8.1 or 7 for light dev on old PC

Arrrgggh!
As a dyed in the wool penguinista, I hate buying MS operating systems. But I have need to do so. The target H/W is my son's ancient Dell monster laptop witrh a not so fast Core 2 Duo, 2GB RAM and spinning rust. (Can't upgrade to SSD because I cannot find an IDE SSD. ) I might have some more RAM I could stuff in it.

I need to do some work using C# to maintain a console app (actually a small TCP server.) At least the dev tools are cheap (as in free!) and though it pains me to say, C# is decent to work with.

I'm agonizing over Win8.1 vs. Win7. Two things push me toward 8.1. First, I work with it on my 'work PC' and it''s OK (once I get past the built in apps that want to HOG THE SCREEN.) Some articles I've found claim it is more light weight than Win7. The second thing is perhaps some day I'll need to upgrade to a newer version of Visual Studio. Right now the most recent version is support on both 7 and 8.1 but perhaps the next one will be 8.1 only.

Of course I'm looking for the cheapest option and may follow this thread: http://www.overclockers.com/forums/...-copy-of-windows-8-1-for-as-cheap-as-possible if I can find some place to buy a legitimate key. (I hate pirating S/W even more than paying for MS products.)

Then I get to licenses. The system builder is cheapest, but I can't transfer it to another PC should I want to do so some day. right? No need for Pro as I don't plan to use it in a corporate environment (e.g some place with a domain controller AFAIK.)

I appreciate any informed comments that would help me decide between 7 and 8.1.

At the retail price, I'm about half way toward buying a refurb laptop that comes with a license.

Or maybe I should just spend the time to rewrite the server in Python., I should learn Python anyway. (But right now all of my spare time programming is going toward my grandson's Christmas present. )

Edit: This doesn;t look bad: http://moofi.woot.com/offers/lenovo...o&utm_campaign=Commission+Junction+-+10848750

Actually has a faster processor than my T500. But the T500 has a nicer screen.

8.1

It actually runs on lower requirements better than 7.

ATMINSIDE said:

8.1

It actually runs on lower requirements better than 7.

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Interesting. I did not know that. I'll keep that in mind as I'm planning on building a new gaming rig in the near future.

ATMINSIDE said:

8.1

It actually runs on lower requirements better than 7.

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If you're installing 8.1, at least throw Classic Shell in.

@ATM
Really?

Well, I'll have to try that one day. Our "main" laptop is a crappy AMD dual core 1Ghz
It's awful with Win 7.

Yep, I've installed 8 and 8.1 and had great success on plenty of systems that a fresh install of 7 was painful at best.

8.1 hands down. There's literally no reason to perpetuate the use of 7 when 8.1 is superior on most fronts. 8.1 runs on tablets, it'll run fine on your low-end older machine.

That being said, I'd personally invest sometime into making the application more portable. Re-writing from C# to C++ or Java wouldn't be a huge undertaking unless there is a lot of .NET dependent functionality. Though, MS did make the announcement last month that .NET is making the leap towards cross platform, but that's probably still quite a ways away, knowing MS.

HankB said:

(Can't upgrade to SSD because I cannot find an IDE SSD. )

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https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct...KFH8xQd8cTsoXKgTFzkFKtg&bvm=bv.82001339,d.eXY

pcgamer4life said:

That being said, I'd personally invest sometime into making the application more portable.

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In this case the app is not really worth migrating. It is only a test mule for the other side of the network connection for the product I'm working on. I just need something under my control on the other side of the network connection to test the functionality of what I'm working on. It uses too many .Net-isms to be easily ported to another language.

Mr.Scott said:

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct...KFH8xQd8cTsoXKgTFzkFKtg&bvm=bv.82001339,d.eXY

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Caught me out! I really didn't look too hard. (KingSpec - my favorite brand! )

On the other hand, I may have staved off the inevitable, at least for now. I managed to find an install .ISO for VS 2010 which runs on XP. It won't open the VS 2013 project but I cut and pasted the code into a VS 2010 project and it seems to run. So for now I think I'm good! In the mean time I'm watching for a smoking deal on 8 or 8.1.

thanks,
hank

For whatever its worth I recently bought a Microsoft Surface Pro 3 and absolutely love this machine. However, it comes with Windows 8.1 and if it wasn't for Classic Shell I would have returned it. I actually bought two Surfaces for both myself and my wife. She has not installed Classic Shell and, without a start menu and those silly big colorful squares, it is too annoying for me to tolerate. I strongly suggest Windows 7.

I think it goes without saying that any comparison is between [Windows 8 + Freeware Classic Shell] not Windows 8 Metro... so if Classic Shell solves the problem in 15 seconds for free, why go with Windows 7 unless you are not allowed to install Classic Shell on a machine you would be using?

c627627 said:

I think it goes without saying that any comparison is between [Windows 8 + Freeware Classic Shell] not Windows 8 Metro... so if Classic Shell solves the problem in 15 seconds for free, why go with Windows 7 unless you are not allowed to install Classic Shell on a machine you would be using?

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That is a very good point but my thought is that one must brute force W8 into a friendly interface and even then many of the W8 annoying evils still manage to show through every now and then. W7 has none of this and no additional software needs to be installed to make it behave. Personal opinion certainly but I just see no redeeming value to W8.

I completely understand everything you are saying and when I bought Windows 8 on the day it came out, I was on a quest to address the point you are making. It was addressed pretty quickly.

Can you do this:
http://www.overclockers.com/forums/...l-in-Win-8-1?p=7758666&viewfull=1#post7758666

Then post if Windows 8 does anything weird and what it does, because after that is done - Windows 8 takes over with little things Windows 7 is lacking.


I believe we can eliminate Win8 annoyances without completely removing them since Metro can be accessed quickly through SHIFT click on Start Button.

8.1 has better security as well, well if you want to call it security on something windows Thats my why router is the first line of defense and Lin based.

After reading thus discussion on the merits of the 8.1 desktop vs. 7 I thought I'd chime in with my relatively uneducated opinion and ask a question. (Uneducated because I did not install this system and try not to tweak it too much.)

The system I'm working on boots into a desktop with tiles which I can use to start some apps. One of these tiles takes me to a traditional looking desktop where I can drag and drop folder shortcuts, app shortcuts and so on. (Any apps I use frequently get shortcuts here.) There's no traditional start menu, it just goes back to the tiles. Is this part of normal 8.1 or is it the result of some add-on?

Overall, 8.1 seems OK. The only really annoying thing is the standard apps that take over the entire screen and refuse to run in a window. That's just plain stupid IMO. One can download replacements that behave properly but I hate downloading Window stuff because of the propensity of download hosts to add extra baggage (browser hijacks and such) to the payload. The search function on the tile screen is helpful but doesn't always find what I want. And I'm absolutely baffled that the I could not repartition a secondary drive using built in tools.

That's Windows 8 and 8.1 for you.

Install Classicshell to fix that
c627627 has made a nice guide here

Windows 3.1

TransformedBG said:

Windows 3.1

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Mmmmm DOS