@rosscd57 wrote:
My computer crashed on Friday and I went out and bought another on Saturday. Luckily I
had just backed it up.
Moving from Visa to 8.1 - what a nightmare.
I don't like it - I suppose I will get used to it.
I really hate the Start Screen and the App.s is there any way to get rid of the screen and just work from the desk top?
.
I completely sympathize! I had to replace my laptop 2 months ago with a new one with 8.1 and I still hate it. However, I've discovered that by right-clicking on many of the programme icons you can put them on the desktop taskbar, which is where I normally work from.
I assume you've discovered that by taking your cursor into the bottom left corner of the Apps screen, you can access the old style desktop view? You can shut down from there (swipe from the right of the screen to see the "Charms"), which should bring the desktop up as a default the next time you boot up.
There is apparently software that can be downloaded to force 8.1 to return to the old desktop look, but I'm not sure I'd recommend that. I just place my most frequently-used programmes on the taskbar and visit the App screen as little as possible. They really should have issued an official "desktop only" version of 8.1 for those of us who have been used to it for so many years.
BTW, three of the smaller problems I had almost drove me nuts, and hopefully these tips will help you avoid the frustration:
(a) Having Control Panel, etc. handy on the desktop -- You have to now access Control Panel through the Charms section. Start from your desktop view (important), swipe from the right to see the Charms, click "Settings", and look to the top of that screen. You'll see Control Panel. Click on it, then minimize it -- you'll see the icon show up on your desktop taskbar at bottom. Right-click on the icon, select "Pin this program to Taskbar" and it will stay there for easy future access. While I was at it, I also pinned my "Documents" icon, "My Computer" icon, and "Hardware and Sound" icon to the taskbar so I could get at those easily.
(b) Programs: Wow, this almost drove me insane for the first couple of weeks! It's not easy finding your list of programs now from the desktop view (and I absolutely HATE looking for programs in the endless list of Apps). Once I pinned Control Panel to my taskbar, I could open it, click on Programs and get the list of commonly-loaded programs to populate. However, not everything is there as before. To actually see everything you need to go into your "C" drive though -- I now do this through the icon on the desktop taskbar (as noted above).
(c) Calculator: That handy onscreen pop-up/down calculator that we've all used for years, and that I use constantly, every day, seemed to be totally AWOL. The "Calculator" on the Apps list is completely useless, and isn't the same thing. I finally found my beloved little calculator by swiping onto the "Charms", choosing "Search", and entering "Calculator". I had to dig around a little amongst the search results, but there it was -- once I got it up on the screen, I right-clicked to pin that puppy to my taskbar, and there it's stayed.
One other major headache: Windows Photo Gallery editing shuts down every time I use it. I've searched the Microsoft site and discussions, but none of the suggestions has fixed the problem. Unbelievable that Microsoft would load a program onto its Windows 8.1 suite that just won't work with that OS. It's a good program, great features, but it crashes every time. I took one blogger's suggestion and uploaded Picasa instead -- what a nightmare! I ended up with horrible, persistent little pop-up ads everywhere. I couldn't work on my computer with them. I finally had to uninstall both Picasa and Chrome (Google), and so far so good.
In short, there isn't much I like about Windows 8.1 but in a few years nobody will have much choice anymore in any event, so I'm forcing myself to adjust. Some days I just wish I could have my old laptop back. 
Best of luck to you with it -- it's an ugly beast as far as I'm concerned.
Did you find you got any junk and/or malware as a result of downloading Classic Shell? I tried downloading one "App" and was inundated with horrible little pop-up ads everywhere. It was so bad I couldn't work from my screen until I uninstalled the App.
Also, and probably most importantly, do you find it still works seamlessly with other (necessary) parts of 8.1? I don't want to turn an ugly beast into a fire-breathing monster. 
Thanks!
