Windows 8 domain user gets no tiles in Start screen

Hello everyone,

I just upgraded one of the office workstation from Windows 7 Ultimate to Windows 8 Pro. Since the workstation was on the office domain before the upgrade, it automatically joined the domain after the upgrade as well. The domain controller server is running Microsoft Server 2008 Enterprise.

After the workstation is ready to use, I logged in using my domain user account and found that the Start screen does not show any tiles/apps at all. Then I switched to the traditional desktop and tested the native windows programs (MS Office 2010, FileZilla, etc), they all worked good. Later on I played a bit more with the Metro UI and discovered the following:

• No Windows 8 apps show up in search
• Built-in system apps such as "Change Profile Picture" "Change PC Settings" do not start when clicked on
• Cannot pin applications to Start screen (just no effect after clicked)

I did some search on the net, but didn't find much about this issue. So I did the following tests to find out if it was my domain account, or the OS contains corrupted components:

1. In cmd, ran sfc /scannow but didn't find any corrupted files
2. Logged in as local computer admin, the Start screen works perfect. Shows all the apps, and able to go into "Change PC Settings".
3. Created new local user, everything works perfect.
4. Removed my domain user profile, removed the domain user folder under C:\Users. Logged in using my domain user and let the system re-create the user profile, Start screen still not working.
5. Left the domain, restart, and join the domain again. Repeat step 4. Still not working
6. Logged in using another domain user. Still not working.
7. Create a new domain user and logged in. Still not working.

What I haven't done is to format the workstation and install Windows 8 from scratch, but this process is going to be very time consuming, and I don't want to do that unless I ran out of options.

When I searched around the net, I found a forum post mentioned that it could be the Group Policy from the SBS 2008 is not fully compatible with Windows 8, and prevented some Metro UI components to load. I wonder if SBS 2008 is too old to support Windows 8 in the domain.

Anyone has the same issue? Can anyone provide help/advice for this issue?

Thank you all in advance.