My first attempt at this topic resulted in a button push that lost everything so here I try again.
I installed 8.1 on my gaming rig last night. It installed fast but did not keep any of my settings from Windows 7 at all. I had to reinstall everything but Steam and even that is a bit iffy at the moment. The so called return of the "start button" had me quite po'd at first and then figured something out by accident.
Tip 1: right clicking on the new "start button" brings up a menu of options including the device manager, search, and system restart/shutdown.
Tip2: Right-clicking on the taskbar and going to properties, and then the Navigation tab gives you the option to boot right into the Desktop.
My transition to 8.1 has been fairly smooth so far.