To boot past Windows 8’s Start screen and go directly to Windows 8 desktop, you need to make a simple registry tweak. Do the following:
While in Windows 8 (desktop or Start screen, it doesn’t matter), open regedit. If you don’t know how to run regedit, read dotTech’s How to run Register Editor in Windows 8 guide.
When you have regedit open, navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\Current Version\Winlogon:
At the Winlogon registry folder, look for the registry entry named Shell, right-click it, and hit modify:
Once you right-click Shell and hit modify, a dialog box will pop open. In that box, there will be a Value data field which will say explorer.exe. Change explorer.exe to “explorer.exe /select,explorer.exe” (without the quotes) and hit OK:
Close Registry Editor.
Done! Restart your computer (click here to learn how to restart Windows 8, if you don’t know how) and upon boot you should see Start screen appear for a split second after which you are taken to Windows 8 desktop automatically: