Windows 8 for anything but a touchscreen is stupid, and even then I'm not a big fan, but at least it makes SOME sense on a tablet/touchscreen. On a straight up desktop or laptop? Win7 is the only MS choice right now, and will last until MS wises up and realizes they can't make cross platform (PC/Laptop to Tablet) OSes be all encompassing... it's just not going to work, and not everyone wants to do all of their computing on a touchscreen device yet.

Using an OS that is optimized for touch devices on a normal keyboard-and-mouse computer is just not ideal. I do photography/design, work in IT infrastructure, and will never adopt to Win8... It's complete shit for my needs, and I already have a droid tablet for my couch-surfing. I don't need some magic tablet/laptop/mobile device and OS that goes best with that (lets pretend it is the best OS), and honestly, few people actually NEED anything beyond a smart phone for keeping in touch. Yet MS banked it's newest OS platform on that (mobile platforms), and I honestly think that was a bad move.

People need desktops/laptops, and we need an operating system for that. I really hope MS comes back into the fold and makes another solid desktop OS in the future, and doesn't stick with the "mobile" junk. My company will switch to Ubuntu on all of our workstations before we'll ever roll to Win8. Win7 will last a while, so they have some time, but they are going to lose the office workstation and home workstation market if they don't get out of the "mobile is the ONLY future" mentality.