Microsoft’s big mistake was forcing people to use the new interface rather than making it easy to use the desktop mode (It is easier with 8.1). So Microsoft did give 8 a bad reputation, but a better version of Windows 7 is underneath the new stuff and easy to access if you try.
Exactly where M$ went wrong. Why should we need to work at making their stuff 'work' the way we the consumer want it to? Why would they even think that something designed for a touch screen device would even be thought of for install on a desktop? Win ATE poynte WON is only a cosmetic smoke 'n mirrors thingie, that gives you a sort of pacifier instead of correcting the flawed logic behind the thing.
Maybe a unified touch screen interface is fine for all the versions of Win ATE installed on touch screen devices, but they should have left the desktop and laptop user interfaces alone.
But then we know they smoke dope out there on the left coast...
I'm not buying anything that has Win ATE on it, and I have two XP laptops that I need to decide what to do with in the next couple of months. One is old enough that finding Win7 drivers may be hard, so it most likely will become a Linux box of some flavor (been playing with Mint which I mostly like..)
The other one came out in the time frame when users were rejecting Vista and manufacturers would still sell you an XP box, so Vista drivers - which for the most part work on Win7 - are available which makes it hopeful that a Win7 re-braining of it will be mostly hassle-free.