Let's Hear It (or not) For Windows 8.1

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I've made this thread because I acquired my first PC around five years ago, and it came with Windows 8.1. At the time, I heard nothing but hostility towards this operating system, including on WP, and was a bit wary of it. In actual fact, it's turned out to be superb, with bombproof reliability (never a hint of an update going wrong) plus excellent speed, usability and features. It seems that the original Windows 8 was a bit poor, but it was withdrawn after only about a year and replaced with 8.1. The most commonly heard criticism of 8.1 seems to be of the 'tiles' on the default desktop start page, but all you need to do is install 'Classic Shell' (see pic below) and you have a traditional start menu not unlike that of Win 7:




I still use Windows 8.1 90% of the time. Win 7 is okay, but not as fast these days it seems, and will be unsupported by Microsoft from January next year. I have a couple of machines running Win 10, but I've never been able to become comfortable with it.

Thankfully, Windows 8.1 will still be supported for another 3.5 years. A pity it's hardly ever talked about these days. Do other users agree (or disagree) with this assessment?