New
#201
As mentioned in my previous post my plan is to stick with W7 for as long as possible and eventually phase in a Linux distro like you have done but I'm not sure that is a suitable approach for my partner. She's not exactly computer savvy and even though Mint is very Windows-like I think there's still probably enough differences that she likely wouldn't find my "solution" acceptable to her.
So I've been looking at refurbished desktops on places like Amazon and Best Buy and there appear to be some pretty sweet deals available. And the nice thing is most of them come with Windows 10 Home or Pro already installed for about the same price as buying just the OS alone! The hardware in these refurbs really isn't too shabby at all so even though these machines aren't as good as what I'm personally using myself they would be plenty adequate for what she does and much better than the older ASUS laptop she's using now which I'm not even sure would run Windows 10 worth a crap. Giving Microsoft another $130 or $190 for only just a copy of Windows 10 Home or Pro bothers me a lot but not so much if she also winds up with a newer and better puter at the same time for basically free. At least that way I can rationalize that the money was spent to get a hardware upgrade and not on a software downgrade!
If I understand correctly there are a number of things one can do to make Windows 10 look and feel a lot like Windows 7 so if I end up going this route that'll be one of the first things I do when the PC shows up to hopefully make the transition a little easier on her. Maybe while I'm doing all this Microsoft makework I'll come to like Windows 10 a lot more than I do now but I'm not betting on it.
Is your wife's new W10 laptop running Pro or Home? Pro has some extra features that casual users like my partner probably don't really need so I'm not sure if the Windows 10 version is as important as other factors like the CPU, hard drive type/size and amount of RAM. If not mistaken the Pro version allows one to disable or at least delay those dreaded forced updates which is appealing but other than that feature not sure what else Pro offers that she would ever really use. I'm not convinced she will like Windows 10 any more than she would Mint Cinnamon but at least this way she can blame Microsoft and not me.