I bought a computer last summer with Windows 7, and it has a $14.99 upgrade to Windows 8 when 8 came available. I bought a Windows 8 computer for a new employee at the Women's Center, and I liked it. So...I decided to take the plunge and put Win 8 on mine. With the backup disk, it was about $35 for the upgrade - and I like it. I had to learn some new keyboard shortcuts and rearrange a few things, but now I have it working just like I want it to work. It does have a lot of flexibility, once you get the hang of it.

I use [WindowsKey+D] to get to the desktop, and work primarily off the desktop. I "pinned" shortcuts for my favorite programs to the taskbar, so I have one-click access to them. The folder on the taskbar gives me access to my files. That makes 11 icons on my taskbar, and that seems to be all I need for 97.6% of what I do.

The "Start" page (or whatever they call it) has all sorts of doodads like news and weather that are kind of nice to look at when I turn on my computer, but then I don't go to the "Start" page very often during the day. Working from the desktop is just about like working from Windows 7. Oh, and the games have to be downloaded separately, but they're great.

So, although all you naysayers will hate me for saying this, I like Windows 8, mostly because I find it a little more fun and more colorful to use than Linux or Windows 7 or my Chromebook. The Chromebook's great for travel, though.

I had to rehab a donated XP computer in a hurry last night, I got it set up to do what I wanted it to do, but I found I had forgotten some of the things I used to do automatically. I think that if you have an XP computer, you should start thinking about switching to something else. I'm betting that most people will prefer Windows 7, but I don't know how much longer Win 7 computers will be available for purchase.

-Joe-