Since you seem to want actual evidence that Windows 8's UX was a disaster, well, what's the biggest difference between Windows 7 and Windows 8 for a user? It's

Since you seem to want actual evidence that Windows 8's UX was a disaster, well, what's the biggest difference between Windows 7 and Windows 8 for a user? It's the UX, I assume you can agree. And if you look at the marketshare of Windows 7 vs. Windows 8/8.1, you see a pretty big difference. StatCounter (includes mobile): 20.36% vs. 5.64% netmarketshare.com: 48.27% vs. 9.61% Steam Hardware Survey: 36.38% vs. 10,78% Now, you might respond with Windows 7 simply having more adoption, because it has been around longer, which is a valid point. I can only really refute that with the anecdotal evidence, that Windows 7 is currently seeing more growth off of the people moving away from XP and Windows 10, than Windows 8 is seeing.