Immediately I will apologize for what runting of an old power user will follow.
I have read all these pages and more. February, March, April ...
Mahjong is not loading one a challenge....
It is death of the system that is coming to you.
On my new ASUS desktop computer preloaded with Windows 8 - the Mahjong and Solitaire were the only two items worth doing. First one challenge would not load - thingy just spinning and spinning.
Next time worked good for a day or two and some other challenge crapped out.
Then all of a sudden no tiles worked and that included the Store.
That was Death. Could not even get the Windows 8.1 upgrade, cause you do need STORE!@!.
Restore and Refresh would no longer work - all the back up somehow disappeared, and Administrator had no access.
No Microsoft help, ASUS tech help? What a joke. ASUS like most today cutting costs provided No installation disks, and they would not even ship me one (well - that should be absolutely illegal!@!)
Had to mail computer cross country to get it back with factory clone installation, now obsolete - needed to get 135 updates for the Windows alone. Had this finally running after a whole month.
So now Windows 8.1 - again after 5 month, tiles crashed again.
Is it a programmed-in life span? No restore, no refresh, Windows can't find any image files, or backups I can plainly see in WinExplorer, and have saved on 3 recommended external USB hard drives.
No Store, click on any Metro (large) tile and instantly back on the old style desktop. No Error messages.
No Skype, no Mahjong, next as they do not care. Death of Windows 8.1.
Do not try to fix what is not broken, like a drivers for Video cards etc., blowing smoke.
This is not a problem with APPS. Simply some important filed gone corrupted or gone missing.
Then forum experts try to get you to download this perfect software that can magically fix ALL.
And speed up your computer etc, finding thousands of faults with your registry to scare you into purchasing the program so you can fix all that is not really broken.
Here would be the real fix:
Updates, upgrades, and Microsoft free games like Mahjong, Solitaire should be stand alone apps not associated in any way with the Store or Xbox, loaded up from shortcuts on desktop.
Microsoft should have on their support site a free diagnostic software to find which files necessary to run the Windows apps and Windows system are missing, or corrupted, and the download directory of such files in ready to install form.
That would be a childs play for MS.
So why do we have to deal with unresponsive tech support persons most of whom have no idea how to fix anything and ask: have you turn your computer on??? Maybe that is why it is not working!
Fix: If you ever get this working - purchase another hard disk, look up / get Acronis software and clone your working disk. Forget back ups, restores and all that **** which leaves you hi and dry.
Good luck. Check it out.