I have a Windows 8 system that is having some problems (fortunately the HD with the Win 8 system is just for play and not my primary system drive which is a Seagate 1 TB SSHD that runs Win 7).

I tried to reinstall (or reset) from a USB key and again from auto recovery (or v-v) which appears to be a complete wipe/format of the HDD. So it sets itself back to the original version of Win 8. Each time I try to get it to update the system files (the first big update of some 107-117 files), it does the update and then has a message such as "failure to update, reverting to original" or some such. Had this happen twice and am currently formatting the (Toshiba) drive under Win 7. Should I get rid of the 3 extra partitions?

Also have had various problems in Win 8.1 with things such as the Mail and other Win 8 apps crashing and restarting continuously on two laptops. Just wondering if the Win 8 apps are buggy or if the whole thing is?

Funny thing is that the laptop that was originally Win 7 runs Win 8 more reliably than the OEM Win 8 laptop (which runs Win 7 just fine and I think I'll stick with this config).

I also think that Win 8 is more graphically intense than Win 7 hence makes laptops run warmer? Will have to clean and rethermal compound the heatsink/fan and CPU on the older laptop.