CrossRoads:
You can try going to www.ftdichip.com and seeing if the FT232 drivers will install better from there.
(I have no Win 8 experience, returned a laptop that had it, couldn't stand using it).
Well, I tried that and it doesn't really change anything. It installs the driver, but the device name stays the same.
And I still can't communicate with it through the IDE. All the IDE says is:
avrdude: usbdev_open(): did not find any USB device "usb"