I'm a little confused. Win 8 when first released had its problems.
But I run Win 8.1 and it boots to a normal Windows desktop and runs programs just like XP - not exactly in every way like XP, but pretty much. Sure I can press the "Windows key" on the keyboard and have an "app" tile screen appear. If I use the tiles to access most of the programs I use, they open in the desktop screen anyway.
I edit the registry and make a myriad of other technical changes in much the same way I did in XP/Vista/7. Sure I've had to learn some new things, just like I did moving from 3.1 to 95 to XP to Vista to 7 and like I will moving to 10. Heck, I had apoplexy moving from DOS to Windows.
Sometimes things don't work out. I have to note here that the 2007 HP 20" Notebook I
mentioned above that I was spending hours on trying to make "upgradable" to 10 won't get there. Every time I tried to update the graphics card driver to a compatible system, I ended up with regular failures. Then my wife said asked me why I was spending so much time on a computer we almost never used....