Well, considering that Start8 officially came out right around the same time that Fences 2 was announced, at least by email to subscribers, this makes your Stardock's failure to fix Fences 2 (yet!) all the more objectionable.  I know that I'm far from alone in finding the ability to hide/not hide icons central to use of Fences. To me, Fences 2 is not attractive without that central feature - and I feel ripped off having paid for a fundamentally unfinished program. 

As for Start8, I took what was generally available on the site a couple of days ago; i.e., I didn't go beta hunting.  And obviously I didn't realize - missed? - that you were pulling a double whammy on Fences Pro users with Start8.

does this mean there is no chance of deskscapes running on windows 8? or will a new version be made to run on windows 8?

Thanks for the explanation, which as far as I know hasn't been conveyed to users (even this forum doesn't seem to have an email notification system - or if it does, I couldn't find it).  In any case, it's good to know the background (finally).  But no, I didn't miss your point.  In fact, it underlines mine: Stardock has a financial and moral responsibility to get Fences 2 in order.  The "exclude from hiding" bug is something that presumably should have been caught in testing, but at least responded to quickly when they heard about it.  And they did hear about it.  Check the thread about it not far down this forum's list and I know that at least one person filed a bug report back in October.  As someone very familiar with the way organizations work, Stardock appears from a distance to have serious management problems. Even gettng a response from tech support takes several days to a week or two - and often they aren't responsive, as if the person responding has forgotten to reread what the problem was.