I love Windows 7, and if you're happy with it and (and the and is important) aren't going to replace your current equipment until after the end of extended support for Windows 7 then it's fine to stay with it. There is a big, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it," factor. As a tech geek who participates on several Windows 10 forums I can definitely say that upgrades from Windows 7 to Windows 10 have been more problematic, and the older your hardware and the more "well-used" your system the more likely they are to be problematic. The biggest issues have cropped up because Windows 10 does not "play well" with a lot of older device drivers. If you can find one for the specific device that was written for Windows 10 you're golden, or for Windows 8/8.1 that works you're OK, too. That being said, I myself had to convert a Dell Inspiron 1720 laptop to a Linux machine after trying Windows 10 on it because I could never locate a device driver for the Alps Electric mousepad that would work consistently under Windows 10 (and believe me, I tried lots of them).
There is, however, a flip side to that coin. The end of support for Windows 7 is in the foreseeable future. Once official support ends for any operating system it becomes more and more vulnerable to attack over time (until it gets so old that those who do this sort of thing are focusing on the newer OSes for amusement). Upgrading to Windows 10 when you get new hardware will happen. There really is a "golden period" where you're participating in the changes with a huge wave of people experiencing the same issues at the same time and where the solution seeking in that cohort is in high gear. No one can exactly define when that period begins and ends, but it will definitely be over within a year or so. Late adopters often find it far harder to slog through the reams of "tried and failed" work that is out there after the fact and when there is no one still telling you, "no, you can ignore that, look here for something that worked," when you're asking for help. Any OS change, even within the same OS family, is a fraught proposition. But it can be, and often is, profoundly unwise to engage in long-term avoidance when you will eventually be forced to make the change but do so when you're a lot more "on your own" rather than "part of the group." My two cents. Brian
