Thank you very much for your advice and efforts.  I really do appreciate the willingness to help on this forum. :)  Microsoft had lost the plot completely. Not even Vista could sour me but Windows 8 and beyond seems to be off at a tangent that will take users on paths better not travelled.  I think that my experience today convinced me to migrate to Linux entirely.  For the record, this humble little Dell performs rather well on various distro's of Linux, such as Zorin, Mint 15 XFCe, Mint 15 MATE 64-bit, Mint 15 Cinnamon (and I made it look like a Mac) as well as PearOS.  All hardware work rather well, there are no compatibility issues, it is immensely robust and stable as well as very safe to use. Some reason that Linux is virtually virus-free because of a much smaller install base.  Truth is that its safety lies in how it works; it would be just as safe even if all 7 billion were using it.    Dell ships with Ubuntu on some models, even on Alienware and I can surely recommend it. The learning curve is there and noobs may need to learn new tricks, but the very same can be said for MS Windows and MS Office.  Best of all is that each and every bit of software comes free of charge and updates are also free.  Upgrading or installing is as easy as ticking a box and a mouse click.  It installs seamlessly and hardly ever do we need a restart. My Linux does not even ever use more than 1GB RAM and it boots into much less than 180MB!
I understand that I qualify for a free upgrade but finding a URL to download from is not straightforward. Is there a link to a repository from where I can do the download and install?  Obviously, my Dell Inspiron 3521 has a Windows key embedded in its firmware so I should not be needing an activation key either?
Upgrade Windows 8 64-BIT Single Language to Windows 8.1