Of the programs you mention I've only used PHD, and PHD2, which work fine on Win8.
I've heard of compatibility problems but I've never had anything not work on Win8/8.1, and all my hardware has had drivers (Atik, SBIG, QHY5L-II, Lodestar).
The Lenovo I have came with Win8 pro 64 bit, there is an option to "downgrade" to win7 by contacting Lenovo support. Apparently they give you a W7 key and you have to arrange your own install disk. When you check out laptop options it would be worth checking if the "downgrade upgrade" option is on offer.