You can run OSX in a VM if you really want to try. But it's just another UNIX BSD version with an Apple GUI stuck on.

  I (used to) follow a rather simple rule:  Upgrade every second operating system.  Luckily that meant I went from Windows 98 to Windows XP to Windows 7.

I happily was using windows 7, and made no attempt to follow the development of 8.  When the Surface was released, I bought one for my 10 year old daughter to use at school.  And she finds it very simple to use.  And it was my first exposure to Windows 8.

I still had no real intention of upgrading to 8 except two things happened.  One, they offered a rather cheap upgrade price.  I think it was 30 bucks.  I spent over 200 bucks for windows 7 ultimate.  Secondly, my daughter was learning how to use Windows 8 RT on the surface, and I thought it would be better for me to learn it as well.  And it was only 30 bucks.  Did I mention it was cheap?

Okay....the learning curve was immense.  I couldn't figure out how to turn off the computer.  I had to print an email and that was a good half hour of me swearing before I figured it out.  Other fun stuff.

I didn't really miss the start button, as I rarely used anyways.  I did buy the Start 8 program, but find I never actually use it.  However, I do have a rather large number of files I have to deal with, in many different folders.  Some of the files have the same name, and only the folder differentiates which one I need.  Searching was easier in 7 then 8.  When I type a search, I may get a dozen of the same file name, and not know which folder it is in.  I have to think and search for the folder instead.  (UPDATE:  if I hit Show More Results I get the old Windows 7 search results, showing folders) 

I have two monitors.  It bothers me that I the Metro stuff thinks it is full screen and only uses one monitor. 

Why cant the tiles be actual screens?  That way I can see all my multitasking at a glance and choose the window I want open.  Especially if I can leave that start screen open on my second monitor, while working on the other one. 

Just got a laptop with Win8. Ugh. Am about ready to wipe the HD and rebuild it with Win7. Enough said.

To my mind the complete OSX experience is mostly in the GUI, for the rest it's freebsd, 4.4BSD-Lite2 with some propietary changes. Imho for the average user it would be hard to spot the differences. But at least, other than Windows, the GUI is well designed. Pity it's such an expensive closed box system else i'd switch in a heartbeat.

Banned for blaming your son for not liking Win 8... he probably understands it, so are you sure it needed fixing?

Banned for yet another excuse.... I don't mind if its not brand new, used will do just fine.

Banned for directions.... and I'm not so sure I'm going in that direction.

Hmmm, I'm only finding upgrade versions available from the App Store, but that's online.  I may have to contact an actual store and make some inquiries.

I recently found some very interesting articles about Windows 8:

http://winsupersite.com/windows-8/explaining-windows-8-pc-sales-over-holidays

http://www.windowsitpro.com/article/windows8/microsoft-windows-8-death-thousand-cuts-144989

I highly recommend that you do not just read the two article but the user comments below them, too. Some of those user comments are even more interesting than the articles themselves.

Just one Quote:

"Quote:  With Windows 8, Microsoft faces a similar problem, and the growing perception that this new OS is a poorly conceived disaster. And the window is closing to address this perception."

Well, that's because it is a poorly conceived disaster. What a sad and obvious marketing scheme Microsoft is trying to foist on the computer using public. Well right it's being rejected. When they deliberately crippled it for no reason (other than the marketing department's interference) by making the Start Menu unavailable, I knew then it was an OS from hell and I hated it.

I don't mind change for progress, but hate it when it's just snake oil, which is what Windows 8 is on the Desktop, snake oil.

end of quote:

Another article:

http://computingcompendium.blogspot.de/2012/12/watching-computers-and-tablets-sales-in_18.html

And more:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-01-10/microsoft-intel-pcs-to-keep-losing-share-canalys-says.html

ROFL... first app on http://www.windows8appstore.com/ is Start Menu 8..... looks like people are REALLY enjoying the phone interface.

They also seem to be rather pissed... and no I didnt gave a rating to this site.

https://www.mywot.com/en/scorecard/windows8appstore.com?utm_source=addon&utm_content=rw-viewsc

ACER displeased about Windows 8 influence on sales:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-01-27/acer-sees-success-in-chrome-pcs-as-windows-fails-to-drive-sales.html

This is very interesting, it never occured to me that ARM cpus did hit the PC market that hard.

But if you think about it for a while.. it makes sense.

The average joe doesnt use his computer (in what form ever) for much more than word processing, chat, e-mail or web browsing. Nothing of that requires more than basic and cheap hardware.

The performance of our computers has reached a level where upgrading the machine will offer hardly any benefits for many peoples everyday applications. The times were you could not stand the old rig because of slowness are mostly gone for good.

Games were one huge driving force behind hardware and software development in the past. But even that market area has come under severe pressure, not only by several large and powerful console companies but also my far more casual games that run easily on mobile devices.

Worse, the growth of consoles has also stalled the development of PC games to some extent. A game that needs to run a a console cannot demand the level of brute power modern gaming pc are capable of delivering. But if the PC platform does not deliver and is plagued by secondary problems (idiotic DRM, shitty bug heavy unsupported games)  the incentive to buy PC games goes down even further. How long is Dirext X 11 out there? And how many games make full use of it? Watch the graphics on an XBox... and you know why developers dont bother much.

The hazzle with Dirext X 10, 10,1 and 11... didnt helped matters. Buy a Direct X 10 GPU.... ohh crap... first game released requires 10.1..... say goodbye to 200 €.

The less important the traditional home desktop PC becomes to the average user, the more Microsoft will struggle to keep up its current business model. A mobile phone ported Windows however needs considerable more ressources than competing systems, mostly because of the legacy issues Windows has.

Most programm that run under Win XP more or less needs to run under Windows 7. That is how Microsoft made business in the past. It is a good idea... it helped to keep Linux down for decades. People dont care as much for their OS as they care for their preferred application programs.

Want to play a game? Damm... need Windows...

Want to exchange written text with somebody... damm... need Office... dammit... needs Windows.

People expect that their preferred 10 year old software runs on MS Windows X.  Microsoft knows how important it is for them to keep those people happy.... because it is one huge advantage they enjoy over all competition.

However this functionality comes at the cost of high ressource consumption. Because somewhere in all that huge Windows 8 core system... you need to have the stuff that makes the Win 2000 application working happily.

On a powerful desktop, that is not much of an issue.... power has increased enough so that the added weight is easily offset by it. But this doesnt work on the new light mobile devices many people are so fond of now. One of MS new mobile devices is already screamed at for leaving only 23 GB to the user... from 64 total. Windows IS large.

But if you remove that ballast.... and nothing that worked on Win 7 does work on Win 8... say goodbye to your customer base. They are gone.

Because if I have to reintall the entire system anyway, I might aswell choose Linux. If Windows does not longer offer the old program runs mostly out of the box the OS is going to be judged by its other features. A comparsion that likely wont go into MS favour, neither by price nor by system features.

Because you know.... the things that the non game average joe wants to do with his computer.... do not benefit reasonably in any way by having Windows running. 

So if MS kills the legacy, it kills the convienence of staying with windows... but if they dont.... I dont see them competing on the mobile market.

Reasonably... they should have made 2 different OS... one for desktop.... one for mobile.... but then they were - rightfully - afraid that due to their poor performance before they would face severe market entry problems on the mobile sector.

On the other hand..... creating a Hybrid system.... has lots of hefty disadvantages too... as you can clearly see with Windows 8.

The mobile buyers are annoyed about the ressource consumption..... that Microsoft is ANYTHING but modern and cool doesnt help matters much.

So far the desktop users on the other hand as a majority dont react well to a phone GUI being thrown on them. A GUI that looks good on a mini screen, does look quite shitty on a 26 HD flat screen.

Last but not least, I really fail to see how touch is interesting in a desktop environment. I really dont feel like cleaning my screen 2 a day.... even worse in the office. I really dont want that smelly coworker to smear the remains of god knows where he had his hands before over MY screen. This is far worse than a short interlude on my keyboard.

Oh... and how long does it take to move your finger over a 26 flatscreen... and now compare that to a mouse command. You can play any RTS or shooter against me on touch against my mouse any day.

So far MS success in the mobile device market seems to be quite limited with Windows 8. If sales in this area can really offset the lost sales by annoyed desktop users.... I personally doubt it. The desktop market is in a decline as you can do most stuff on far cheaper devices and the need to upgrade Windows has never been lower.

Most people dont want radical change so if you do one.... you have to deliver some awesome mindbreaking features that make everyone scream " I want this NOW" as compensation. Windows 8 has nothing of the sorts, and no matter how small or large the learning curve for using it is, it is of no conequence because most people dont see any reason to learn the new GUI, because it offers no substantial advantage over its predecessor.

Win 98 - Win XP.... finally more stability and the end of the DOS under the hood. Looks much better too.

Win XP - Win Vista.... doesnt run on netbooks... ouch.... high hardware demands offset better looks and improved system internals.

Win Vista - Win 7..... finally a modern OS.... all the features but not half the performance problems of Vista. Basically Vista SP 3.

Win 7 - Win 8..... Touch... I dunno.... no desktop or startmenu... UGH Learning back from the beginning...you are serious?.  . Any important awesome features? No?

Why should I care?

And yet, after #291 there will still be several respondents who will declare Win8 is fantastic.

It's actually a selfish opinion - to say Win8 is great - FOR ME..... while the entire computing industry quakes at the reality of reduced sales success even in SPITE of the insanely low initial purchase price of 8.

Clearly MS knew they had screwed up...even before release...and the low price was the hit they were willing to take in order to hopefully dupe people into abandoning a perfectly good 7.

Meanwhile....re the size of the OS on a portable....Australia's ACCC [consumer protection] is looking into sueing MS for misrepresentation - when a 64gig product only has 28 usable.  The reasonable consumer expectation is that 'most' of a product's capacity is actually available.  Advertising as they are they are in breach of the advertising standards.

It's how it is advertised that matters.

When it is false or misleading, or fails even with maybe having [it doesn't] that pathetic tiny bottom text that reads "product actually may have less capacity than advertised due to huge OS demand, unlike similar products - but to look good we show the max theoretical empty size."  they expose themselves to Ad removal [and/or censure] until it is corrected.

Re 'selfish'...perhaps simply read 'myopic'. ....

How much of it is quaking?  Acer?  Acer?  Acer too?

And probably Acer?

The issue Windows 8 has 'at launch' is genuinely solid competition from Windows 7 itself.  iPads or 'Android' are irrelevant to OS take-up on a PC.

All Windows 7 had at launch was a wonky Vista....so it was warmly welcomed, and rightly so.

The whole issue re Windows 8 is it's bastardisation of a good OS so as to accommodate universality over all uses.

In truth it is the epitome of 'Jack of All Trades - and Master of None'....