Tech question for once
 

My Win 8.1 laptop died on me; apparently the motherboard's had it. Well, it had a good run, 9 years. I got a dirt-cheap laptop running 10, so I could install Adobe Photoshop Elements 6 in Win 8 compatibility mode; I like certain features.

Why not on my Win 11 laptop? Because I already tried that - and somehow it destroyed 11, to the extent that I had to create a USB boot stick via my 8.1 laptop (which was okay at the time) and do a factory reset so drastic I had to fiddle with the UEFI and do a complete reinstall, that's why! Lesson learned!

This is also why I used 8 compatibility mode rather than installing direct - as I said, lesson learned. I suspect 10 would behave much the same way, i.e. dying on me!

But I have a 2TB SSD with Win 8.1 on it; I cloned the 500GB one before the motherboard died, intending to replace it and dual-boot Linux, but the board died before I could (my Win 11 M2 SSD was cloned to a 4TB one, and now that one is dual-booting Linux). So...what would happen if I replaced the laptop's 10 HDD (I hope it's a 2.5", as the 8.1 one is) with my Win 8.1 one, once the 1-month warranty is up? Will it work, or will Win 8.1 be so upset by the change in hardware that it'll refuse to run?

This doesn't really qualify as a gamble; worst-case, it doesn't work and I put the 10 drive back. It's just that APE 6 isn't quite the same; I can't get used to the cursor on Freehand Select. In fact I actually prefer 8.1 to 10 or 11 - much as I preferred 2000 to Vista. The quote from Agent Coulson in my signature springs readily to mind...

Re: Tech question for once
 

Gonna imagine you are gonna run into driver support issues with newer hardware on an out of date OS. Have you considered creating a virtual machine?

Re: Tech question for once
 

I'm not worried about support, TBH - my Win 8.1 laptop was never updated, because I didn't and don't trust Micro$oft, and it worked perfectly until it died.

No, I just want to know if the 8.1 drive will work in the 10 laptop, or not - supposedly they get snarky about certain hardware changes, though 11 hasn't objected to moving from a 2TB M2 SSD to a 4TB one.

(BTW, I still cringe about asking PC Specialist about upgrading, because I was used to 2.5" units and both the existing 2 TB and the new 4TB were M2 - I'd said I couldn't find the drive, not realising it was an M2 as I knew about them but hadn't used one before, and so I didn't recognise the drive as a drive at first - but once I did, installing the new one was embarrassingly easy!)

It doesn't even object to sharing the drive with Linux Mint.

Mint, of course, couldn't care less. :p:

Re: Tech question for once
 

The support I mentioned was Driver support as it drivers for the hardware. Windows 8.1 is unlikely to have drivers for everything in your newer machine. The OS will either boot or not(I would guess it would) but then will you have drivers network sound chipset and so on

Re: Tech question for once
 

Hmm. Thanks.

I think I'll try it anyway - the laptop will be out of warranty by Xmas. It only cost £69 anyway - I've nothing to lose. :D

Re: Tech question for once
 

I would say putting the old Windows 8.1 SSD into the new laptop is very unlikely to work. Windows ties itself to the hardware it was originally installed on, and a completely different motherboard, chipset and drivers will almost always cause boot failures. Nothing will be damaged, but it will almost certainly refuse to start or end up in an automatic repair loop. IIRC, there used to be a monitored limit on HW changes with windows that reset every 180 days to prevent this kind of thing.

Even if it did somehow boot, Windows 8.1 wouldn’t activate on the new machine and you’d probably lose support for key components like Wi-Fi, graphics and the trackpad, since modern laptops rarely provide 8.1 drivers. In short, it isn’t a practical plug-and-play option.

If the goal is to run Photoshop Elements 6, the safest and most reliable route is to run a small Windows 7 or 8.1 virtual machine on the newer laptop. PSE6 works extremely well in a VM and avoids the risk of breaking your host system again.

Re: Tech question for once
 

Ah. I thought so. Thanks. I'll look into the virtual option.

I do miss Windows 8, though. :(