All installed now and have reinstalled Avast beta and Comodo, no issues at all, extremely pleased it went so smoothly as always.
The whole install process at a guess probably only took 30mins or so and all my apps got carried over without issue, all in all very very easy installation.
EDIT
Where is the option to boot directly to the desktop?
---------- Post added at 11:19 ---------- Previous post was at 11:00 ----------
I found it, so i am well happy i can boot to the desktop and i love the start screen now you can set it to 'apps view' all the time and use my desktop wallpaper for its background, so please that i got Windows 8 for £25 last year as it now costs £190 and that is without media centre lol.
I have no reason to install a replacement start menu now as i think it all looks great.