Good luck with 8!

 
Wonder how it will perform in games.

I was surprised my self with the boot up times with windows 8 and a ssd. 8 secs flat with on an amd build I have at home. 

That's not too bad.  Memory usage is nicely lower too.

It's fully upgraded with no more updates available via Windows Update. It says 8.1 in the properties but how can I confirm that 8.1 Update is also installed? I don't see it in the update history.

Thanks for the additional info.

I also just remembered 8.1 Update added a few features that I see, so I can confirm it is installed.

NazcaC2
I played some Far Cry 3 yesterday with my NVIDIA settings on default. It played very nicely. My mom uses my computer to check her email and she likes it also. I did install Classic Shell though.

What do you mean, "though" for your mom?  Classic Shell is for techs

I played some BF4 last night and it seemed to play smoother than when I played on Windows 7.

A cold boot from POST literally was like three seconds, lmao. The circle animation went one rotation and it was up already.

One thing though... Flash performance is delayed when there is user input. It's not a smooth movement when the user moves the mouse on a webpage in IE11. It's like it skips around like it's at 10 fps. It didn't do this with Windows 7. I've sent IE support this info yesterday.

It seems to have been intermittent. It is quicker/better now (I did update Flash in a Windows Update but it fixed an exploit). Also, I haven't loaded on any other browsers to test.

I'm already using the free Classic Shell (see above) and it does everything I need it to.

Been trying to get used to Win 8 for the same reason, my Win 7 install was throwing errors but blaming the hardware. My need for free Hyper-V was the deciding factor to not just reinstall 7.
 
8.1 Update 1 is a hell of a lot better than vanilla 8 was that's for sure. But I still hate that anything metro related completely blanks out the screen. And when searching for system config panels I want the non-metro versions but the search prioritizes the metro screens first every time. I also dislike how metro-anything often requires that I reload the metro app just to return the previous options menus back... say like after updating, if I want to make sure the just-installed updates don't unlock more new updates I have to reload the app before I can search again. Metro just dumbed things down too far and makes everything require more clicks to use or access. I shouldn't have to be screwing around in the registry to bring back a quick jumplist to recently installed programs, as well as another for recently opened files either.

@Doom87:  I really enjoy Classic Shell.  There are a lot of advanced options you can change if you like (I only disable Highlight Newly Installed Programs).
 
Occasionally, I open the Start Screen (modern UI / Metro) and check out the news, recipes, etc.  I don't use it all of the time but it is a convenience once in awhile.

I agree, Bob.

As a technician and installing 8.1, it prompts to log in with the MS account. I've set up a default MS account at the business since it won't allow you to use the local account. Then I logout to use the local account.

Personally, on my home PC, I use the MS account and use a PIN to login. That's more convenient.

I don't use the Start Menu often but it's convenient to see all of my recent and pinned programs.  I use the search often also, just not on the modern UI much.