Upgrade to Windows 8 Pro for $39.99

I stayed from 98 to XP. Now I'm staying from 7 till whenever the next best windows will be. Plus I don't like the interface of windows 8.

Here I went from dos/3.1, 95, 98SE, skipped ME and 2000 while now looking back I think I would have preferred 2000 Pro back then, XP, Vista(much better, less BSODs! but larger and no use for side bar), and then onto 7 which so far has remained the top shelf OS! Then you run into W8... huh? "what have they done?!"

For anyone not running the CP or RP but never having run Vista or 7 now going out to buy a new system they will pulling hairs from the roots and likely returning the new 8 systems back to the places they buy them from asking "How do you run this stuff?!"

Those are the people that will be taken offguard no less with many having seen their old ME, 2000, or XP desktop or laptop quit on them or simply wanting to pass it along to a student and then going out to buy something new. They wouldn't know about the various 3rd party additives amd wonder like the rest of us how to disable the Metro from auto loading at startup!

Have you tried it?

Please try it before passing judgment.
Most are quite happy with the performance and resource usage, just the Metro start screen and the lack of the Start Menu seems to be the biggest issue.
I'm not a gamer but haven't seen any bad game performance posts, remember seeing a few posts noting some slight improvement.
Others will have experience and can better comment on the affect on gaming.

Some actually rave gaming performance but are running the latest titles only. Many of the older titles that require DX 9 may not run at all since unlike what you can see with 7 adding DX 9c Full on along with DX 11 it is totally incompatible with the next version to come.

Yet a few real old titles were still able to install and run without seeing any differences performance wise on a system here running 16gb of memory and a good 1tb mid ranged video card if that will answer that one at all.

It won't install as fast as 7 taking as much time as the typical Vista or XP install by either optical or usb install key. The longest part is seen while waiting for the Install Now screen to first appear with the second following the last restart before arriving at the new lock screen. Don't assign a password however since the Metro is next stop before ever reaching the desktop only after clicking the desktop button.

If you assign a password to the main admin you not only have to type that in or switch to a pin code or image but have to click and pull up on the new lock screen like a window shade just to get to the login screen itself as a new security measure MS added in.

As far as a faster boot time a slight edge next to 7 but not by much especially if you are running 7 in the AHCI mode and see the SCSI drives list added to the post screens when first starting the machine. The faster shutdown is a result of the lower 5000 = 5 seconds figure now seen over 7's default 12000 for 12 seconds in the WaitToKillServices registry value. Even XP and Vista can be tweaked lower then their default 20000 for 20 seconds time.

The Metro UI removal of dvd playback support in Windows Media Player probably knocking out any video playback at all, and total removal of the Media Center in Windows since 2005 with the XP MCEdition shows how MS is stripping the OS down for you to buy at the Metro Apps store for things that had been included with each new version. You pay less for less!

I think the strongest objections to 8 so far are surrounding the major gui changes and not so much the remaining items. To shutdown or restart finding just the "right spot" to hover the mouse cursor over to see the new side bar for Settings and Apps appear is a royal pain as well as requiring the additional steps over the standard shutdown options!

The right click right where the Start screen popup appears is another "mystery item" to baffle the first time 8 user as well. You soon find that a 3 page pictorial guide is needed for 8 while everyone already knows how to get around in every other version so far without any hassle of locating this or that making it cumbersome.

As far as every other version that doesn't necessarily hold true. For many who never ran anything but XP they wouldn't be familiar with how things were with the previous as well as newer versions. Many opted to run 98SE or 98PLUS! if not 2000 and skipped over XP entirely for Vista.

Many went back to Vista after trying out 7 showing a different point of view for each user. I came up from the old MS Dos, 3.1 days and simply found 7 to be the better of the lot to date! Vista ran better then XP which was only seeing most much needed fixed after SP3. MS had rushed that version out following the ME flop. Yet some kept running ME years later!

The one that works out best in your own situation is usually the one you stay with!

Well... I finally let myself try Windows 8... and I can say I don't like it at all... more click to do less, I really feel worried about this regression...

After taking several hours to test this on VMware, I find that this thing reminds me of Windows 3.11... in many aspects. First, you gotta rely more on task mannager, second, the tiles stuff in Metro UI, which I don't consider more than a layer over desktop that tries to replace a more usefull and faster Start Menu... In this, you can rearrange, add and pin programs and apps, but feels like a full screen mess rather than a clean desktop, at least in my case, I HATE having tons of icons taking worthy space and visual from my wallpaper... Intead Rocketdock + Start menu are my friends, even in my new display...

Also, here is some stuff that may be confusing for lost of users, specially having to switch to desktop to actually doing REAL stuff... metro apps like IE 10 look great, but are not that functional, and by the other hand, lots of software are still classic UI themed, that means no metro look, so you switch to desktop everytime you execute something and you need to do serius stuff, like configuring windows (services, startup items, control panel... etc...) I really find this a little annoying. Finally, some usefull functions in Aero are disabled by default, like Aero Snap and Aero Peek, you gotta enable this in order to use the desktop as you used to in Windows 7, and personally, I consider this a bad desition, since the enhaced Aero features were the strongest part of UI changes and improvements in Windows 7, which allows to work with tons of windows with no effort...

Metro UI (aka Bad Start Menu Replacement by myself) has no options to customize rather than just changing the BG design and combination of colors... what about a wallpaper? desktop is better and looks better with this that is already included since windows 95...

Some animations that made Windows 7 look really neat were removed, for example, when you move/copy/delete files, instead the dialog was redesigned with a graph and information over it... the old one looked better, but this is the less important compared to the oter stuff.

The pros? Yes, it has pros, the first one, seems that Aero works faster and cleaner, also seems to use less resources from GPU and looks more efficient. Overall performance is enhaced, Windows 8 (or at least Release Preview) is maybe, 5% or 10% faster than Windows 7, and I'm no talking about boot time only, but the overall system response and stability. Windows load faster, programs and also web surfing seems to feel faster and less sloppy (for example youtube and its loads of adds in flash... **sigh**) also includes flash player, so you don't need to worry about that pluing in particular.

In general, It uses at least 5% or more less memory than Windows 7, even havng Windows defender and Avast 7 at the same time RAM usage never surpasses 34-35% in a 1 GB system, CPU usage is reasonable even with one core...

Also, if you have programs that even ran on XP and work on 7, they will work on Windows 8, I tested Photoshop CS3, Office 2010, Avast 7, Corel Draw Graphics Suite x4 and ImgBurn and ALL of them work even WITHOUT compatibility mode, so you won't suffer from incompatibilities, this means that all hardware we go working on 7 will work on 8 too... Also I can say Task Mannager has better changes, since give more information on what you see.

With this, and adding that no start menu + edge hotspot relying (for start screen calling and options) looks like this OS is mutilated... seriously, is like seing someone after a carcrash that gone really bad... If MS needs to insist on touch screen support, they need to better separate UI interfaces, create a REAL Metro UI instead a layer over everything and leave normal desktop for PC users... But I feel this a bit silly, just because software deplovers like Adobe will have (maybe) a hard time doing both Metro and Normal versions of their software... Well... In this particular only time will say...

Sorry MS, Windows 7 is the best you could do by now, Windows 8 feels mutilated and like returning back to Windows 3.11...

My point of view though...