I have some older programs on a W 98 PC and had to fire it up yesterday to check on something that used to work on W3.1.

It was just like going home at the end of term. Yes, it is old and there's faster and bigger things - but just so familiar.

I notice that people use the keyboard for doing things - I am strictly point and click when it comes to making things work and just use the keyboard for text - oh, and the arrow keys and delete, and Ctrl-Z when playing card games, but that is about it.

My W7 is in 'Classic' mode, but W 8 does rather look to be too clever for its own good. What puzzles me is why the OS doesn't adapt to user preferences automatically - that was always the thing in Science Fiction, computers were going to learn about us and alter to make things easier for us - not the other way around.

I don't actually mind having to learn new things, in a way, but it would be better if the designers of software read some old Sci Fi and realised what older people like me were expecting.