is it safe to upgrade to windows 10 from windows 8.1?

Hi Flip
 
Welcome to the Community Forums.
 
What you ask is a moot point as those for Windows 10 have a point of view as do those that are not fans of it. I am in the former camp and would say that based on the numbers of upgrades that have already occurred (some 300 million to date) the upgrade process is very, very safe.
 
Having said that it is only fair to say that a smallish number of upgraders have suffered from issues either during the upgrade or with WIndows 10 subsequent to that...so it is always wise to take precautions such as it the very least making sure that you have any valued or irreplaceable data, pictures, etc., securely backed up, or better still that one takes and saves a full image of your Windows 8 system as using that to revert to your previous version will be quicker than rolling back the upgrade with the tools provided by Microsoft.
 
The Community has produced this KB Article on WIndows 10 which may be of some assistance but if you have any further questions then please post back and we will try to answer them.
 
Also if you Google "Preparing for Windows 10 upgrade" you will find a number of article that provide guidance on some other steps that you should consider taking before initiating the upgrade process.
 
Regards, Baldrick

thanks for being "johnny-on-the-spot!" (or is it "baldrick-on-the-spot?)

Hi FlipYou are most welcome. Hope that you have the information you need but as I said, if not then do let us know what further specific questions you may have and we will see if we can provide a response.Regards, Baldrick