Think about this, Paul, if all the adware were not pre-installed in your computer, you might have paid a lot more for that computer.  I suspect there is a lot of truth in that statement.

I bought a laptop with Win 8 on it, upgraded to Win 8.1. I've learned to use the desktop feature almost all the time, and don't use the app interface hardly at all.  Works for me.  The really goofy part of Win 8.1 (and Win 8) is where the Start button is - it is not "out front" where it is handy, as it was in previous Win versions.  I would like to know what those software engineers were thinking when they designed the Start button on Win 8.1.