Guide to upgrading Dell Vostro V131 to Windows 8

All drivers on deck!

Windows 8 are built with mobile devices in mind. Lower memory usage, lower power consumption and faster boot up. Performance charts from hardware sites also show Windows 8 speeding up low end hardware by 15% compared to 10% for more powerful system.
Other than the metro interface, this OS is god sent to revitalise any laptop you may be using. But theres always a  problem with all OS upgrades on OEM machines; drivers. This guide will go through where to get all your hardware up and running.

Ethernet: Default
Wifi: Default
Bluetooth: Win 8 update
Intel chipset: Default
USB3.0: Default
Intel GPU: Default
Fingerprint driver: http://www.dell.com/support/drivers/us/en/04/DriverDetails/Product/vostro-3750?driverId=CJ66K&osCode=ww1&fileId=2731100279
Fingerprint software: use dell windows 7 version then update within client
Quickset: use dell windows 7 version
Accelerometer: use dell windows 7 version
WebCam: Default
Soundcard: Default
Touchpad: use dell windows 7 version (Synaptics has a newer version available but the ability to turn off touchpad will be lost)

As you can see, Windows 8 support for common hardware is stellar. Most of them work out of the box except a uncommon hardware which require your attention. Since WIndows 8 didnt feature a rewritten kernal or driver model, most hardware can be installed using Windows 7. Frankly speaking, this is the first time i manage to get all hardware working when installing a OS not officially supported by the OEM.

Boot up time from bios to reach the wallpaper with the clock is only 4 seconds! That is with a 512gb 5400rpm Hitachi HDD instead of a SSD. That is achieved by microsoft by caching much of the OS on the HDD before shut down, but its extremely impressive nonetheless.

Metro interface isnt as bad as some critics label it. Pretty usable with keyboard and mouse/touchpad. Got me about 3hours to get familiar with the interface and get all my shortcuts in place. But the main issue is theres no improvement in usability after going through such trouble.

Another issue i had is metro being a sandbox of its own. As i like control over what has access to the internet, i set my firewall to notify me for each application attempting to connect to the internet. Its notification however remains on the desktop, leaving me wondering for awhile why applications in metro isnt connecting to its server. It however remian to be seen if this can be solved by the anti virus developer (eset), where a metro interface of the application can be added.

Most of the media is now handled by metro apps which is rather irritating. Although it has a polish interface, its more of a online store with playback capability than media player with online store. There is almost no settings available to tweak your music player nor change the topic displayed on the newsfeed.

While in the topic on dumbed down metro applications, its browser has the functionality of a java browser i wrote during the first year of my college. This is just ridiculous when my android phone browser offer more feature then one in metro meant for a COMPUTER. Thank steve ballmer for a full fledged browser still included in desktop but this is still utterly unacceptable for a browser included in a computer OS.

It seems microsoft is so obsessed with simplicity from Apple, it has loss touch with reality. As the OS mature, it is in their best interest to add on more features to their core metro apps or they will be taken over by 3rd party developers.

The only game i had on my laptop is diablo 3 and i m pleased to say that there is no performance hit when upgraded to windows 8. The OS footprint is also very small on the memory with less than 1gb even with prolonged light use.

Windows 8 prove reasonably usable for light document processing, web surfing and gaming. Its pretty much a nett positive for me moving away from Windows 7 on laptop. Until i get SSD for my desktop, it remains to be seen if this awkward interface of metro is suitable for heavy workstation usage.