I used Windows 8 as a developer for 2 months. I have ended up on Windows 7 again, I wouldn't bother. Its not worth it for a desktop computer, it gets in the way a lot and while I wouldn't say it makes much if any real difference in terms of productivity it clearly does have many issues on the desktop. There are a lot of things to like in it as well, but they come bundled with some really blunders that just make common things a lot slower and more annoying. In the end I considered it a wash, not worth paying for if you already own W7.
Similar situation here, except I only made it barely over one month on my desktop (which is my "power" machine that I do 99% of my development on).
I started off with every intention of using Windows 8 "as-is", without any registry hacks, start menu replacements, etc. I pretty much immediately found replacements for all of the default "Metro/Modern/whatever-the-hell-they-are-calling-it-this-month" apps and changed my defaults so I would never have to see a full-screen "Modern UI" app. At this point, I'm still trying to give Windows 8 a fair shake, even if it means steering clear of the new UI. I never really had any "where the hell is ____?!?" moments because the Windows 8 Start screen's Search function is very powerful. I also liked the new file copy dialog.
After about 2 weeks, I was editing group policies and the registry to get rid of annoyances like the lock screen (Why, Microsoft, WHY?!?!). It just killed me to go to my computer, see the lock screen, click, see the login screen, enter my credentials, see the start screen, click the desktop icon, and
finally get to my desktop. On Windows 7, I turn the computer on, enter my credentials, and get straight to the desktop. I was able to eventually get this same behavior on Windows 8, but it took multiple hacks.
After maybe another 2 weeks, I got tired of the Start screen and the fact that going to Start completely destroyed whatever context I was working in. It just messed with me mentally, going from having a dozen windows open to suddenly having none open and forgetting what the hell I was trying to do in the first place. I ended up with a Start Menu replacement (Classic Shell), which obviously doesn't work as well as the real, built-in Start Menu in Windows 7.
I stayed with Windows 8 for another 2 weeks or so before giving up on it and going back to 7. What really did it for me was the fact that I had a few programs and games that just didn't run well (or at all) in 8, and I was getting WAY more random crashes than I ever got in 7. The crashes were probably due to the fact that the OS was basically hacked to pieces at this point, but I shouldn't have to do that to get an acceptable user experience on a desktop computer used for productivity.
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