This is how I have been working for the last 5 years and would like to know if Win8 will get in the way:
1. I need a lot of tools to perform various dev works, so my second XP taskbar is loaded with 38 shortcuts
2. I need to open several Excel sheets: time sheet, dev log, test log,..etc
3. I need to open several Words document: product spec notes, technology notes, customer info...etc
4. I need several instances of Visual Studio at the same time: one for legacy projects, one for current dev project, sometimes I need VC++ 6 or VB6, to trace calls.
5. I need tools to support my dev work: an advance editor like UltraEdit, a file/folder comparaison tool like Beyond compare, a folder search tool like AgenRansack, ProcessMonitor, event viewer, acces to system environment variable, acces to a DOS screen, ..etc

All those need to be easy to start, and it should be easy to swith between one app to another. On XP and W7, I put my main taskbar vertically on the left side, because it allows me to see more icons.

Please don't tell me I won't be able to do this with Win8...