I am typing this on my mother's Windows 8 Dell Laptop just using the internet and ignoring everything else about this laptop.

Yeah, I just installed Office 2013 and I have been thinking of going back to 2010 for those reasons. My preferred Office is 2003 or 2000, before the ribbon crap came into existence, but my work uses 2010 so I must at least use that. But when/if I retire and if 2003 or 2000 is able to be loaded on Windows 2038, I will be putting one of those on my PC to stay.

I don't see the fuss about Windows 8. Is it the best new thing ever? No. Is it a disaster? No.

It is different though and some things work better than others. But at the end of the day how I use my Windows computer has barely changed.

I run Android, Linux, XP and Vista over my 8 devices.
I fought with DOS/Windows for 30 years and enough is enough.
I'm retired now and when my Windows boxes die they will be replaced with Linux.
End of an era! :P

My Windows 8/8.1 experience (this is actually on a laptop which I owned before, but sold to someone who wanted a gaming laptop; but I am currently still in possession of it, trying to troubleshoot the problem which I mention at the end):

Positives:

+ The desktop mode seems to have less fat than Windows 7. I'm using two Windows 7 machines, and both have this odd tendency to sometimes "go through" all the icons on my desktop and task bar, ie. all the icons are first empty (white) and then they appear there one by one, like one per second. What the heck is that? It usually happens when I boot to Windows 7 desktop, sometimes elsewhere too (e.g. when I activate the VPN connection to my workplace on my work laptop).

I haven't seen similar on either Windows XP nor Windows 8, when I go to desktop on either, there is no such waiting period for desktop icons to appear. Maybe it is due to Win7 Aero or something.

+ I think Netflix works better in Windows 8 than in Windows 7 (HD support).

Negatives:

- I still find the Metro start screen thingie somewhat confusing and distracting. I think I still have several "Manual" icons one after another on it which belong to different GOG games, and Windows 8/8.1 is just unable to group them similarly like they are grouped in XP/7 Start menu.

- I dislike the default full-screen Metro versions of Internet Explorer, Skype, PDF reader and such. Those shitty tablet apps should have been left to Windows RT. Fortunately you are able to use proper desktop replacements instead of them.

- The worst one: After some Windows (8.1) update a month or two ago, Windows 8.1 broke down. When I boot to Windows 8.1, I end up in a black screen, and I can only shut it down with the power button.

I googled for it ("Windows 8" "black screen"), and many others have faced the same, some already when they upgraded from Windows 8 to 8.1. It seems the culprit is that Windows Update and graphics chip vendor (NVidia in this case) driver updates collide somehow, e.g. Windows Update also "updating" the graphics driver and overwriting some vital parts, which cause the black screen due to corrupted graphics driver installation.

However, the suggested fix is to boot to Windows 8 in safe mode and re-install the graphics drivers from scratch, but for some reason that doesn't help me, I end up to black screen also in Windows 8.1 safe mode. So I am not confident it is exactly the same thing, even though symptoms seem very similar. There is some recovery mode I can get to in Windows 8.1, but it is not the proper safe mode and I can't do anything there.

Windows 7 still works like a champ on that same PC (Windows 7 and 8.1 are installed side by side). I can still see all the Windows 8.1 files on their own partition. Since all the recovery actions and such seem to fail too (e.g. it claims it can't find any recovery points for Windows 8.1), the laptop is now just running Windows 7.

Maybe I'll wipe the whole PC at some point, but I am unsure if I install just Windows 7 on it, or still take my chance with 8/8.1.

I just ignore the tablet screen and always load the desktop screen and its been ok.

What i really dislike is that the wifi does not show the security type, just really stupid.

Most of my games runs fine. The only problem i'm having is running PCSX2 which runs slower, i dont know why.

Hey... is this the same I just mentioned? Black screen problem?

An array of issues actually, usually associated with automatic updates. I'm guess I'm unlucky there, but I have been a fan of Win8 since I've started using it - well, not anymore I'm not

Windows 8.1 here. No insurmountable issues with any games. Usually just a tweak or two for older games. Don't mind the MetroUI at all. Have had no OS issues, no driver conflicts, no BSODs and no reboots. Rock steady OS for me any way.

Windows 8 is cheating a bit with the "faster boot time", because normally it doesn't fully shut down Windows, but puts it into a certain kind of semi-hibernate mode.

I disabled Windows 8 "fast boot" from power options because it caused some problems to me (ie. my Windows 8 shuts down properly), and without that hibernate mode Windows 8 boot time is about the same as Windows 7, save for maybe the "icons appearing slowly" Win7 issue I mentioned earlier.

I found actually two different issues:

http://optimizewindows8.wordpress.com/2013/11/04/how-to-fix-black-screen-of-death-in-windows-8/

As said, I am unable to fix my problem with safe mode, so maybe my problem is closer to the second one:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2756559/EN-US

I haven't yet tried the suggested fixes or workaround in this latter article, maybe I'll try them later, albeit I am unsure how the heck I can download and install the suggested Windows update, when I'm stuck in a black screen. So I'm unsure if my problem is that one either. But for now it just feels easier to use the existing Windows 7 installation on it, which thankfully still works. I just had to teach the new owner of the PC what to do, if he sometimes mistakenly selects the Windows 8 boot up option in the boot menu (and ends up in the black screen).

Oh I didn't get issues with booting into black screen, luckily enough. Right, not being able to shut down the computer, that was the other thing it did. And my PC keeps waking up from sleep for no apparent reason (probably connection to my router, but I can't be arsed to fix it)

It's mostly fast and stable... but a rogue Bluetooth driver can still cause BSODs.

I can really recommend LibreOffice/OpenOffice if you want the classic no-ribbon-bullshit UI. Both are capable of reading and writing MS Office formats quite well - there are problems with complex documents. They can't replace PowerPoint, Outlook or Access though.

exactly the same deal here, adzeth
the thing for me still is this UEFI support which I can't get rid of
but I won't give up: I'll replace this OS, I promise