Well, much to my chagrin this is not a carrara issue. It's a windows 8 issue. I have the same issue in C8.0. I tried running it in W7 compatability mode but nope. I had to run the C8.0 installer in W7 compatability to install. Wish I could check C8.5 but all Ihave is the beta.

Or someone with C8.5 on windows 8 could check it.

Hot damb, fixed it. I had to run carrara as admin. Don't even want to know why.