Do not touch Windows 8 yet! Stay with Windows 7. Most of the bugs are out of it and it “works”.
At this stage in Windows8’s development its almost as goofy a Vista was! Wait a couple of years and they’ll get the bugs out of it.
As a professional software developer, I don't have any choice about that. However, notice I recommended he buy a Windows7 laptop. In general, I don't recommend anyone buy the dot-zero release of
anybody's OS. And before the usual OS bigots from Linux and MacOS jump me, I have real hardware and VM's with both of those OS's, too, and the dot-zero release of those products are not any different from Microsoft's. I have to support them because clients insist on doing stupid things, like buying the newest "improvements," or hanging onto OS's that are many years past their useability, like Windows XP.
Pioneers take arrows. Always been that way, always will be.