[stinos]

The problem was the high-level mesaging from Microsoft. They weren't about desktop anymore, apparently

But that is just an impression, an interpretation, and probably a false one, no? I and lots of people I work with never treated it as such but rather like 'we also do touch&mobile now, next to the good old desktop'. That is what Windows 8/8.1 is for us and our customers: in essence Windows 7 + Metro. And it didn't affect the way we write our desktop software in any way. Except in practice that we have to press Win+D after login, not exactly a major overhaul.

On a sidenote: to us the fuzz over the start button is just a media-driven thing coming from people stuck in the point-and-click age of XP and earlier. Anyone doing serious computer work should be using keyboard shortcuts anyway. And hence wouldn't have any problems adapting to the lack of a point-and-click button when the 'Win key + start typing what you're looking for' does exacty te same, and has been doing that for quite some time.