Am in same situation - XP working perfectly!
Buying Apple Mac this week!
This post is coming to you via a mac. Seriously, its one of the most overrated, over hyped, over priced pieces of !!!! I have ever purchased. Dont waste your cash. I have more grief with this POS than any modern windows machine. If you want the pain, you are better of going down the linux path.
Most people (including me) don't like the tiled Win8x interface, finding it irritating and clumsy on a desktop.
If MS persist in making it obligatory for Win8 AND want to get folks off XP then why not offer a cheap upgrade to the appropriate version of Win7?
Or is that too simple (and unlucrative)?
Mac
PS: Classic Shell - Classic Shell - Start menu and other Windows enhancements - is free and solves many of Win8's interface problems but most Win8 grumblers seem to dumb to find it.
It would seem you are the minority apparently. According to MS, the main userbase prefers the metro interface. In Win 8.1, they only reintroduced the old desktop to keep whingers like you and me happy...As a developer, I am forcing myself to use the metro interface as it looks like its going to be around for a while.