What do you prefer? The start screen or Start Menu? What is more suitable for Windows 8.1/
I use Start8, and have since one week after I ended up with this POS Toshiba Laptop (new).
Had there been Toshiba drivers for XP for this laptop, it would have had XP instead.
I spent months....normal desktop, green XP start button, separate run command entry, killed tiles, hot spots, charms, even have a desktop icon in the left side of the taskbar.
I'd have to drag it out to see what else I did. I am communicating from the XP Pro SP3 32 bit desktop right now.
I wanted the laptop to look like XP and function like it as much as possible...including OE Classic for my pop3 e-mail account.
I wish I could remove .1 and just do 8.
My desktop has familiar icons with same names as on my XP machines.
8.1 gave me "This PC" from the "My Computer" I had previously set up. Not impressed.
I fixed it with a direct link.
I refuse to use any IE past 8, just because. My "new" build, went officially on-line two weeks ago, is a Dell Precision 490...loaded fresh with Dell XP Pro 64 bit discs, and updated to SP2 (latest for 64 bit).
I'll run this until I die...Macrium Reflect backup and all.
But, to revert, I do not use any of the provided bits for MicroSlime on the 8 laptop. I even killed SkyDrive, the photo "program", the app MS Store, all of it. NOT interested.
Loaded OpenOffice, no MS Office anything...Picassa for photos...FireFox (older with less bells and whistles). 8.1 made some of it difficult, someday I'll dig it out and sort the mess of 8.1 out.
I do have a spare box with Ubuntu on it...before I ever buy anything form MS again I will use that.
The laptop even fooled a MS long-time employee who worked on development of 8.....he saw it and castigated me for still using XP...and would not believe it was 8 until he grabbed it and looked inside...."How the heck did you DO that?"