This page will document issues that a Windows 8 non-touch PC user will likely encounter. Other more date-specific Windows 8 problems/solutions will be blog posts instead.
Restoring from Windows 7 Backup
I backed up my Windows 7 installation prior to operating system upgrade and surprisingly you can't restore that backup directly onto Windows 8.1. Windows 8.1 uses the application "File History" whereas Windows 7 uses "Backup and Restore". To transfer personal files from your old Windows operating system to Windows 8.1, consider Windows Easy Transfer. What I ended up doing was restoring (that is, extracting) the Windows 7 backup blob to a folder on an external drive and then moving those files to my laptop; I could not restore from the backup blob directly to my laptop using the Windows 8.1 File History application.
Windows 8.1 short-cut keys
For a desktop operating system, I find the most necessary thing to learn and become accustomed to are the keyboard shortcuts. This is especially important when you don't have access to a mouse, for example, when on a bus. Moving from Windows 7, what I miss the most is that hitting the Windows key on the keyboard no longer brings you to the Start Menu where you can begin typing your program name or setting. Instead you go to the "Modern" Start screen (or back to the Desktop). The equivalent in Windows 8.1 is Windows + S, or Search Everywhere.
With no mouse or touch, navigating the Modern interface can be a pain because it appears like you have to scroll horizontally with the scroll-bar at the bottom. However in general you can use the Arrow keys to navigate (e.g. the Live Tiles on the Start screen), and when there are logical sections of a screen, you may be able to use the Tab button (for example, the Store app).
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