I've been stubbornly clinging to XP for a while and I'm ready to upgrade now. I have a new PC but I don't know which OS to use. I have access to free copies of Windows 7, 8, and 10 through my school. Which one should I go with?

I would recommend 7, avoid 8, and 10 is ok if 7 doesn't work for you (10 might give you some issues with older games)

Get 7.

It's a "classic style" OS whereas 8 has been superceded by 10 as a more recent iteration of the "modern kind" OS. And if till July 29th you upgrade it to 10 for free once, you then have the choice of using either classic 7 or modern 10 in the future.

Very much Win7. It's half as obnoxious as 8.1 and twice as stable. YMMV of course, but that's my experience at least.

I'd definitely recommend 7 (over the others anyway) as I've heard very little good about 8.1 or 10 and I find 7 to be pretty good.

I would say get 10 and install classic shell. The only reason not to get 10 is if there are specific games/programs that you know won't work with it.

7 all the way.

But he should still get a different OS from his school because till July 29th he can upgrade to 10 for free. He'd be wasting one free OS if he got 10 from his school.

7 is great

Hmm, no one mentioned it: None of those!!! Get Linux!!!

Ok ok I'll behave, get Windows 7, it's the last sane Windows there has ever been after XP.

go for 7
or if you must 8.1 stay the hell away from 10

Definitely 7. Hopefully Microsoft will stop fucking up soon and release something better. But 7 is the only real option right now.

How do you figure that? If he upgades from 7 to 10, he'll still only have 1 free operating system. It's not like he'll be able to use the old 7 on another machine after upgrading.

That makes sense...but only if he plans on upgrading again before July 29th. I assume since he's still using XP he's not big on upgrading often ;)