Bottom line, non touchpad, standard desktop tower PC user with 32 G Ram and Core I5.

Primarily uses PC for

HTPC [WMC w/HDTVWonder support a must]
Internet Surfing
Engineering Calculating
CAD
Office Suite [reports, spreadsheets, GANTS, and Powerpoints]

Win8 or Win7 64b?

There are some minor under the hood improvements to Windows 8 that I like if you can get past all the Metro stuff. I'd go with Win8+Start8 personally, but Win7 will be fine.

I went with Windows 7 Pro due to all of the problems 8 is having with Quickbooks Pro.

Fyi, Windows 8.2 is just around the corner, and is supposedly to offer greater UI options to run it a lot more like the Windows 7 / pre Metro setup, and even a bit of a morphed version where you can have the desktop setup like everyone is familiar with and then the ability to place your active tiles on the desktop. So you'll have a fully functional Start button with the old school menus and then I believe you will also be able to just start typing to pull up the meta search that shows choices along the right side of the screen.

8.1 seems pretty smooth with Start8, didn't like that WMC wasn't included, but JRiver more than makes up for it.

I just got a new Windows laptop for the wife. I heard about the issues but thought it was just users complaining about change. But, no start button? No program files? WTF? Thats some arrogant engineering.

Teh problem is that Win8 was designed for tablets and touch screen monitors. Metro is useless without touch. I hated Win8 on my laptop but it makes some semblance of sense on a Surface tablet.

I have really tried to embrace Windows 8 running on a tablet. I really have. The problem is that Windows 8 just plain sucks.

Windows 8 is by far my least favorite desktop/laptop OS. It's like the Windows 8 developers at Microsoft were determined to make it as difficult as possible to perform the functions that you easily perform in Windows 7. The only way to make it usable is to add a third-party start menu such as Start8 or Classic Shell. I personally use Classic Shell, but I think the two add-ons are pretty much identical. What they do is give you a way to get to the old Start Menu that has been around ever since Windows 95. It turns the monstrosity known as Windows 8 into an OS that is once again perfectly usable.

I hope Microsoft really does return the old Start Menu with Windows 8.2, as is rumored. The "start button" that they added with Windows 8.1 is a freaking joke. I suspect some arrogant asshole at Microsoft said "So, you're pissed that we took away the Start button? Fine, I'll give you a Start button. It will take you to the Metro GUI that you hate so much. So there!". The "Start Button" in Windows 8.1 is completely useless.

Windows 8 is also by far my least favorite tablet OS. The "touch" function works, but it's damn hard to hit what you're trying to touch on the first attempt. On an iPad you can easily pinch and zoom the screen so that you CAN actually touch a hyperlink on the first attempt. On my Windows 8 tablets sometimes I can pinch and zoom, and sometimes I can't.

In my opinion the iPad is still by far the best tablet available. I'm no Apple fanboy, as I don't have any machine that runs Mac OS X. I do have 2 desktops and 2 laptops running Windows 7, two Windows 8 tablets, an Pad, an iPhone, and a Samsung tablet running the Android OS. I also have a laptop running Linux Mint KDE, and a desktop running Ubuntu Linux 12.04. I think I've had a pretty good exposure to a lot of different operating systems.

The iPad interface is simply a lot more intuitive than the Windows 8 interface, and it's not even close. The Android OS is a hell of a lot more intuitive than the Windows 8 interface as well.

Now, if you absolutely must have Microsoft Office on your tablet, then you have no choice: you really do need a Windows 8 tablet. You also really need a mouse. I've resorted to carrying around a mouse whenever I carry my Windows 8 tablet into a meeting, because it's just so damn hard to navigate Windows 8 without it. But when I don't need Microsoft Office, I leave the ****ing Windows 8 tablet at my desk and carry an iPad into the meeting instead. An iPad is much better at taking meeting notes, reading email, checking your online calendar, and surfing the Internet. The ONLY time I'll every carry a Windows 8 tablet into a meeting is if I need to edit an Excel spreadsheet in the meeting.

Sadly, however, Windows 8 is here to stay, and we all might as well learn to love it.

FYI... not sure if you've tried it....

You can do light editing of Office files on your iPad using Microsoft's Office web apps. For free. It's missing some of the really advanced editing features. But for simple stuff it works well.

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/web-apps/

All I can say is... I. Hate. It.

As soon as i can, i'm having 7 installed... 8 has so many connectivity problems with websites i always use, constantly.

Sports Illustrated, ESPN, Fox Sports, Fox News, CNN, Google Chrome almost never works, just to name a few... they constantly barely work or don't work at all some days, never ever had this problem with any other version.

Yeah, for the record, I only pitch Start8 because it's what I've used and have liked. From what I understand, Classic Shell does basically the same thing.

Just in case people run across this thread, here's a decent review of the two:
http://www.maximumpc.com/article/fea...ssic_shell2013

That sounds more like a browser/router issue than an OS issue. I've not had any web problems like what you're talking about at all.

AGreed, when I had Win8 I never had connectivity issues on my PC<

Yep- never had a single issue like that unless it was Internet / router problems.

Thanks. I agree it's fine for simple stuff.