Win 8.1 is supposed to be improved, but not by much. Annoying system, to be sur, though touch screen is kind of nice.e. If you installed the shell & start butter app, which usually makes improvements, than take it back to where you bought it. Ak if they would install Win 7 or get a refund. Best Buy may do the new install, depending on the managers attitude.
Think MS is going to go through the same thing when they brought out Vista. There improvement was bring out Win 7, which is just a revised version of Vista. Maybe Win 9.0...who really knows.
Linus software (many versions) is free or for a small price. Easy to install, if you somewhat computer smart. Lots of free programs, apps, etc. Though, to be honest, MS is still king of software world wide.