While simulators are toys, you can bend them to productive workflows. Here is a radical idea: Task simulation.
If you are writing a user manual for Windows 8.1 software, you can open the simulator, take screenshots of the mocked UI buttons, and use them in your documentation without blurring out private data or paying for a license. windows 81 simulator
Furthermore, if you are a YouTuber making a retrospective video ("The Rise and Fall of Metro UI"), recording a simulator gives you a clean, artifact-free environment. You don't get the lag of a VM or the clutter of your real desktop. While simulators are toys, you can bend them
A web-based Windows 8.1 simulator is a viable, lightweight tool for non-production training and historical UX research. While it cannot replace a VM for deep software testing, it excels in rapid deployment and safe exploration of a deprecated interface. The source code is released under an MIT license for educational use. Technology: HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript, possibly React or Vue
Many of these simulators include a built-in web browser frame that mimics Internet Explorer 11 (or the "Metro-style" IE). It gives you that full-screen, distraction-free browsing vibe that Chrome is only now trying to emulate with reading modes.
While you can’t run legacy software like Adobe Photoshop CS6 in a web simulator, these projects are surprisingly detailed in their replication of the UI experience.
You might ask, Why would I want to simulate an OS that was widely criticized?