Probably a bit late to this thread. but Under Win7, you can run XP Mode, which is a Virtual PC running Windows XP. It works fine, I use it regularly to run some older software.
BTW, not sure why everyone rags on Win 8. Its exactly the same as Win 7 outside of the UI. If you dont like the UI, you can install the 8.1 service pack and you can revert it back to the old UI.
I am really getting to like Windows now. I run it as my main OS, then run XP,Ubuntu and Red Hat in Virtual Machines. Now I just need to figure out how to make OSX run under VM and then I am down to just one PC and one Laptop.