in my opinion I would get Windows 7 for a few reasons. One reason is that it seems that most tutorials you watch/read on something. Most of those are using Win 7. I think its more user friendly. I have never really used Windows 8 so I cant say anything bad about it because I dont know. When I bought my Alienware x51 it came with Windows 7 and my sons computer I bought recently also came with Windows 7. So I think for gaming you should roll with 7. Anyway good luck

http://www.neowin.net/news/windows-8-ux-designer-on-metro-it-is-the-antithesis-of-a-power-user

Very interesting read. It does seem like Windows 8 is a "beta" for what they will give us with Windows 9.

I hate the metro screen. I never use it, but appreciate that it would be much more welcomed if using a touch screen device like the surface tablet.

It does not help that the windows app store has nothing good in it. Well, it has some respectable enough apps, but it is shallow when compared to the play store or itunes.

Very interesting read. It does seem like Windows 8 is a "beta" for what they will give us with Windows 9.

Similarly Windows Vista seems like a beta of what they gave us in Windows 7.

Sorry to stir up such a discussion. I shall show this to my dad and hopefully he will see the light

Similarly Windows Vista seems like a beta of what they gave us in Windows 7.

Yeah, I supposed it could be compared in that way, although I do think Vista was a complete disaster considering how much time they put into the development of it. The Longhorn beta was much better than Vista, so I am not sure why they made such major changes last minute. It showed either way.

I think Windows 8 is a decent OS, but it is not dramatically different to Windows 7, and was obviously released with the touch screen generation in mind.

Shame they have not fixed the stupid mouse moving shortcuts in 8.1. They piss me off soooooo much.

Windows 7 all the way. Especially if you are planning on getting into modding or zombies mapping. I have both operating systems, and Windows 7 is the way to go

got win 7 pro, love it, i have tried 8.1 and it is good, but some 7 games are not supported

I think you should get windows 8 unless it doesn't support something you need. I'm currently using Windows 7 and tried 8.1, i prefer the latter. Regardless of it being crap or not, it's an upgrade from windows 7, it's much better in terms of performance, it's updated, it doesn't have the security holes that windows 7's system has. And I've been virus free for some years .
 I download lots of stuff from the internet and don't use an antivirus, i just run malwarebytes' anti-malware every month to ensure that everything's OK.
In my dad's company, I helped him build a computer than only had an Intel Haswell Pentium CPU (low-medium class CPU), a basic MOBO, an SSD and a hard drive. It boots in 5 seconds, 3 of these seconds are to show POST (the first screen it shows up when you turn on your computer, with the Motherboard brand and stuff). Windows 8 boots up in 2 seconds in a PENTIUM CPU!!!

The only thing I hate in windows 8 is that it doesn't have the start menu, but once you get used to some shorcuts in Windows 8 your productivity doesn't suffer much. But, it's a change, the problem with people that complain about Windows 8 is, or they share other people's opinions without even trying it, or they don't like change.
Things have to change sometimes.
People also often complain about the Metro-style menu, like if it didn't let you do anything at all unless you gave some atention to it. I don't really mind it, just ignore it and keep enjoying your time in your computer. Why is it so hard for people to understand that?

Definitly windows 7 Ultimate edition, windows 8 has so much unnecessary garbage on it.

reviving a dead topic.. congrats for your first post i guess lol