Anyone who "hates" the windows 8 start screen doesn't have to use it with 8.1 but even with win 8 the start screen issue could be dealt with simply by pressing the windows key. I expected to not like win8 because I read all the wailing and whining about how it looked but even with the minor "annoyance" of having to press one key to get to desktop I wouldn't go back to XP after having used win8 now for a month.
The question would be does "classic shell" address the problems the game ( and the development programs we use ) had with win7 ( since this is the games forum )........ unlikely as it's just window dressing. ( pun intended...)
Don
Re: Windows 8.1
Threaded Mode