I know there's tons of positive feedback, but being an advid Windows user, I personally think that it is a disaster. This is the first time I have reverted back to a previous OS. I think that you'll either really like it, or really hate it. In my opinion, it makes me want to go back to Windows ME.
Lack of start bar and the mess that is Metro makes running all my different software a nightmare. If I hadn't already gone to OSX, today would have been the day.
Now to give it another chance, should I actually get all the drivers working with bootcamp and apart from the security, are there any real advantages to upgrading to windows 8? I just haven't seen any. I'll actually take some criticism if you're willing to offer it.
I apologize for not getting to this before.
This will come with a caveat, as to say that Windows 7 is still good. It didn't stop working one day out of the blue. Everything it could do before, it will do today. That being said, there are some clear advantages that can be had from Windows 8 depending on what type of computer you're using.
If you are using a laptop, you will see the most benefit.
The name of the game is performance. I had Windows 7 installed on two laptops, an Asus and a Gateway. I saw around a 20 second reduction on boot, and about a 10-15 on shutdown. These were on normal harddrives. It takes my Macbook Air about 7 or 8 seconds to start up and about 2-3 to shut down.
That isn't as important as it actually giving me better battery life than Windows 7 did on every device that I've upgraded. The Asus went from 1hr on full power to 1 1//2. Might not sound like much, but that's with the processor going full-blast.
I also noticed a general speed and performance increase in programs. When I first installed The Old Republic, for example, on my Gateway? I turned everything down to low to get somewhere between 8 and 15 frames per second. It was rather unbearable. When I installed the consumer preview, that performance was then between 12 and 20. My Asus was a gaming laptop, so the change was merely "able to go from medium on some things to high on almost everything that wasn't shadows".
And, of course, there's IE 10. Windows 7 will get it eventually. But you'd be capped at 10. IE 10 is fairly good, but IE 11 will obviously be better. I know that's a concern for future you, but still. One of the advantages of using the new OS that isn't performance is the future. Microsoft will be supporting Windows 7 for a while, this is true, but it won't be given as high of a priority as 8. This means that anything they figure out that increases performance down the road, likely goes to 8.
Oh, and a smaller OS footprint is always nice.