Windows 8
Windows 8 advertisements show Microsoft's desire to change consumer's opinion on their products. microsoft.com

With just a few days left for Windows 8 official launch on Oct. 26, early adopters of Windows 8 were recently polled to know their favorite Windows operating system and majority preferred Windows 7.

The results were published on Forumswindows8.com, a large Windows 8 help and support forum on the Internet. Among the 50,000 users who were polled on the forum, 53% preferred Windows 7, Windows 8: 25%, XP: 20% and other: 2%.

The view is also upheld by research house Gartner. Analysts Steve Kleyhans and Michael Silver state that companies using XP and seeking to upgrade to Windows 7 should not be distracted by Windows 8, ZDNet reported.

"Get Windows 7 done, and then you can start to experiment and dabble with Windows 8, but don't let Windows 8 derail your Windows 7 upgrade project. We really don't think Windows 8 will get significant traction as a PC OS in a corporate environment," Kleynhans told ZDNet.

"Windows 8 will get 20% to 25% of the corporate user base, at most, before it's replaced with whatever comes next," Kleynhans told ZDNet, adding: "Windows 8 upgrade looks more like Vista, it will not have the installed base that we've seen with Windows 7 or XP."

Windows 8 is billed as a "plumbing," upgrade that drastically changes technology sans major improvement.

Most users and IT departments will find the interface to be too different and may find the presence of two interfaces in Windows 8 quite confusing.

Among the most favored features in Windows 8 were: Fast boot and shutdown: 55%; Easy installation: 50%; Internet Explorer 10: 35%; Restart/ Restore capabilities: 28%; Built-in application integration: 26%; Windows Explorer: 25%; App Store: 23%; and Metro: 22%.

With people who are passionate over Windows 8 preferring Windows 7, in the ratio of two to one, the development definitely does not bode well for the forthcoming Windows 8 OS launch.