Windows 8 stable enough?

[samalex]

Just curious, is Windows 8 stable enough to run as a secondary system? My primary system at work is Win 7 and at home is OSX, but my laptop bounces between the two and is running Ubuntu Linux 10.04. Given I replace Linux with Windows 8 has anyone seen any show stopping bugs which might prevent me from using a system with Win 8 for casual use? The only mainstream application I'd really like to install is SQL Server 2008 R2 Dev Edition, which I've read in a few places does work on Win 8, but I'm just curious to see how stable you guys think it is at this point.

Take care --

Sam

 

[kira]

In short... no. if you notice most folks are ether using a dual boot or VM to play with 8. Why? because it is by its very title "developer build" unstable. It's still in production. Microsoft let us have this to provide feedback on how it is SO FAR Also a nice preview for folks who are planning to build apps for it. It's a baby.

 

[flexx17]

hmm well i'd say it depends on what u call stable....cause IMO stable means no or minimal crashing.....

PS all my normal apps run seamlessly on Win 8

the only thing ive noticed is inconsistent boot times....sometimes lightening fast @ others 3-5 times the usual

 

[Bill2]

I don't use metro ui, with a desktop gui its rock stable and slightly faster than win7. But please keep important data backed up because there may be unknown bugs and you don't want to lose stuff.

 

[whs]

I installed it on a seperate HDD so that it is seperated from Win7 (no double boot). After an initial problem which I ironed out, it runs very well. I have even installed some real "husky" programs that operate perfectly.

Like Bill. I work mostly thru the desktop, but sometimes you have to use the dreaded Metro. And imaging all your partitions on the system is a good idea. That was my initial problem . Win8 kept corrupting other partitions - even on the other drives (but I had my images).

 

[vrosa]

Just curious, is Windows 8 stable enough to run as a secondary system?

In my opinion yes, but preferencialy keep your important data in a diferent disk or partition

 

[freelancer91]

I like to live dangerously. As such, I have made the Windows 8 Dev preview my only operating system on both my Desktop and laptop. My desktop has fared much better than my laptop. There are only a few minor things that have gone wrong on it (unable to print to network printer, for example). My laptop, however, will regularly freeze and not leave a crash dump or anything to help me diagnose the problem. Also, it is unable to exit hibernation, hanging on the screen that says "Windows Developer Preview" without the animation starting.

I am putting myself through this in order to get used to the new user interface. Hopefully, my computer is sending valuable information to the people at Microsoft to get this thing to be more stable.

 

[mikedl]

Hi, freelancer91!

I take it you like to reinstall your OS over and over again on your main system until the final release, eh?

 

[freelancer91]

This isn't even the craziest thing I've done with my system. The craziest would either be the time I tried out Arch Linux or the time I Hackintoshed both of my machines. I don't have any data that I would be devastated to lose. If something does go wrong, I use a program like Acronis to restore.

 

[aem]

There are bugs in the DP version, should be iron out in the beta if not RTM.

 

[mikedl]

This isn't even the craziest thing I've done with my system. The craziest would either be the time I tried out Arch Linux or the time I Hackintoshed both of my machines. I don't have any data that I would be devastated to lose. If something does go wrong, I use a program like Acronis to restore.

I have too many programs I use for work. I cannot risk having the DP or anything else as my main OS regardless of the data involved.
It would take an entire week, at least, to re-install all of those programs and set them up the way I want them.

I'll dual boot through this process until the final release and play with a few of the programs in the interim..

When I have work to do, I fall back to Win7. Heck, it took me this long just to get it exactly right after 10 years on XP.

Granted, when Win8 is officially released, I'll do it all over again but not until then - though I will play with it.

 

[whs]

This isn't even the craziest thing I've done with my system. The craziest would either be the time I tried out Arch Linux or the time I Hackintoshed both of my machines. I don't have any data that I would be devastated to lose. If something does go wrong, I use a program like Acronis to restore.

I have too many programs I use for work. I cannot risk having the DP or anything else as my main OS regardless of the data involved.
It would take an entire week, at least, to re-install all of those programs and set them up the way I want them.

I'll dual boot through this process until the final release and play with a few of the programs in the interim..

When I have work to do, I fall back to Win7. Heck, it took me this long just to get it exactly right after 10 years on XP.

Granted, when Win8 is officially released, I'll do it all over again but not until then - though I will play with it.

If you depend so much on your system, I suggest you be very careful. My first Win8 installation destroyed several partitions on the same and on other disks. Fortunately I had all the images on a disconnected external drive (it could not get at that one). So I was able to restore.

After some finagling I got it to work without incidents. But at first it was scary. You might want to consider the Virtual Box option.

 

[mikedl]

Thanks, whs, good advice.
I keep my data backed up but I prefer to test out the new OS with direct hardware.

Apparently, it leads to less issues from what I've been reading so far.

 

[whs]

Sure, installing it on the real hardware is preferable. But it bears more risks.

 

[Golden]

I installed it on a seperate HDD so that it is seperated from Win7 (no double boot).

Wolfgang, how do you boot to your second HDD - the one with the Win8 installation? I've tried the VBox route but have had no success keeping Win8 stable enough to do anything of interest....I'm interested in your approach.

Regards,
Golden

 

[whs]

I installed it on a seperate HDD so that it is seperated from Win7 (no double boot).

Wolfgang, how do you boot to your second HDD - the one with the Win8 installation? I've tried the VBox route but have had no success keeping Win8 stable enough to do anything of interest....I'm interested in your approach.

Regards,
Golden

Booting to the second HD is quite simple. You restart the system and when the BIOS spash screen appears, you tap the function key that gets you into the Boot screen (on HP that is ESC, on Dell that is F12 - but if you have a different system, the spash screen should say). Then you highlight the HD from where you want to boot (with the UP/DOWN arrows) and hit Enter.

When you rstart from Win8, it will automatically restart your default system. No need to go via the BIOS.

Now this works only, if the bootmgr for Win8 (the active partition) is on the second HD. To make sure of that, predefine a primary, active partition on that HD and then install Win8 into there. And make sure, that there is no other active partition already present on that HD. If there is, you need to define only a primary partition. The already existing active partition will take the Win8 bootmgr.

 

[Colonel Travis]

Got a desktop with 7 and a laptop with 8. Don't care what happens with the laptop so 8's the only OS on there and it's been fine thus far.

 

[RobWest]

I installed it on an older Dell Laptop (Vista), runs fine, erased Vista.

 

[paarkhi]

Its very much stable, I've used Adobe Indesign CS5, Adobe PS CS5, Corel Draw 15, MS-Office 2010, etc. and not even a single BSOD or any other problem, so I think it is stable enough.

 

[brummyfan]

I have W8 installed in my laptop on it's own(Vista gone), in my desktop dual booting with Vista, both are stable except for minor issues like uploading Youtube videos( using FF6). I really like the responsiveness and IE10's speed.