I recommend to everyone, if you're upgrading computers with the eyecandy as a priority, get a Mac.
It's
out of the gate more secure and they've been doing, what M$ is attempting to do in the 'visuals', for a long time.
Yeah 8 is getting a start button, but from there, it in no way will resemble any previous version of win. If you want easy access to 100 different programs, your going to need multiple desktops, to contain all the 'tiles', or swipe.
Oh, BTW, those tiles are the ugliest things I've seen just about anywhere. IMHO
If your 'scared' of running an OS after M$ ends support - load a flavor of
Linux. {install alongside, dual boot, but re-partition with the at least half going to the Linux install(don't think you'll go back)} I've installed
Ubuntu, and use it daily for all web activity. Firefox is already installed in Ubuntu. (I've also installed Chrome)
You'll be surprised at how much faster that dinosaur becomes. Boot and on the net in under 60 seconds, shutdown in ~8. Laptop battery lasts twice as long running Ubuntu than when running Vista.
Guess what, you can still access your files on the windoze NFTS partition. And save files there. Or copy file to.
NOTE: You will not be able to access any file saved in linux (partition) from Windoze.
Many windoze programs run just fine in wine
http://www.winehq.org/about/
If it doesn't work for you, you can reformat the linux partition to NTFS and install 8,
Win8 still requires regular defrag. Not really needed at all in linux. (you can tho-if it suits you)
Ubuntu has never gotten in 'the way' by rebooting itself after an update. (That burns my A-- with M$ win)
Office? LibreOffice(included in Ubuntu) or OpenOffice. Both handle M$ office files. The reverse cant be said. Both can export as PDF. M$O-?
One thing about the End of Support for a M$ OS. It's, at that time, the stablest, and securest that it ever was. Yeah, someone may find a hole, but those intent on finding them usually move their focus onto the 'new'.
And from what I've seen, most of the crapware out there today requires operator clicking a bogus warning on some webpage. Oh, If you happen to click one while running a flavor of linux, 99.9999999% of the time NOTHING happens, as it's written to run in M$ windoze. Worms and trojan horses are a M$ disease. Very rare, in comparison, in linux.
There's still a need for windoze here, so there will be 98, XP and Vista running now and then, but for web, pictures, music, video, I really like Ubuntu. Oh, skype too. (Notice, I skipped over a couple of atrociously bad versions[Me & 2K]. Vista has been 'modded' with settings to make it operate more like Xp)
Vista looks to be the last M$ OS that will be run here. 7 didn't impress me.
Oh JFTR: Skydrive =
Ubuntu One (Oh my, you can use it in windoze too)
Sorry if that got off subject(and sounded like a commercial)but that's the jest of my opinion on 8.0 or 8.1 or whatever they call the next version of it. L8nghorn?
Want a more secure M$ machine? More secure than what antivirus offers. Create an account for everyday use that does not have Administrator Privileges. Only log into the Administrator account when it's absolutely necessary. That alone will let that dinosaur run a long time. As long as the hardware lasts.
Baby sitters are allowed the Guest account ONLY.
But they have their smart phones now so that account is probably not necessary.
Sorry- I'll quit now.
