What will happen to the programs on my laptop if I upgrade to Windows 8?

If you’re using windows 7 then windows 8 should install over the top without affecting your programs or files although the installer will make you uninstall any noncompatible programs before it starts.

You may want to check which programs are not compatible with Windows 8 before you begin. Backwards compatibility is not guaranteed, and I have a smashing suspicion that non-Microsoft software may be declared incompatible.

Also, you may want to invest in a touchscreen monitor before upgrading; the UI was most definitely not designed with a mouse/trackpad in mind.

You will still be using a Windows product.

@jerv of the 200 plus programs on my desktop, most old obscure games, and the only thing the compatibility tester warned me to uninstall was Microsoft Security Essentials

@Lightlyseared Nice to know that Win8 is more compatible with Win7 than Win7 was with XP then. Thanks for the heads up!

@jerv not much of surprise though really is it? Win7 had an entirely different kernal to XP that severly limited access to core functions. Upside secure, highly stable system Downside hardware companies that didnt rewrite their drivers properly (or just didn’t bother to force consumers to upgrade) found their hardware didn’t work. With software that didn’t work from XP to 7 I found it was mostly older stuff that was probably designed for 98 or Me, or stuff that worked by pretending it was driver

@Lightlyseared I was under the impression that Win8 was yet another new kernel, or at least a dramatic enough change to break stuff just as badly. They seem to do that every other version; ME was a beta for XP, Vista was a beta for Win7, so I assume Win8 is a beta for Win9.

@jerv nope the last kernal change was vista. 7 and 8 just build on that.