| Risk | Likelihood | Severity | |------|------------|----------| | System infected with ransomware | High | Critical | | Personal documents encrypted or stolen | High | Critical | | PC becomes part of a botnet (DDoS attacks) | Medium | High | | Browser hijacked with ads and redirects | Very High | Medium | | Windows activation keys stolen | High | High | | Hard drive formatted (troll ware) | Low | Critical |
(Microsoft no longer hosts Windows 8, but 8.1 is still available via their tool): Download Windows 8 Pro Iso Highly Compressed 100mb
If your real need is a small, bootable Windows-like environment, consider: bootable Windows-like environment
To summarize:
