Should I jump from XP to Windows 8?

Buy a 7 System and get a free upgrade to 8. As I'm not involved in this offer I have no idea what it actually covers so you could buy a 7 Ultimate and end up with a 8 Home Basic.

Col

If it were me, I would buy a new system (desktop/laptop) with W7 OS installed. W7 is a very solid workhorse OS and will be supported for many years! You then have to decide if you want the 32 bit or 64 bit W7 OS. Of course if you want to take advantage of all the 64 bit OS goodness with more available memory etc. you will also have to upgrade your applications software to 64 bit versions to take full advantage or just go with the 32 bit W7 OS and keep your present app software. I tried the W8 Consumer Preview and did not like it for a non-touch based system. On the other hand, as mentioned earlier, Microsoft has a special deal going on where you can buy a W7 system now and later have the option to switch (notice I did not say upgrade) to W8 if you are so inclined. I think W8 is going to be very nice OS for new tablet hardware, but not on "my desktop" from my experience using W8 CP. Perhaps with a W9 release in a couple of years the intended convergence of the desktop/notebook/tablet/phone via the Metro UI will happen as it is even more refined and supported. I just don't see any need to displace W7 on a mouse driven desktop/laptop PC via W8. I think your productivity would suffer using W8's touch centric OS with mouse driven hdw and tiled metro interface. Not having a touch monitor seems to inhibit easy swipe scrolling via W8. I find it quicker to navigate via the W7 start menu Vs W8 tiles & search method. Plus, if you go multi-monitor W7 offers a much better experience using multiple windows with possibility for several open applications to view and work amongst. W8's multi-monitor support seemed almost non-existent, at least with W8 CP. These are just my opinions, YMMV.

This is some great advice. Thanks. Just to clarify my original question, when I said I'm preparing to "upgrade my Win XP computer," I meant that I will be buying a new computer. I will look into this Win 7 offer from Microsoft. Sounds like that could be a great option for me.

Buy a new computer wi7 and the free 8 upgrade. BEFORE shutting down your old computer, recover any product keys from your old software. Adobe has a tool that uninstall the license key so you can reuse it. Belarc Advisor http://www.belarc.com/free_download.html can tell you what you have loaded. Make sure you have an install path for loading you current programs onto your new computer. If you go 64 bit, you may want to go with the 64 bit of your applications to take better advantage of the chip. Belarc will also list out any free programs you have loaded. You will want them too. Make sure to back everything up to transfer to the new computer.

Just my opinion but go with Win 7 and 64 bit if possible. I doubt you will be disappointed. Approach Win 8 with caution. I just see no reason to use it on a non-tablet device.

agreed with sneymeyer. better option is to go with Win 7 64 bit.
system should have minimum 4 GB RAM

I am ready for win 7 PC but prefer windows xp

Speed, simplicity, an advantage of applications

Windows 8 is designed and optimised for use with a touch screen and is has huge difference in the way the Graphics User Interface looks, feels, and works you need to be aware of that. If what you're thinking of getting is a touch screen tablet or you use a touch screen tablet or smart phone a lot, then it won't be much of a change to go to Windows 8, if you don't use such a system a lot, get prepared for a case of culture shock.

However, don't forget that there are other options to going for the latest Microsoft offering as well, one of them may be better suited for you, that will depend on what you see as your mission critical software. Also, not all software that runs on Win XP will run on Win 8 or even Win 7, you should check that out first as well.

I've had to help several people with their Win 7 system and have found the Win 7 Enterprise version as the easiest to use and the most useful with regards to capabilities.

(and why am I getting a 404 trying to reply to Deadly Ernest?)

Win 7 has Home Basic, Professional, and Ultimate. The major (maybe only) difference between Pro and Ultimate is BitLocker encryption baked in. Of course, that may matter. Then again, I got Ultimate, and have never used BitLocker (my laziness overpowers my paranoia.)

I've got Pro at work, and it's fine. Home Basic is a little too stripped-down for me. On that note, though, you'll likely need a PC from a business line to get Pro or Ultimate. Not a bad idea anyway, if you're going with one of the major OEMs - their home machines are crap, quite frankly.

Another option is to order the machine without Windows - whether it be FreeDOS (as Dell does now), Linux (not likely), or nothing. Then buy a retail (or cheaper system builder/OEM) license. Major bonus there is, no wasting an hour uninstalling all the crapware the machine will be loaded down with if you get Windows pre-installed. A clean install of Win7 on fresh hardware is a beautiful thing.

As to the upgrade - tread lightly. I took 8 for a test drive (granted, it was the Developers' Preview) and hated it. I like my task bar, I like my start button, I don't mind chrome on my browser, and I don't need the Ribbon on Explorer. However, it has been announced that there will apparently only be two versions of Win8 - Home and Pro. The upgrade from 8 Home to 8 Pro (needed if you want Media Center) will be $15 - a damn sight better than they've handled upgrades in the past, imo.

But, I highly recommend getting a Win7 machine - I resisted for over a year, as I'd spent a lot of time tweaking XP to be just the way I liked it. A year later, I hate working on XP machines. 7 is, to me, by far the best OS MS has ever released. They seem to alternate by version - 98 good, ME terrible, XP good, Vista terrible, 7 best ever...see where this is going?

One point missed in the prior comments is that Windows 8 offers a unified OS. You will be able to use it on your desktop, laptop, netbook, and even tablet. The Windows 8 Metro interface is patterned after the Windows Phone 7 OS. If you use multiple platforms, it's very helpful, and reduces the learning curve, if they all have the same look and feel. Win8 does NOT have to be used with a touch screen. The Metro interface is optimized for that, but you also have the classic desktop that works just fine with a keyboard and mouse.

Windows 8 has it's benefits, but it is aimed mostly towards the consumer industry, especially touch screen PCs. It has its advantages for a business though, such as cross platform standardization. Windows 8 RT tablets, Windows 8 laptops/desktops, and eventually Windows Phone 8. All able to run many of the same applications, minus desktop applications, in which case a few tablets will be capapble of running. Look at whether you'd be interested in going with a Windows Phone 8 or Windows 8 tablet. If not, then for a business, I'd generally suggest going with WIndows 7. Now to address x86(32bit) or x64(64bit) since it seems to be a popular subject. In choosing 64bit Windows, the 64bit refers to the operations of the OS ONLY. As everyone is always quick to claim, this version will allow for a nearly infinite amount of RAM, but many often forget WHY. Twice the bit-bandwidth per clock cycle of the processor, which not only allows for more RAM, but ALSO speeds up the operation of actual Windows, the OS, and is suposed to increase stability (more often than not, isn't the case). How this, in reality, affects your other applications is this. You must make sure your applications are *compatible with Windows 7 64-bit* not whether the application itself is developed in 64-bit. Two different things. Also, if you are using a Domain setup (unlikely, but possible) make sure to get Ultimate. As for Win 7 vs Win XP, for us hardware fanatics, it's an *absolute no brainer.* Windows xp is over a decade old, and it shows. XP is designed to operate, at best, with a single-core processor w/ hyperthreading, heck, it didn't even originally allow for hard drives over 137GB. Don't get me wrong, until recently, XP was the wisest option for a business user, but too many people brag on XP without knowing it's competitors... which is just pure ignorance at it's best. A LOT has happened in the last 11 years, including multicore hyper threaded processors, going from 100+ nanometer(nm) processors to 22nm, hard drives breaching 3TB, complete redesigns of Intel motherboards, hexachannel RAM at frequencies TEN times that of when XP debuted. If you are planning on buying a machine with any hardware developed in the past 5 years, I'd suggest WIndows 7. Desktops and laptops these days are coming with dual/quad/hexa cores... XP will utilize 1 core, 1 hyperthreaded core, Windows 7, all the above. Plus, the design looks less like a thorn in your eye I'm going to be honest up front, I don't have as much knowledge with Win8. With my current job, I don't have as much time to research and beta test, but this all is my opinion.

I think you should make the switch because windows 8 is the newest operating system, which entails that it is faster more efficient, your current problems would not be the same.

Windows 7 has now been available to the public since 2009, service pack 1 was released a while back and numerous other updates have also been made available. Its safe to say the OS is fairly rock solid (although not as solid as XP).

I wouldn't go straight to Windows 8 as your bound to come into some problems as its fairly fresh on the market - go with Windows 7 Pro 64 bit Edition - Adobe CS will be compatible and stable whether you have the 32 or 64 bit version - Windows 7 is the safer bet.