1 This "trainwreck" you speak of... have you actually used W8, or are you just repeating what the techie websites said? 

Because, to be honest, I've had zero problems with W8 at all.  It took me about 10 minutes to adjust to the ways it's different from W7. 

But there's no start button.

As I said, it took me about 10 minutes to adjust.

2

I don't get out much any more, and I haven't had any opportunity to see Win8 in person. So no, it's based on what I've read.

3 Windows 8 with Start8 works okay.  The core of the operating system is solid - better than Windows 7 - it's just some dumb things Microsoft did to the UI and refused to undo.  Start8 fixes most of those.

Stock Windows 8 is pretty bad, though.

4 Yeah, my wife has a laptop with stock Windows 8, and, while it hasn't crashed or anything like that, I hate the interface. I'll look into this Start8 for her.
People, laptops and desktop computers Are Not Phones. Stop trying to make them look like phones!
And don't get me started on Google's home page...

5 I was forced into Win 8.1 because we bought a couple of Surface Pros for work, and I ended up using Clam Shell to bring back the start button because 1) it's free; 2) I hate paying for things to restore basic functions to Microsoft products.  They all are configured to boot directly to the desktop instead of Metro, and now they're great.

The only other thing I didn't like was the cryptic error 850 message you get when you first set up a VPN connection in Win 8.  It only takes a quick change in the adapter settings to fix, but in these days where Windows wants to hide every system option from the user for their own good, they should make a two step guide in help so you don't have to google how to fix it.

Isn't Microsoft planning to bring back the Start button in Win 10?

6 With Start8, Windows 8 has been pretty awesome for me.  In fact, along with all the bullhockey going on with Android, I was considering getting a Windows-based phone the next time I upgrade.  The last Android update did a lot of things that made my phone harder to use; like requiring the phone to check online before showing me my contacts.  And since I live in an area with really spotty data connection, sometimes I can't make calls (if I don't know the number from memory) if the phone can't "phone home" first.

7 Windows 8.1 works great on a Surface Pro, since that's the environment it was designed for. It sucks on a non-touchscreen device until you discover the hidden right-click menu in the lower-left corner, and pretty much turns into Windows 7 if you install a start-button replacement. The user experience was an unbelievable heads-must-roll mistake at launch, but the OS itself is a solid improvement.

If MS delivers on the promise that Win10 will 1) work on everything that runs Vista/7/8,  2) be a free upgrade for a year to get everyone onto the same platform, and 3) have a fully-functional desktop/laptop UI, they'll be able to recover from this mess.


-j

8 Going over the Google announcements, they have one new feature that I've been asking for for years: With Android M you can import an SD card so it becomes a seamless part of the device's storage.

Of course, if you remove an imported card, your apps and data disappear with it, but I've never removed the SD card from my phone