Windows 8.1

I cetainly hope not. I hope it is only required during installation authentication and perhaps during software updates. More than that should not be required. What do they imagine, that W8.1 can be corrupted at any moment and thus become illegal ? If so then the onus should be on MS to write stable software. ( I know, they have had trouble doing that in their whole history, why start now. )

I can't find anything on the net, but I would bet it is an internet myth.

Call Microsoft technical support or their sales offices if you want to confirm what 8.1 minimum requirements are.

I would doubt it as any loss of internet connection would render the machine inactive. If anything, worst case the software may require periodic connection to check validation. At least that has been how their one-time "activation" requirements have worked. You can use it, but at some point you need to activate the software within a said grace period.

Nah...you may have been hearing about Office Live and the cloud-based apps which you needed to be connected to the net to use.

Or this little nugget.

No. Took me about an hour to download and install all together. Might take longer depending on internet connection.

t took me about 3 hours to upgrade from 8 to 8.1 with all the updates needed as well.

I just bought my laptop this Xmas I was just surprised it didn't come with the up grade already installed. I like most of the features. The touch screen is interesting especially with photos and design details. Biggest problem I'm having is using the internet it keeps switching backing and fourth from a windows 8 platform to a window 7. Either or is fine with me if it just stuck to one of them.

I have a Dell the cloud service is Digital Cloud not sure it that's a Dell product or Microsoft but that needs to have access to the internet in order to work. So far with going on a business trip this week I've had no problems with 8.1 or the retention of memory on the cloud.

Its not true, but who would want to use Win8.x anyway????

Even MS understands that it is the "NEW" Vista disaster and even are allowing computer companies to sell Win7 again, already installed (great OS!) on their products and are working full time to get Win9 ready for sale. Probably this year.

See here (Posted in 2013):-

http://windows9beta.com/

BUT!!!There is NO guarantee that Win9 will be any better than either Win8.x or even Windows Vista.....do not forget that!!!

Win7 is a great replacement for WinXP, I've had it for some months now....

Not true. I shut my tablet down every night and it's 8.1. My wife uses her laptop 1 or 2 times a week and has no authentication issues either. Not sure where that is coming from. Usually these myths are based in some sort of fact but this time I am stumped.

No more free pirated copies! That is a large part of what this is about. I envy Microsoft! Wouldn't you like to be paid for defective product releases? Windows 8.0 ran fairly well. Windows 8.1 broke all of my USB ports on one of my computers. Now, I've got to go out on the internet and find the right driver for my motherboard.

I guess I could pay for somebody else to do it if I had any confidence. The last time I did that with an antivirus problem, the support team (overseas) spent about 25 hours troubleshooting and when they were done, all of my icons and screen settings were gone. No, I think I'll just wait until enough people suffer through it and post solutions to the problem. Later, Microsoft may get around to fixing the problem or obsoleting my motherboard....