Boot Camp / Windows 8.1 64-bit / Driver compatibility issues

Hi everyone,
I have been struggling to install Windows 8.1 Pro 64-bit version through Boot Camp on my MacBook Air 13 inch mid-2012 for a few days and I have finally decided to give up and write this thread to see if anyone has encountered the same problems as I have and if they've found a solution.
What I've tried so far:
1. First attempt
     a. Download the ISO from Microsoft (We are a Microsoft Partner and have access to internal use licences of Windows 8.1).
     b. Use the Boot Camp utility to create a bootable USB drive, download the latest Boot Camp drivers and partition my SSD drive.
          Issue: Upon rebooting, I got the "No bootable device found" error message. I still tried to boot on the USB drive, which I was able to, but           when installing Windows, I was unable to format the partition created by the Boot Camp utility as it contained a "MBR partition table"           instead of a GPT.
2. Second attempt
     a. I searched the Internet about the error message about the MBR partition table.
     b. The solution I found was to format the partition created by the Boot Camp utility as "Free space".
     c. I was then able to start Windows installation by formatting the partition I wanted to allot it to through the Windows installation process.
          Issue: The installation went smoothly until my computer rebooted the first time and the "Peripherals preparation" step (sorry about the           approximate translation, I'm used to the French version of it) got stuck at 10% and was brutally followed by a black screen. Forcing the           computer to restart would show the Windows logo and go straight back to the black screen situation...
3. Third attempt
     a. I decided to create a bootable Windows installation USB drive using UNetBootin utility and creating a "Free space" partition through Disk      Utility on which to install Windows.
     b. I then booted on the USB Drive and was able to install Windows properly.
     c. I donwloaded the set of Boot Camp drivers through Apple's wesbsite corresponding to my MacBook Air model.
          Issue: Somehow, the graphics driver installed by Boot Camp made my system crash as I got a black screen when it tried to install. Even           without doing anything and having Windows try to install the right driver by itself, I got a black screen and an unusable installation of           Windows 8.1.
What am I missing here? Why isn't the Boot Camp utility working when it should be so easy? Is there a compatibility issue of my graphics driver (Intel HD Graphics 4000) with Windows running under Boot Camp?
Thanks in advance for your help. I'm in desperate need of a solution as I don't want to go back to using virtualisation softwares such as Parallels Desktop, VMWare, etc. though they work just fine...
Best regards,
Alex

1. Your MBA does not support EFI/Free Space method.
2. You need to ensure that your USB is a USB2 device.
3. The MBR should be checked, because there are known cases where BCA fails to create the MBR.

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