Windows 8.1 Professional Edition

[whole canyon]

16 gigabyte DDR4 dual channel SODIMM with intel core i7 10750H 2.60 gigahertz and yes that is Winamp 5.6

[orchid trellis]

Real windoss 8.1 pro? Man loved that os

[arctic delta]

windows 8 my beloved

[latent plinth]

people hated 8/8.1 but I loved it

[orchid trellis]

I used it for 4 years straight on a toshiba satellite craptop

Shit was rapid fast

[latent plinth]

my first pc ever came with it back in 2015. it was always fast and stable and the computer was relatively low spec but still was relatively fast.

[orchid trellis]

It's the fastest modern version of windows to date

It's a debloated windows 7 pretty much

It's where the real power of windows really shines honestly

I'd use windows 8.1 today if it was supported

[latent plinth]

I can agree

[pearl moss]

I was about to ask how you did it, but I just remembered my issues where the 2013 MacBook Air drivers.

[whole canyon]

it has native NVME support unlike 8/7 and instead of stock Firefox i used R3Dfox which is a fork that supports Vista/7/8/8.1 and is based on Firefox ESR 140 so i get the same updates.

im thinking about making a full "survival" guide on how to use Windows 8.1 in 2026/2027 instead of using Windows 10/11.

either on this server or another one.

[pearl moss]

Oh wait is that actual Windows 8? I thought you where using Win8DE on Linux Mint.

[whole canyon]

No its the legit Windows 8.1 Professional

[pearl moss]

Cool

[whole canyon]

it only uses 748 megs on idle

[pearl moss]

I would try it, but everything I do works well on Linux, does Fortnite work on Windows 7 and 8?

[whole canyon]

Nope not anymore, a lot of other games still work though

Fortnite only supports late win10 to windows 11

there aren't even forks for it.

[pearl moss]

Oh well, I don't play Fortnite, but I have a few friends who would benefit from leaving Windows 11 who do play Fortnite

[whole canyon]

It doesn’t work on Linux just to let them know, it’s antivirus is why.

[tender mango]

they should have worked on improving 8.1 or just making windows 10 better currently instead of 11

[tender mango]

8.1 supports modern hardware?

[whole canyon]

it supports USB 3.0 and NVME

natively too

[tender mango]

I would love to see that bro

[tender mango]

nice

[whole canyon]

im not sure about 8.0 though

[tender mango]

yeah

[whole canyon]

might need to slipstream drivers

but 8.1 for sure works well

i don't even use 8.1 anymore lol

ive moved on

[tender mango]

oh I see

currently it's just the enterprise iot ltsc versions that can be used of modern windows

or if you have ESU on 10

[whole canyon]

nah i don't even use windows at all anymore

ive escaped windows

[tender mango]

microsoft has gotten so bad

[tender mango]

I plan to do it too

[whole canyon]

Microslop Shitbloat 10/11

8.1 is the only one to use if you NEED windows

although it's "unsecure"

but i only trust linux updates, not microslop updates

[tender mango]

yeah best one to use for old apps, games

LTSC for the new ones

[whole canyon]

most modern apps still support 8.1

[tender mango]

for real for real

[tender mango]

I didn't know that really?

[whole canyon]

VLC, R3Dfox, Partition Wizard, etc

[tender mango]

yes yes

[whole canyon]

Darktable, MusicBrainz Picard, Winaero Tweaker.

i use very niche windows apps though so it differs

[tender mango]

mhmm

now which linux do you use?

[whole canyon]

btw r3dfox is the exact same as normal firefox, its just built for older windows

[whole canyon]

Debian 13 with KDE

[tender mango]

I see I see

[whole canyon]

my goal was to start with the easy distros, work my way up to the supreme distros

[tender mango]

yeah similar here

[whole canyon]

Debian is the backbone of almost all distros

and gives you full control and 0 bloat

the big 3, Debian, Arch, and Fedora, work your way up to those distros if you can

[tender mango]

the growth of linux has been massive since the announcement of windows 11

like the way it has grown in just recent years

[whole canyon]

Im glad it got more users

what distro do you use

[tender mango]

from 2020 and 2021
I don't think it was like that before

[tender mango]

yeah

[whole canyon]

brb i need a drink

[tender mango]

currently on windows 10 enterprise iot ESU
but have used some linux distros here and there on vms

I have been thinking of mint and Cachy just for start, though all are great

[tender mango]

same got to do some things

[whole canyon]

k im back

[whole canyon]

iot is decent enough, i daily drove it for a bit

[tender mango]

there is still some control on non-home and non-pro versions

I think they are the only ones which should be used for windows currently

[whole canyon]

i use Faugus Launcher with GE-Proton for windows apps/games and some actually run better than native windows

like i only have the windows GOG file for Stardew valley and it runs way better than when i played the same game on my old Windows installation

[tender mango]

interesting

[whole canyon]

it makes a fake windows directory prefix in your "~" folder and uses a Wine fork (GE-Proton) to run the app/game

the "~" folder btw is the Home folder.

its just used in terminal

[tender mango]

good to know 👍