MacsRule wrote: Please don't misinterpret my post as a recommendation.
Don't worry, I ididn't! 
There's supposed to be a way to get Win 8.1 to boot directly to the desktop as Classic Shell allows, but, consistent with the rest of Windows 8, I was unable to discover the secret word necessary to do that.
Have a look at: How to boot directly to the desktop in Windows 8.1
If you also do not want to have to login then right-click the (half-assed) Start menu on Taskbar or press Window+R and in the Run dialog box type control userpasswords2 and click OK or press Enter and uncheck the "Users must enter a user name and password to use this computer" check box.
The big advantage of the .iso file
It looks like the published SHA-1 hash values are not correct for at least the English versions, as that is what I downloaded.