Windows 7, 8 or 8.1?

I would actually question whether someone who is on Win 7 has spent enough time on a different OS version to make a complete evaluation…

Cubase is probably ahead in some ways- for example, C8 requires Aero turned on, which was perceived as a major problem by some Win 7 users, but it’s possible that the developers were future proofing the program- all the way through Win 10. (just my own observation)

While I am not an early adopter for a production machine, I like to keep up with OS releases, and not depend too much on backward compatibility.