Good stuff. And I will say that “horror stories” is probably a bit harsh.
Vista sure had its problems at the start and I’d consider that a much harder transition (mainly from people that I consider trustworthy). I used Vista a little bit but not much (it was on a laptop that I got loaned by my job to travel with).
By the time the towers at my job were upgraded, they went to Win7. Seems to me that Win7 is essentially Vista with the bugs worked out. I may be wrong but that’s my perception. With Win7 on my work computer and home computer, I’m not anxious to upgrade. I’m liking Win7 just fine.
I’d have kept 7 if I could have. I like it better than 8.1 for some oddities - like with 8.1, you cannot make a system repair disc. You must use a USB drive and it can only hold the restore files. What was the point of that?
And 8.1 requires you to log on with a MS ID & password. Why? How many people REALLY wanted to log on to their computer with an ID held at Microsoft?