There is a snag with the shift F8 method that make people think that it does not work. Windows 8 authors were so sure that it would not be needed so it only looks for an F8 at start up for about 5 microseconds.
If you have a fast computer like mine, its long past the looking session by the time you have pressed the keys, the hardwars is in front of the software and you chance has gone.
The shift F8 method, does not work unless you do the following:
1. Borrow someone to help - its almost impossible to stretch your fingers from the left shift key to the F8 button.
2. Before you turn on your machine, get your assistant to hold down the F8 key while you press the shift key.
3. Turn on the machine
Wait about 30 seconds and you should find that it boots up.
However, It seems that lots of people are needing to use this way of booting, as more and more people have the BLACK screen of Doom (as opposed to Blue) that users of some operating systems prior to XP had. Used to be a normal thing to sit there with a finger bouncing on the F8 key during start up.
So what is causing these black screens? Has Win 8.1 got a problem? I recently bought a desktop that came with win 8 installed (never read the offer properly) and so far, apart from spending an hour trying to find out how to turn it off for the first time (it's still difficult on a non touch machine using a mouse - use the keyboard shortcut - CTRL + ALT + DEL and select turn off.)
It seems to be a lot better than I thought - after I deleted most of the non productive apps and set it to boot up on the desktop, its back to Windows 7.
Perhaps the BLACK screen of DOOM isonly happening on laptops, possibly because of bad handling.
We will find out shortly no doubt.
