Since I dual boot (actually quad boot), I did a clean install of Windows 8. I then installed all of the updates from Microsoft. Nothing else, no motherboard drivers or other 3rd party drivers. The I started the update. After the first file installed I rebooted but nothing showed up to continue the installation of the update. Then I installed my purchased upgrade code and activated Windows 8. This time after rebooting the notice was there to continue the update. It completed without incident. I then noticed that most of the original Windows 8 files had been placed in a folder called Windows.old. There were 188,875 files in that folder. Since they were taking up a lot of room, I decided to get rid of that folder. But before I could delete it, I had to go into folder properties, security and take ownership plus change the security permissions. Finally I am up and running with 8.1. Now let's see what she can do.
To remove windows.old, all you need to do is control panel->system tools->disk clean-up->clean-up system files -> choose previous windows installations(+ whatever you wish to remove).
Thanks for the info. I did not know that it could be done that way. I'll keep that in mind for the next time.