I will be moving over to "Windows 7" in the next couple of weeks or so. I've noticed some sites are not supported, or ever have been, by "XP". For example I have to go to "Mozilla Firefox" to get onto "Flubits" website.
I've been with "XP" for years now so I suppose like many things in life its had its run. "Windows 7" is a natural progression for me from "XP" with regards to operating it, and it's well proven. I'm no computer highbrow expert user it's just for my personal and domestic use. Plus a little bit of business accountancy stuff on "word" as i'm self employed, so the basic operating layout of "7" will suit me fine. If I do have any operating problems number two daughter can help me out if needs be as she has had "7" for some time. Also as far as I know "Windows 7" is being supported by "Microsoft" untill 2020.
"Windows 8" has had too many problems and although the .1 upgrade has sorted out many glitches, from what I can percieve and given my limited knowledge of such things, it appears that it's more styled towards tablet use and the ultra latest computers which (a) I don't have or (b) do not need at the moment.
Win 7 is the easy way to go though from a hardware perspective transitioning away from win xp, win 8.1 is actually a better option than win 7 as it has lower system requirements.
The start menu is not present in win 8.x but Microsoft have announced it will be returning in win 8.1 update 2 or something along those lines. Update 1 to win 8.1 also introduced behind the scenes changes where the tablet UI elements are suppressed by default when it checks the bios/uefi for a flag stating this computer is desktop (yes), hybrid (yes) or tablet (no), if no flag at all is present it defaults to desktop mode.
There are many start menu replacements out there already which can even give you win xp style start menu such as startisback and it's really no different from windows 7 in this fashion just a bit faster.
On a side note for anyone who is interested in migrating to Win 7 or Win 8 and doesnt want to lose data or apps it is possible to retain all your files and applications but it's an involved process that requires multiple versions of windows that most people wont have lying around;
If running WinXP Home
* Get Windows Vista and install as upgrade put disc in while windows is running, don't bother activating as it's only a stepping stone
* Install service pack 1 on Windows Vista and install any driver updates present in windows update (needed for transition to win 7)
* Get Windows 7 and upgrade Vista to Win 7 Home same way as vista, get all updates from windows update and activate the os.
If you get to Win 7 level and wish to go to Windows 8.x
* Get Windows 8.0 [not 8.1] then upgrade to Windows 8 standard
* Install free update to 8.1 from windows store built into Windows 8.0
That will take a few days to do but it should keep everything going, you can't skip over an OS as MS remove the OS migration after the next release, for example 8.1 does not have the Win 7 OS migration feature only Win 8.0 has it, only Vista has the XP migration.
Also if by some chance you have XP Pro you will be in a bind as that only upgrades to the expensive business/ultimate/Pro versions of Vista/7/8 so on Win7 what you can do is
downgrade to Home through a trick and that will get you back on Windows standard upgrade path, probably works at vista level too.