My trusty (and crusty) Dell Optiplex 745 has been a great workstation for me over the past seven years.
- I started with Windows XP on the workstation.
- Over the 4th of July weekend in 2007 I upgraded my workstation to Vista and wrote about my experience here.
- Then in October 2009 I did an in-place upgrade of my workstation from Vista to Windows 7, and wrote about it here.
- So here we are in October 2013, and I finally decided to proceed with a double upgrade this weekend – first to Windows 8, and then Windows 8.1.
Once again my experience was fantastic. Here is a summary of my process:
Pre-Cleanup
I knew I had collected a lot of older 3rd party utilities and apps on this workstation over the years. So, I first took time to review and uninstall those apps that I did not need or use. I recommend doing this before proceeding with the upgrade.
For Quicken, I did a final download of all my accounts and then did a backup of my Quicken database.
I also cleaned out temp files using CCleaner, and reviewed my various Download directories and removed anything I no longer needed.
Backup
Please be sure you have a full system image backup of your workstation before proceeding. That’s just being smart. In my case, I still run Windows Home Server in-house, and fired up a backup of my workstation.
Verify Hardware/Software Compatibility
My only complaint was that it appeared that Microsoft bundled the Upgrade Assistant with the actual setup of Windows 8 – which means that you had to obtain/purchase a copy of Windows 8 prior to determining if your workstation is compatible.
However, with kudos from GHacks.net, I found that Microsoft does indeed have a standalone Windows 8.1 Upgrade Assistant which you can download and run.
I was pleasantly surprised to find that I only had 13 items that I needed to review, and the majority of those were older 3rd party utilities that I really don’t care if they work or not. The only significant app that was flagged that I was concerned with was Quicken, as I was still running Quicken 2011.
Upgrade to Windows 8
I then used my Action Pack subscription to download the Windows 8 Professional iso file, and burned it to a DVD. Running the in-place upgrade took quite a while, but lo and behold, when it finished I was setting at a Windows 8 login.
Before proceeding with upgrading to Windows 8.1, I thought it would be advisable to check out the workstation – Internet, Office, Quicken, and printing, and everything looked good.
Upgrade to Windows 8.1
I went to the Windows Store app looking for the Upgrade to 8.1, but it wasn’t there. So, I decided to run Windows Update and install all Windows 8 related updates, and then rebooted. After that, the Windows store app showed the 8.1 Upgrade option.
Final Comments
Jump in and learn Windows 8. Buy yourself a book.
There’s even a free Windows 8.1 eBook from Microsoft Press!