Greetings,
I bought a licensed copy of Windows 8.1 Pro x64 with Media Center back in 2013 back when the Frye’s electromics store where I was buying some compunents to build a minitower i7-based computer did not year have the x64 OS in stock. They provided me with the contract information to order the x64-bit version directly from Microsoft and I did so and received my copy within a couple of weeks as I recall.
Unlike Windows 8 which was a well-known disaster, Windows 8.1 Pro x64 could be made reasonably realible and was stable for the most part. I think I originally used it for a system I build from compunents around an ASUS mainboard which had been out for several months and received good reviews.
Later on because minitower game boxes also functioned as space heaters I bought an ASUS G751JY with 24GB of RAM and plenty of GB of HD storage as well as a large, hi-res external monitor. I think it came with Windows 8.1 the way I ordered it, so I am pretty sure I have two licenses for Windows 8.1 Pro, on with Media Center and one without. That machine’s main batter died early this year 2022 and although I have replased it, I do not have the kind of electronics workbench that will let me do he delicate job of reconnecting the Main and Aux WiFi cables that connect a circuit board to the WiFi antenna hidden in the upgright panel that holds the 17″ display,
So Right now, the G751JY lapis going unused anlthough I do intend to put it back together and run Windows 8.1 Pro X64 with Media Center on it.It that OS and hta machine get along great.
Howver, my newest laptop (cicra September 2019), an ASUS G703GX-XG96K came with Windows 10 Pro r1909(9) which is what to intrusive and loves to chat with MS a lot. I keep reading that some people have Windows 8.1 running on the same or very similar machines and have been trying to get my newer laptop to do so and have only partically succeded. The GPU is not recognized and by Windows 8.1 and the network drivers for the built in ethernet jack do not work. I provide internet access to the notebook by plugging my Samsung Note 9000 into a USB-C port on the lapttop which works and costs me nothing extra.
I would prefer to get Windows 8.1 Pro X64 to work properly in this ASUS ROG G703GX-XB96K if at all posssible and if I cannot find my other copy, will buy a third licensedd copy for it and I disliked Windows 10 for the entire 18 to 20 months I went to serious lengths to become expert enough with it that I would easily qualify to admisister that OS on workstations as part of a F/T job.
That is in fact that main reason I keep up with Windows for personal computers (less so for servers but I have done that too, often enough). Many of my past clients and employers have been Windows shops. Apple deliberately makes it tough to get under the hood of their machines and I do not particularly need Clients who run lots of Apple gear, although I did manage Mac Labs at a major University years ago, and work with profs who used a wide variety of platforms, so I am flexible if that is what it takes to get something done.
Anyway, how to I activate this laptop with its internet connection comming via my smartphone. MS phone activation service just takes a long time to get around to admiting they do not offer phone activation then hangs up. Typical lame MS Support!
I have not tried using WiFi to activate this newer machine which should work, mostly because there are 135 units in this condoplex and I bet there are well over 500 WiFi devices that are within range and some of which my be used to snooping, to say the very least. There are at least ten WiFi capable devices in my own unit. And I want to learn how to tell Windows to new scan for WiFi around my home because it takes so long. Resisting printing things on strange printers or browsing computers that are apparently wide open is not that hard — there is nothing on Xbox that interestes me in the slightest. 🙂
I know that the changing configuration of the only machine I am using the one Win8.1 Pro license I can locate since I moved and tried to get settled in here is what cause it to be decativate, but how to I activate it permaently — MS has no valid reason to keep breaking it since I am using it on just one notebook. If Win11 had a longer history of being reliable, I might try that. Windows 10 seems to be defective by design, just by the drastic machinactions MS has gone through to get it to work for some poeple some of the time.
