[Chi]

Hello everyone, seems kind of weird that a tech-person like myself is asking this sort of thing but I need some advice/help on two Windows Operating Systems if you will.

Here's a background story for you if you're interested:
I've had a HP Pavilion laptop for 7 years, yes since 2007 I've had this thing with Windows Vista. Personally, I've liked Vista and it has some programs that I use frequently if not daily. Recently, about a month to be exact maybe even less time than that. The screen on the thing went black, or so I thought. The back light is malfunctioning. I opened it up and I didn't see any torn ribbons or wires, it may be an inverter issue or a deeper issue, I'm not sure. Since if it goes out of sleep mode or when it's starting up the screen flickers for a second then goes dark. Also I seem to have this issue that sometimes I start up my laptop and it doesn't register that I connected it to my TV via HDMI. That's how I've been able to use it still. It randomly does this where the TV can't read the connection or the laptop can't read it. I'm thinking it's the laptop though since the cable works fine with my Wii U. Now here's the thing, since this laptop was so old, I went ahead and got a new laptop. I need to be able to take my laptop to class so new computer was the way to go.

Here's the short story:
The new laptop has Windows 8.1 on it. I haven't messed around with it too much but I must admit I'm not a fan of having to connect a Microsoft account to log in. Nor am I a fan of it not starting me off on the desktop screen but in that app display instead. (And yes I figured out how to fix that.) I kind of want to give Windows 8.1 a fair chance before just flaking out on it but is it worth it?

Here's the questions:
My new laptop has Windows 8.1, I have a disc of Windows 7 Pro (thank you school). Should I bother trying to work things out with Windows 8.1 or say screw it and switch to Windows 7? What do you guys think of Windows 7? What do you think about Windows 8? Any advice or stories of your dealings with these operating systems is helpful! Thanks for reading!