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Which Alienware laptops officially support Windows 8.1?
Howdy Everyone,
I am posting this here, hoping for a response from a official Dell rep........
Which Alienware laptop are officially supported for Windows 8.1? The reason I ask, is I have an Alienware M17xR4 that was shipped with Windows 7, but came with a free upgrade to Windows 8. I am currently running Windows 8, but want to check if my model will still be supported if I upgrade to Windows 8.1, as I still have over 3 years of warranty left :-) Thanks!
Rich S.
DELL-Kiran K
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October 20th, 2013 03:00
Hi Rich S,
Windows 8.1 is an update of Windows 8 operating system. Hence any Dell computer that is compatible with Windows 8 operating system will be compatible with Windows 8.1 operating system also.
If you have any other questions do reply to the same thread.
LinkRS
43 Posts
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October 21st, 2013 20:00
Hi Kiran,
Thanks for the response! I do have another question regarding this topic. My M17xR4 came with an ATI 79070M and "Enduro" graphics switching capability, configured and working under Windows 7. When I updated to Windows 8 (which was free as I purchased the M17xR4 in the upgrade window), I was able to get it working after much hair-pulling and discovering of the necessity of an AMD "signed" Intel HD Driver to get it to work. So my question is, will Dell provide an "official" Windows 8.1 Upgrade instructions for supported laptops? This would go a long way toward helping some of us keep our hair if there are other such gotcha's in the upgrade :-)
Also, I have seen mentioned on this board and others a discussion of UEFI and enabling Windows 8 Secure Boot with Fast Boot. I understand that this requires a GPT partitioned hard drive, and a couple other requirements such as the correct video BIOS and system BIOS. Is there a way to determine if a given M17xR4 can support this setup? Assuming it requires a specific BIOS or vBIOS, is it possible to get an update? Thanks again!
Rich S.
DELL-Kiran K
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October 24th, 2013 05:00
Hi Rich S,
You may refer the below link to get instructions on upgrading to windows 8.1:
http://dell.to/H7QyFQ
Almost all systems released after Alienware M17X R4 come by default in UEFI. First you can enable the secure boot in BIOS and then upgrade to windows 8.1. You may find the latest version of BIOS in the below link:
http://dell.to/Hdghww
Also refer the below link if you have any questions/ issues with windows 8.1:
http://dell.to/17gSDvb
Vanzelot
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October 24th, 2013 17:00
If your laptop is in windows 8 right now and is running very fine, go to windows store (the green colored application)
Look for the Windows 8.1 Update.
Thats all.
Vanzelot
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October 25th, 2013 00:00
I forgot to inform you, during the win8.1 update process, your video card driver will be updated also.
During the update from win8 to 8.1 through windows store, when it was finished, i noticed that the video driver was updated to latest driver.
So far, no problem at all and right now my laptop is very fast running the win8.1 and i donwloaded all the drivers in the driver download page under the Windows 8.1 pull down menu.