Going to buy a new computer soon

I don't know anyone who LIKES windows 8, personally. I found it to be incredibly frustrating. MS loves to hide things from us as a reward for buying their latest software.

 

Windows 8 (more accurately, 8.1) is pretty awesome. In all seriousness, I quite like it. The "under the hood" improvements as definitely worth it. Yes, things are in new spots and it might take you a day or two of using it to get comfortable with the new UI. If you manage to not be a luddite and use it for that long though, you'll easily find a workflow in it that will be natural for you as well. It will be a learning curve. It's very solid, manages resources very well, and has a heap of new features, tools and options available over it that no other Windows OS has had.

OP - most people that I've run into that seem to dislike 8 haven't given it much of a shot. They remind me a lot of the people back in Windows 3.1 and Windows XP days, where the new UI scared a bunch of them and they fought against learning. Yes, the start menu with it's crappy menus, sub-menus, sub-sub-sub-menus is history. Good riddance.

 

It's not that I mind learning technology. It's that I am tired of having to re-learn where everything is AGAIN. I really don't want to be an OS expert. I'd rather be able to use the computer. It's not like I get a medal for giving each new obfuscated OS a shot.

FWIW, I've been employed as a *nix and windows sysadmin in the past. I've built linux servers from source code and spent way too much time editing config.sys and autoexec.bat files to get win3.1 to boot. Not an advocate of going back to that, by any means. Just tired of the treadmill...

On a related note, touch screen is probably the most significant evolution of user interface in the last 3 decades. I won't miss the mouse, although touch typing is not the same on a screen.

 

I despise Windows 8.1.

 

You might consider a Mac as well, you can run either or both the Mac OS or Windows OS as you prefer. Mac hardware quality is generally better than PCs.

 

I agree with the idea of 8.1, but I find it ironic that Mac OS is now more desktop centric than windows OS. I actually love windows 7 still. I use that and the latest OSX on a Macbook pro.

 

Just a point of clarity - the hardware being the CPU, RAM, motherboard and so on is mostly *identical* between PC and Mac. It's been this way for years now, which is why you can run Windows on a Mac. At the same time, the hardware is either a generation old, or top-of-the-line isn't offered (i.e. fastest bin parts). The exception here being the display panel.
The physical build quality (chassis, keyboard etc) is pretty nice and better than most of the PC laptops out there. I always thought it'd be nice to gut a MBP and put nicer compute components in, but that would be a pretty expensive endeavor.

Depending on your budget and needs though, if it fits what your intended use is, the Surface Pro 3s are pretty great pieces of computing, too. They walk the line between laptop and tablet very well, doing the job of both nicely.

 

+1 to the idea of a MacBook Pro, dual booting with Windows OS of your choice. I do that for my music production stuff.
FWIW I use Windows 7 so I haven't much to say about 8, having not had any experience with the software.

 

My Surface Pro 3 comes with Windows 8.1 and I'm forced to use it daily. After enough tweaking it looks, feels, and is as functional as Win 7.

And that's on a tablet. Whoever decided the 8.1 UI is a good idea on desktops needs a good slap.

Just get 7 if you can, but I wouldn't go too far out of my way to avoid 8.1. Also, Windows 10 (the next one) is in the works and the first thing they promised to do is to drop the 8.1 UI thing. Should be out a year down the line from now? Anyway, it will be cheaper to upgrade from 8.1.

 

I've had one experience with windows 8, and while I'm sure I'd get used to it, the fact that I had to Google how to find the add/remove utility made me never want touch another computer with equipped with 8 again. F*** W8.

 

It's.... in the same place it pretty much always has been - Control Panel.

 

I have Windows 8.1 and have it configured to look just like Windows 7. I'm one click away from 8 if I need it, but I don't.

 

Couldn't find the control panel or even the search function. It was a late night "hey, could you fix our computer before we leave tomorrow morning because we've been running it online for months without updating our antivirus once" kinda deal. It was also after a long night at work, so my patience was already worn thin. The lack of a start button was pretty much my undoing, but there was nothing intuitive at all about it IMO. Anyways, I'll stick with 7 on my PC till 10 comes out.

 

I installed 8.1 on my macbook 6 months ago... haven't needed it once.