Let's say you don't like Windows 8.

what is the point downgrade option or drivers what you already have Windows 8? It's like to ride a BMW, and then buy a Hyundai

the old retail prices already. That seems significant. It would seem a downgrade is a DYI process. For those who must, buying their own copy of Win 7 and a new hard drive seems to be a doable but costly solution. They'd put the Win 8 drive on the shelf hoping MS might eventually a remedy for those who don't like it.

I hope auto makers don't get sold on this metro UI. They might decide to replace the dashboard, radio, ignition switch and gear shift with a tablet display. Hey, all the functions would still be there! Well the ignition switch is under the seat, but see when you hover over the upper right corner of the display, an arrow on the floor points to it.
I'm really not worried about geeks like myself, I've managed to hook and crook my test system to be pretty much like I want it. This takes skills many of us here have, but the average user doesn't. I AM worried about the average Joe who's banged his head against the wall to learn how to do things with his existing computer and his employer has spent a lot of money getting him up to speed. Now millions of people are going to have to be retrained at great expense and productivity hits. How about retirees? They'll all need retraining without the Start button.
I've been a huge fan of MS since the DOS 4 days, I even still have Vista on my main desktop. It's great that they've come up with a UI for tablets. But I just have to say that forcing many millions of current customers to reinvent the wheel and use the metro UI is simply not the way to win friends and influence people. To those who adamately believe tablets are "the future", I just remind you of the old addage that "he who lives by the crystal ball is destined to eat ground glass"!
Another wise old saying is "Make new friends but keep the old; the new are silver, the old are gold". The Start button is the "old gold".

One thing I'm noticing is that Microsoft has lowered the cost of buying the OS with this release. I'm trying to figure out why as that skews the analysis of profit for them. Except for Geeks, most mom, pop and gramps buy a computer and never upgrade the OS. My Dell e510 came with XP and has a label that it is certified for VISTA. Does not say anything about Windows 7. Do I want or need Windows 7 (or ? Not really. It does everything I need right now. Well, what about the 2014 date for XP to stop being supported? By then, I'm pretty sure I'll by a new PC by then. Maybe. You spend a lot of time setting up a PC exactly the way you want it. Can I upgrade to Windows 7? No. How about Windows 8? No. There is no upgrade path from XP except maybe to VISTA. Even then, you really need to wipe the machine and start fresh. Would I be using Windows 8 with a mouse or a touch screen? At work, with a mouse. Definitely. Judging by screen size and visual dexterity, I would not even be able to reach the screen to touch it without standing up.

The county government I work at has, as a standard, Windows XP SP3. They have over 100,000 users and do not like having too many OS versions out there to support. So, we recently upgraded from IE 6 to IE 7. That was after a lot of work to get the applications to work in IE 7. Some departments are still stuck on IE 6 and some are stuck on Windows NT or Windows 2000. That is because they have applications that do not run on anything else and they don't have the source code to redo the applications (contractor-coded) and no money or time to upgrade them anyway. In my department, they are very slowly upgrading to Windows 7 but they have to do this one PC at a time. It is taking a few months just to do a handful of PCs and the upgarde is actually a replacement with a new box. A lot of the old applications were a stretch to upgrade to XP, especially the mainframe interface applications and software development stuff (what is "Natural" anyway?).

Also, the employee unions said that there won't be any upgrade until appropriate (expensive) training has taken place for every employee.

I think a lot has to to do with business. Those who think that the desktop is dead need to look in a REAL office. If you have 100's of workers that sit in their cubicle every day and never really travel much, they are NOT going to get tablets or laptops. Those items tend to get stolen as they can easily fit in a newspaper. As far as touch screens, where I work, many would go out on disability for Carpal Tunnel Finger. These are the same people who connect from home, check their email and then claim 2+ hours of overtime because they did it.

What it comes down to is this: I'm willing to bet that most copies of Windows out there are those that CAME on a PC. Most are not because some old person walked into a store and BOUGHT the OS. So, how do we tell if an OS version is a success or not? Vista wasn't exactly a winner. Neither was Windows ME. Neither was Windows BOB. If it goes by how many copies sold then we have to see if Windows 8 is a winner or not. However, if Microsoft is pushing vendors NOT to allow downgrades and they have also reduced the price of Windows 8 then the numbers might reflect that. But what about the person buying a copy of Windows 7 and then overwriting Windows 8 on the hard drive. That counts as a double purchase by the customer (one PC but two OS licenses). So, we will have to see what happens, I guess.

Some people love Korean cars but are totally bewildered by German auto-making. It's not even a fair comparison as the difference is more like a bicycle to a car. One you know how to ride. The other maybe not as much. Not everyone is a Geek. (Or can handle the Autobahn).