I don't understand the complaints
I just upgraded an XP system. It now boots in a fraction of the time. As soon as my upgrade was complete, I had a big Desktop tile looking at me. If I click on it, I'm on the desktop.
Now on my XP, all my well used programs were icon shortcuts on the desktop and also on the bottom bar. On my Win 8, I looked for those Apps and created little tiles and also put them on the bottom bar on my Desktop. So now I can click on the application tile and it opens in desktop or I can click on Desktop tile and go to desktop and click on the icon on the bottom bar. Pretty much the same as XP. Now power off is even simpler. In XP, you have to click on start, then turn off computer, then turn off or restart. In Windows 8 you mouse over to the right corner, click on power and then click on power off. I think that is actually one less step.
