Normally I'm running Ubuntu Budgie on my laptop. But right now I need Windows as secondary system. Should I go with Windows 7, 8.1 or 10?

10 or 7, not 8.1

7 will soon go EOL might as well go for 10.. and likely not 8

@Danacus Windows 10 really sucks balls on my laptop. So I think I’ll go for 7

7 or 8.1 not 10

As one of the devs of Ubuntu Budgie, personally use what you are most comfortable with. If you time to tweak Windows, use 10, if not go with Windows 7. Thanks for choosing Ubuntu Budgie as primary OS on your laptop.

@GrindamN Well the Ubuntu Budgie saved my back, because I had troubles running AndroidStudio on my Windows machine, but Budgie was running it perfectly.
Also it’s first distro that didn’t made my laptop hang after few hours of using. It never failed me within 4 months of using it. It’s just one of the most complete Linux experiences.

I'd strongly recommend Windoozle 10.
Don't forget the privacy settings.

All older Windozes, (7 too) are not closely as stable, fast and secure as Winfail 10.

People who diskike the Automatic Update of W10 and because of that Install W7 are in my opinion misguided. There are enough solid reasons to have automatic Updates enabled and a recent OS.

@irene I experienced a LOT more freezes and program crashes on W7 that in W10 with the same software and drivers.

It seems to me that a lot of people on the interwebs just bash W10 because it's currently one of the internet memes and because in some occasions W10's update and forced restart policy disturbed some people from work or presentations.

We had far less incidents from our customer (company with 30 workstations in a domain) since they all upgraded from W7 to 10.

W7 was released in October 2009, that is 9 years ago. You don't want to tell people to use an OS which is twice as old, as an already aged workstation.