You can call a 16-bit or 32-bit program anything you like but I call them essential. Custom written programs costing hundreds of thousand of dollars and years to develop are more important than MS wanting to force everyone to buy their incomplete and poorly thought out software. These custom programs are what keeps the production operating and the cash flow running. An OS that brings your production capabilities to a standstill is no OS at all. Changing the OS is insignficant compared to what the costs in new custom programs and time lost are because of that OS change. Win 7 has been bad enough; Win 8 will have a very miniscule part to play here and will be avoided wherever possible.