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## iamstubb (Nov 23, 2013)

Thanks for the responses. I use Win8 at work in a domain environment and it is actually very good and stable on hardware older than what I have at home and really good with new stuff. On the same hardware on a desktop at work 8 runs pretty well and I already know there are no driver issues. I will definitely be upgrading hard drives. I have 3 250Gb drives in it, but now I have some spare 1Tb that will install, maybe some more memory. I will have some CPU/graphics upgrades available soon as well but to be honest, the 5400 in it now runs media just fine. I was thinking of using one of those Logitech touchpads that are on sale for about 1/2 price these days.

http://www.logitech.com/en-us/product/touchpad-t650?crid=1153

Thanks for turning me on to XBMC. I am so out of it I didn't know about it. Looks like I'll be giving that a try as well.

Thanks for the collective knowledge and recommendations.


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