Finally gave up.
After months of monitoring this thread, contributing to the discussions myself, and reading everything there was to read about this issue. I decided to try to upgrade to the new Windows 10. When that failed to do anything more than crash at boot, I gave up!
Windows is a thing of the past. The computer I bought just for Windows 8 is now running Ubuntu.
Microsoft, you did this to us too many times. Windows 98 was fine. Windows ME was abysmal. Windows XP rocked while Windows Vista couldn't be bothered to work. Windows 7 did the trick, while Windows 8 broke my computers.
I will not be buying another computer packaged with Windows until the OS is proven to work and tested by industry experts. Until then, Linux is the way to go, with (heaven) Apple products coming in second.
I'm a technical guy, and people ask me for buying advise on their machines. From here on out, unless they're a gamer or a power user, I'm advising Chrome OS.
See you in a few years, Microsoft. Or not...