I have an expensive A3 size scanner that became obsolete with WIN7 and probably also worthless with WIN8.
I reinstalled WIN XP on a barely working laptop (has only one working USB port) to keep using the perfectly good scanner. I decided to install XP without access to the Internet, NO Service Pack 1, 2, or 3. The thing is so friggn fast, it does circles around WIN7 with all the upgrades. Amazing what an older OS can do when it's not bogged down with so much overhead. WIN XP is dedicated to scanning my drawings and so will probably never be a problem from this point on.
My newer laptop with a whopping 4GB of memory is now running Ubuntu just fine thank you.
MS has killed it for me. No new MS OSs after WIN7. I stopped drinking Coke a long time ago. Beer tastes better.