Two ?? re 8.1 buy for build

[aminor]

Creeping up on first build, have reached OS. It will be dual (w/Linux), but first of all,
a) What's in 8.1 "pro" versus plain retail ("amateur" I guess) to justify the $80-90 jump?
b) Does the offer of 32/64 bit mean 64 won't run some of my existing stuff? (or does that belong in another forum?)

 

[USAFRet]

Creeping up on first build, have reached OS. It will be dual (w/Linux), but first of all,
a) What's in 8.1 "pro" versus plain retail ("amateur" I guess) to justify the $80-90 jump?
b) Does the offer of 32/64 bit mean 64 won't run some of my existing stuff? (or does that belong in another forum?)

Win 8.1 Pro vs regular 8.1: http://microsoft-news.com/compare-windows-8-1-editions/
Basically, Pro has some corporate level features that you will probably never, ever need.

64bit will run any 32bit application. 64bit also allow the use of more than ~3.5GB RAM.

 

[aminor]

Creeping up on first build, have reached OS. It will be dual (w/Linux), but first of all,
a) What's in 8.1 "pro" versus plain retail ("amateur" I guess) to justify the $80-90 jump?
b) Does the offer of 32/64 bit mean 64 won't run some of my existing stuff? (or does that belong in another forum?)

Win 8.1 Pro vs regular 8.1: http://microsoft-news.com/compare-windows-8-1-editions/
Basically, Pro has some corporate level features that you will probably never, ever need.

64bit will run any 32bit application. 64bit also allow the use of more than ~3.5GB RAM.

Thanks!