Win7 IMHO was the best of MS operating systems. But I'd forgotten just how slllloooooww it is, until I put in the hard disk with the Win7 system I'd installed to test the hardware, just before jumping into Linux with both feet. I'd already gotten used to the speed of Linux systems & it was a really painful experience, so I just deleted it & re-purposed the hard drive. It has had LM17.3 KDE 32-bit on it for about 2½ years now, several major borkages fixed which would have been impossible with Win OS.
In comparison with ANY recent Windows OS, on the same hardware, Mint 17.3 KDE flies, and Manjaro KDE is approaching orbital velocity, with a small memory footprint as an added bonus. Pretty much instant response, on an ancient (by today's standards) netbook sporting an impressive Atom N570 & massive 2GB RAM*.
Beat that, Microsoft. Promises, eh. Fast, useable, versatile machines .. meh 
*Hobbled on MS's instructions. Hardware can technically support 4GB.
