Windows 7 vs Windows 8.1?

[Wheeljack699]

I have issues with windows 10 I want to downgrade.

Are there any downsides with downgrading to windows 8.1 or windows 7?

Are there any major differences between 8.1 and 7?

[whoisjaya]

There are differences. Definitely; with Windows 8.1 for example you get the desktop and the home screen(or whatever it's called :P) and with Windows 7, there's only the desktop.
Also, I think the windows search is better in windows 8.1.

Apart from that, I just find the latter one to be far more pleasing in terms of visuals...

[Radium_Angel]

A lot.

Let's start with if your system supports Win7 and you can find drivers.

Win8/8.1 was win7 with a terrible UI.

Win10 adds a lot of spyware...excure me, telemetry and updates you can't control, plus lots of advertising...pardon, I mean Live Tiles.

Win7 goes out of mainstream support in 2020 (aka, easily had patches) but as we have seen with XP, the community still makes patches for it based on what MS releases.

 

Win10 gets the latest version of DirectX, which WIn7 does not (an arbitrary and dick move by MS, there is no practical reason why Win7 can't support DX12) so bear that in mind, but the number of games supporting DX12 only are very small so far.

 

2 hours ago, Jonas_2909 said:

There are differences. Definitely; with Windows 8.1 for example you get the desktop and the home screen(or whatever it's called :P) and with Windows 7, there's only the desktop.
Also, I think the windows search is better in windows 8.1.

Apart from that, I just find the latter one to be far more pleasing in terms of visuals...

The search function is *easily* replaced with a free program called "Ultrasearch" which is far and away the best search program I've ever seen. Integrates with the win shell too.

[whoisjaya]

What I forgot to mention: Windows 7 might be better if you want to play older games, but I think 8.1 already supports DirectX 12, which 7 doesn't... Might be not completely right about that, though...

[Wheeljack699]

Thanks you guys

[Delicieuxz]

Windows 7 doesn't have DX 12, but is has Vulkan, which accomplishes the same thing as DX 12. Usually, though a game developer chooses to support either Vulkan or DX 12, and not both. My impression is that there's a bit of a leaning towards Vulkan lately by game developers, as it is multi-platform, whereas DX 12 is only in Windows 10 (and Microsoft consoles).

 

If you like to game, then there's a lot more community support, work-arounds, guides, fixes, and familiarity for Windows 7 than there is for Windows 8.1, since the install base of Windows 7 is much larger than either Windows 8.1 or Windows 10:

 

February 2018 Steam hardware survey

 

Windows 7 64 bit - 68.50%

Windows 10 64 bit - 25.41%

Windows 8.1 64 bit - 2.26%

 

And for general usage, I would guess that Windows 7 is more stable and reliable than Windows 8.1, just as it is a lot more stable and reliable than Windows 10.

 

 

One word of warning, though: Microsoft as a company, and as a software developer, has become total crap since Satya Nadella took over as its CEO in 2014. The decline in Microsoft development, design, and coding quality didn't occur all at once, but it took a huge nose-dive after Satya Nadella fired thousands of Microsoft's testers to save money, creating the state of things where installing new updates from Microsoft actually now poses more of a risk to a PC than not installing any updates from Microsoft does.

 

So, it might be an idea to choose to find an ISO for your preferred Windows OS that dates June 2015 or close to it, as after June 2015 is when Microsoft started back-adding invasive persistent telemetry to Windows 7 and Windows 8, and then disable Windows Update so that no newer Microsoft updates are downloaded.

 

For use with a Windows 7 Ultimate license, I have an ISO of June 2015 Windows 7 Ultimate 64 for download: