W 10 Rocks..
Mostly, yes, because it can be set up to work very much like W7, totally by-passing the W8 botch.
It is possible to limit the information it gathers. I've only found one program that didn't work, and that was a handy juke box program that was probably pre-Win 98. I did find a free replacement for that. Everything else has simply worked, albeit there might be something in there that needs to work in legacy mode.
Somewhere along the line, new hardware will be needed and that will probably need W10. Scanners tend to be the biggest culprits - they assume that if the operating system has moved on far enough, the scanner will be clapped out, so no new drivers. No need to buy W10 at full retail - there are outlets selling second hand licences (probably legal) via Amazon at around £20 a go.
You don't tend to notice the operating system in use, its the programs that you see, and they look exactly the same.