Windows 7 or Windows 8?

[Raist]

Win 8 boots faster on most systems mostly because of how it uses the extra swap file it creates--if you delete it, you loose it's psuedo hibernation file it uses to speed up booting and it bogs it down until it is recreated after the next boot. It's increase is also tied into the BIOS integration (which, IIRC is also available with Win7). So it's more than just a new kernel--they've redone the bootstrap process in general.

As for the Metro crap... you can get around that. Sourceforge has the free Classic Shell that restores most of the start button, and you can customize it to function a lot like the old one (can break out documents, control panel, etc. as menus and such). They have custom icon packs for the graphics too (the default is a sea shell icon), so you can make it look like a Vista or Win7 start button and such.

Once you get that in place, for the most part you can make it behave like Win7 (once you tweak the UAC and crap). Wasn't too fond of the new web browser and email either... thank heavens for Firefox and Thunderbird.

But, that's all about the interfaces for Windows. Game-wise---I don't really notice anything different between my XP box and Win8 (outside of the Win8 having much better hardware thrown at it).