Many Still Can't Download Windows 8.1 from Windows Store

[Someone Somewhere]

I had an absolutely awful upgrade experience to Windows 8.1. I was using Window 8.1 beta prior. I lost all my apps and even some documents. If interested I blogged about it here:http://blog.vimware.com/2013/11/windows-81-upgrade-long-difficult-with.html

Perhaps you, along with everybody else, should have listened when they said that the upgrade path wasn't certain to be perfect.

You know what you're getting in to if you use beta software.

Have backups, too.

 

[willythepooh]

No installation DVD is because there is an image of the OS stored in a separate partition that you normally can't access. Check manufacturer website to find out how to reinstall your OS. For win8/8.1, it is even easier as the OS has an option to reset back to factory default and it is brandname independent.

Microsoft seems to hate making Windows available for download ever. You should be able to easily and freely download 8.1, 8, 7, and just pay for the license.

The reason why Microsoft doesn't do this is fairly obvious. There are actually people out there that go and buy a new PC or laptop because a hard drive fails and they don't have an installation DVD.

There are of course ways around this obstacle, but many people seem to shy away from these more shady methods even though they have a completely legal product key printed on a sticker stuck to their computer.

 

[willythepooh]

Sorry, I don't find any win8 updates every couple days. Normally, once a month. And it is normally around 10 updates on patch Tuesday. And now, as Win8.1 will update automatically itself, I seldom find updates that I need to do manually.

Don't know other people's problem. But I upgrade win8 Pro and Win RT without a problem. But I admit that I do keep the updates up-to-date on all my computers. That's something that a lot of people failed to do or not willing to do. At least that's the fact I observed among all my friends.

I have my 5 computers set to auto-update and even after Windows 8.1 pro is updated on them all, I still find dozens of updats appearing.
Admitteldy a multiple-dozens of them are for MS Office 2007, but windows 8.1 still has tons of magabytes of updates and they come thick and fast almost every other day.

This top brand 3D laptop I am typing on still gives the BSOD every week before and after the updates; and its back from the makers three times; once with a new Mo-bo, twice with a replacement drive.

 

[willythepooh]

Agree. Don't even bother to upgrade a machine you bought around 2001 to win8. It's a waste of your time and also our time to read your complaint.

BTW. even though the min specs are a 1 ghz cpu. I think 2 gb of ram, a dvd drive and about 20-40gb of hdd space, you do need a cpu with the proper instruction set for win 8.1. Why do I say this. I had a user who upgraded from xp to 7 32 bit on a socket 478 pentium 4 machine with 1gb of ddr1 ram and a via chipset. Worked like a charm. When I tried installing win 8.1 on a diiferent users socket 478 celeron machine with a intel chipset 3gb of ddr 1 ram, I kept getting erroi 0x0000000A before even getting to the install portion. Found out that if you don't have the proper cpu instruction set through googling the error, you can't install windows 8.1. So, if you have a machine that you bought when xp came out in 2001 or around that time, the best you can do is windows 7. hence the reason why I bought the retail win 8.1 from my friend who is the celeron socket 478 user. I am trying to get him a legit copy of win 7 hp so he doesn't get left behind by the death of xp.

Well even if what you say is true, and it's the lack of an instruction set extension (which one?), not all CPUs from that era would be affected. Anyway, Socket 478 is almost as bad as 423. On top of that, a 2001 era Northwood derived Celeron? You'd be doing him a favor by throwing that machine away.

Even a cheap new machine with Win8 preinstalled would be worlds better than that thing.

 

[willythepooh]

Not only Microsoft. Every products including Apple's nowaday are not as reliable as before. That's the way business makes money. But Apple fans will upgrade their products every 1-2 years. MS fans will upgrade their products every 3-6 years. 3-6 years are too long in today's technology advancement and so MS fans tend to have more problems than Apple fans.

Windows is like every product from Microsoft. Unreliable.

 

[Tsump]

windows 8.1 is the worst op system I have ever seen. Brand new printers would not work because the drivers update is no good, the HP 5520 will not work with windows 8.1. A lot of the things being sold on the market will not work. When will Microsoft do their work right where people can enjoy an op system that works, they either want to make PC op system or do the want the make telephones they need to make up their mind or they won't be around much longer!!! Bill Gates take your company back and make it right.

 

[Roger Rogers-1382392]

Sorry, I don't find any win8 updates every couple days. Normally, once a month. And it is normally around 10 updates on patch Tuesday. And now, as Win8.1 will update automatically itself, I seldom find updates that I need to do manually.

Don't know other people's problem. But I upgrade win8 Pro and Win RT without a problem. But I admit that I do keep the updates up-to-date on all my computers. That's something that a lot of people failed to do or not willing to do. At least that's the fact I observed among all my friends.

I have my 5 computers set to auto-update and even after Windows 8.1 pro is updated on them all, I still find dozens of updats appearing.
Admitteldy a multiple-dozens of them are for MS Office 2007, but windows 8.1 still has tons of magabytes of updates and they come thick and fast almost every other day.

This top brand 3D laptop I am typing on still gives the BSOD every week before and after the updates; and its back from the makers three times; once with a new Mo-bo, twice with a replacement drive.

The updates are there practically everyday if you dont install them automatically.
But I guess some people totally trust an American company that has sold shoddy software for decades and beleive everything Microsoft would automatically update on their computer is entirely for the users benefit and not for Microsofts benefit and/or the NSA or their business associates.

People outside the USA certainly should read what each updates is about and check. Especially if we run a business, and don`t want anything on there to be filched by an automatic upload service like Skydrive which would automatically suck out all your new product designs or legal cases onto some American site which could pick through your property (especially if you were not familiar with whatever Skydrive or any similar service does).

But you run on ahead oblivious.

I guess some people have nothing to lose.

 

[Roger Rogers-1382392]

windows 8.1 is the worst op system I have ever seen. Brand new printers would not work because the drivers update is no good, the HP 5520 will not work with windows 8.1. A lot of the things being sold on the market will not work. When will Microsoft do their work right where people can enjoy an op system that works, they either want to make PC op system or do the want the make telephones they need to make up their mind or they won't be around much longer!!! Bill Gates take your company back and make it right.

Only yesterday I had to spend a few hours with a large office FujiXerox Color Laser Printer only bought a year ago (which had worked fine for half a year [after chaos in the first few months] until an update), then I/we had to spend hours figuring out the problem and change the printer updated driver to install a more relabile set of drivers to bypass the drivers which caused it to print standard A4 pages at around 1 page every four minutes instead of one page every four seconds.

When you need your color laser printer to print at faster than one page every four minutes, it matters.

Hours of frustration... especially if your work (life) depends on getting the material printed.

I guess for some people, nothing is important, their computer could be booted up in Cambodian and the image be upside down ad it would not make a difference to their lives if they could big Microsoft up somehow..

One day Ubuntu..... double your price and make it work with all hardware..... Put some XP code in there?

 

[Mohammad Laraib]

if i will update then will it be a full version because my windows 8 is full nd i don't want to lose it

 

[NicknAZ]

Since the Windows 8.1 final build was introduced in October, I cannot get the install to finish. I am using a Lenovo G500, w/ 4GB Ram. 500GB Hard Drive, Intel i3-3120M CPU @ 2.5 GHz Processor, Windows 8 64 bit OS (OEM version). Since it's intro, I have tried to download and install Win 8.1 without success. At the 51% mark of the download and install, I am interrupted with a 2 inch with blue belt stating the 8.1 cannot
complete the install until I remove Trend Micro Internet Security 2011. After uninstalling initially on my own and resumed the update, the same message appeared. I called MS to ask what was happening, spending over two hours trying to complete the process. The MS tech was unable to finish either and escalated this issue to the next level. Three days later I called in to the next level and spent another hour with a "supposed" MS technician and he was frustrated by the same result. He explained Win 8 was not ready to go public and 8.1 made some computers worse. There are anomalies in Win 8 that a regular user should not have to deal with and an MS Tech explained 8.1 would clear up most of them. I asked the next level MS Tech what to do, his response was to suffer with Win 8 until MS could fix all the install problems. Discouraged and disgusted, I turned to Trend Micro for assistance and the initial call simply replicated what had been done several times before and he immediately escalated the complaint. The next day, I received a call from a Level 2 engineer and he spent over three and a half hours removing all vestiges of TM Titanium Internet Security of ant kind. We tried the install one last time and the same interrupt prompt occurred. TM did a stand up job helping me but he told me MS would have to step up. In all my years in computing, I have never been so frustrated and left hanging. Any thoughts?
NicknAZ

 

[Someone Somewhere]

Run the 'Refresh' option, then install Windows 8.1.

 

[JoeFlorida]

I have a Samsung laptop that had windows 8.0 installed on purchase. I have no media nor product code. I upgraded on line to windows 8.1 Preview. I cannot reach the Microsoft store to obtain 8.1 that way because it keeps saying I do not have an internet connection. which is incorrect. I cannot download the software directly because I do not have a product code.(Samsung says it is embedded). How do I upgrade before the free Windows 8.1 time frame expires Samsung has been absolutely useless in trying to get back to factory settings. Apparently the preview wiped my reset capability,

 

[Someone Somewhere]

Install Win8 from the ISOs they let you download. You won't need to enter a product key; it's stored in the UEFI.

Then, when you're running Win8, do all updates then go to the store.

Also, I don't believe there is a time limit for the free 8.1 upgrade.

 

[JoeFlorida]

Install Win8 from the ISOs they let you download. You won't need to enter a product key; it's stored in the UEFI.

Then, when you're running Win8, do all updates then go to the store.

Also, I don't believe there is a time limit for the free 8.1 upgrade.

=========================
Every site I have visited via search has required a product key to be entered before anything happens. Do you have a URL where I can download the ISO with out any key and then use UEFI to actually load the OS?

 

[Someone Somewhere]

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-8/upgrade-product-key-only

 

[Ami Lee]

I just received a notification to update. So I did...TWICE. -_- It always gets stuck during the reboot saying 78% getting devices ready. Can I say, I absolutely HATE into the depths of my soul the constant updating every stupid technologically advanced thing I own. God forbid someone actually make a device that can work for longer than a month without needing some outside assistance. All I did was click some buttons to do an update. I SHOULD NOT NEED A FREAKING COMPTER SCIENCE DEGREE TO UPDATE MY COMPUTER! -_- Sorry guys, I've been needing to get that out for a while.

 

[Someone Somewhere]

Sure. Nobody's forcing you to update; you're entirely free to stick with Windows 8 for years until the support runs out, and only do security updates. You'll be left behind on functionality, though.

I like the update notifications. It means that people are doing their jobs, and finding and fixing bugs, coding new features, and basically caring about users. If someone didn't put out updates, that's a good sign that they don't care.

 

[JoeFlorida]

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-8/upgrade-product-key-only

While that URL did not help me as it requires a Product code, I found that by switching User on my laptop I can now reach the Store. Unfortunately the Windows 8.1 update is not found. So now i will have to pursue that problem. I have no idea why one user account can reach the store and the other cannot. The one that cannot has admin privileges while the one that can reach the Store does not have admin privileges. Obviously there are other differences in the accounts based on what I have loaded in each account.

 

[Someone Somewhere]

I had to do it about 3 times (for reasons not related to 8.1, but more Truecrypt and the idiots who wrote the Insyde H20 UEFI...), and didn't have a problem. Make sure you're fully updated, though.

Still, whoever decided it was to come by the store only (and thus redownloaded every time) is an idiot who deserves to be force-fed the fibre/copper cables they're overusing.

 

[Tetrapod]

I wish I had read up on the problems with the 8.1 update before caving in to my windows 8 nagging about it, and going through with the install tonight.

It totally screwed up my system, to the point that it would no longer start at all. Tried start repair, didn't work, and was finally forced to concede that I had to go with system refresh, and the nightmare of re-installing everything again. Along with my firefox installation, I lost all my bookmarks, plus I had my browser remember most of my passwords, half of which I cannot remember, and will thus have to reset.

I'll have to go through the rigamarole of killing all the windows 8 annoyances again, to set it up to something I can work with. I've got the next couple of days work cut out for me getting to where I was before the attempted update.

Guess when I'll be installing the windows 8.1 update? When hell freezes over.