I, too, hated Windows 8 that came on my new laptop. After a few months I was ready to downgrade to Windows 7. However - I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to attend a short Windows 8 session put on by "Geeks on tour" before I made my downgrade attempt. Boy, am I glad I held off. It only took a brief education on a few basic things to allow me to easily adapt to Windows 8.1
Make sure you get Windows 8.1 , not 8.0. MS corrected some difficult issues in this update.
On the other hand, if your mother truly is resisting even minimal learning curves on the new OS, you can find pretty cheap Windows 7 OS on the internet. I just bought a new MS Windows 7 64 bit OS for $55. from one Online provider.
Good luck.
Se
