Having made a bare-metal installation of Win 8 pre-release on a five year old hp laptop I can only say that it was an amazing experience - it just worked. Not a question avout finding out-of-date drivers etc etc. The result is superb - small (less than 16 GB) and fast. Having spent an hour to learn how to master Metro the old desktop looks decidedly dated although it still there with a single click on the Windows button. All old programs I need installed without a hitch, even the original Visi-calc from 1988 in DOS (just for fun, of course).

The pro's I can see are -
- Runs very well on old hardware (without touch screen of course) and fast. A real youth cure.
- A smaller foot-print was welcome.

I have also tried Office 2013, which is also a winner, especially on Win 8.