That's strange. I was in a conference room last week that had 2 wall-mounted displays right next to each other. I was presenting to one from my Windows 10 TP laptop and my colleague was presenting to the other from her Windows 7 laptop. We both commented how much sharper the Windows 10 image was. They were the same displays, but I suppose it could have been something else in the connection that caused the difference.

Is it stable enough to put on a partition or should it be installed on a virtual machine?

The current version has been very stable for me, but Microsoft has warned that stability could vary from release to release at this early stage.

My wife needs a new laptop to replace one running XP. If she buys now, her choice is effectively between Windows 8 and 8.1, neither of which is hugely attractive.

Should she:

• buy now with 8 or 8.1?
• buy now and hope to convert to 10?
• wait until 10 is available?

She's UK-based. Thanks for advice.

What's the difference between your first and second bullet? Why would she "hope" to convert to Windows 10? Are you thinking if you bought a laptop now there would be something preventing you from upgrading to Windows 10?

BTW mu suggestion is to buy now and upgrade to 10 when it comes out.

Buy now with a laptop that has Windows 7 Professional, if Win 8.1 is too icky for you.

Or buy now with Windows 8.1 (avoid 8) and add Classic Shell or Start Menu 8. With Windows 8.1 there is no need to ever see the Metro interface if you prefer not to.

Probably more important than the Windows version: Your next laptop should have at least 8GB RAM and, if feasible, a solid state hard drive.

Does she need to buy right now? There have been incentives in the past to buy a Windows laptop with a current OS with the promise of a free upgrade to the next level when available. Might be worth waiting a couple of months to see whether any companies put that deal out there for their Windows 8 machines in an attempt to bolster sales.

Agreed, however, that you should also focus on the hardware requirements in any purchase decision.

I've got to admit, as a die-hard anti win 8 person, that I'm finding 8.1 with classic shell to be pretty reasonable. I've been having to test some software on win 8 over the last few days, and other than the occasional time that you get pulled into a metro app without meaning to, the experience is a lot better than it used to be.

Is the Windows 8 debacle Microsoft's version of "New Coke"? It seems they tried to push that stupid metro interface on everyone and now they've had to come back with their hat in their hand and undo it with Windows 10. I'm just not sure how Microsoft got it so wrong. Did they really think enterprise users would ever deal with Windows 8? I wouldn't put it on my home pc let alone try to deal with it at work.

It's a classic clash of generations. MS has 20somethings and 30somethings convinced that everyone will be on a tablet tomorrow, because heck, they're all on tablets right now, so obviously everyone else is, right?

Meanwhile, thousands of businesses continue to plod along with their employees issued Windows 7 or XP desktops and laptops, with virtually zero chance they'll be migrating to tablets in this decade. And frankly, these businesses (run by 40somethings and 50somethings and 60somethings) are much more focused on Office than Windows anyway...which requires a big screen (or two) and a reasonable keyboard to handle those Excel spreadsheets.

MS missed the curve by about 10 years and they're having to pull back now.

Notwithstanding all that, there's nothing wrong with Windows 8 that a Windows 7 skin doesn't cure.

Well, they did release Vista, and Windows Me.

And don't forget Microsoft Bob

Good point, they had a lot of bad glitches but at least the design was still intuitive.

By the way, does anyone know why every version of Windows since ME has included less and less features such as sounds and screensavers?

Thanks for some very useful advice (on whether we should buy a new laptop now or wait for W10).

We feel we need to do something. Her unit is old and runs on XP which she'd rather not rely on even though updates seem to arrive from time to time.

The idea of waiting a couple of months looks attractive, and we'll make sure the new equipment has at least 8GB RAM and perhaps a solid state hard drive.

All the versions newer than ME (XP, and onward) were descended from the business line of products (Windows NT) and not the consumer products (95/98/ME) -- a lot of the fluffier media packs got dropped then, and some since as being dated.

Most of them will still run on a newer version (not sure if 32-bit screen savers will run on 64-bit versions, but the 32-bit Win98 screen savers definitely ran on XP), and can be copied over if you really want them. I kind of miss the dinosaur mouse pointer scheme...