John did you run the Cleaning Tool before reinstalling? It's a really good idea to do so after a failed install or update.
http://helpx.adobe.com/creative-suite/kb/cs5-cleaner-tool-installation -problems.html
With Windows 8 (especially for some reason) best practice after a problem is to unistall, run the cleaning tool, restart the computer, and imediately install Photoshop. We do seem to have seen a lot of Mac issues on the forum just recently, and a lot of them involving Mavericks. I have not taken serious interest in them though as I am a PC user.