This morning, Microsoft discharged Windows 8.1. Windows 8 users will upgrade for gratis by visiting the Windows Store; if you have another software, the upgrade will price you identical worth as Windows 8 itself: $120 for the conventional version, or $200 for Windows 8.1 Pro. Windows 8.1 may be a fairly major update for each tablet and laptop desktop users, providing a stronger experience each among the railway line interface on touchscreens and with the mouse and keyboard on the Desktop. using the mouse and keyboard among the railway line interface, however, still sucks — and therefore the start button and menu, although technically reinstated, don\'t seem to be back in spirit.

To transfer and install Windows 8.1, follow our attendant for Windows 8, 7, Vista, and other operational systems. For the most part, installing Windows 8.1 is quick, painless, and risk-free, therefore you don’t ought to worry regarding backing up or other preceding measures. Do check that you have many free hard drive area, although (20GB+), and if you’re coming back from Windows 8.1 Preview, take care to scan the caveats in our guide.

As the name implies, Windows 8.1 is additional of a revision to Windows 8 than a serious update. The new railway line interface continues to be front and center, and unmoving awful to use with a mouse and keyboard — but, as a concession to those without touchscreens, you'll be able to currently tack together Windows 8.1 else straight to the Desktop. the beginning button also makes its illustrious come, but all it does is observe the railway line interface. the beginning button is configured to observe a rejigged All Apps view, that is quite sort of a full-screen start menu, but it’s still a gluttonous to navigate with a mouse. If you create extensive use of the important start menu in Windows XP/Vista/7, you'll want to install a third-party start menu replacement (which still work absolutely with Windows 8.1).

On the railway line facet of things, there are extensive updates to configurability and value. The railway line instrument panel (“PC Settings”) will currently be used to change most important settings. you'll be able to currently split-screen multiple apps, and you’re not controlled to the size and placement of the splits —apps is any width, including 50/50. Multi-monitor support for railway line has improved, too, permitting you to have multiple apps split-screened on multiple monitors.

The Start screen is additional configurable, the Lock screen is additional functional (it currently makes a great digital exposure frame), and plenty of stock apps have received much-needed updates. The Windows Supply has been pinched, but it’s still pretty rough.

Bridging the railway line and Desktop divide, Windows 8.1 brings constitutional SkyDrive integration (to railway line and Libraries in Explorer), and Search has been meaningfully bolstered, particularly when it involves web-based search results. There’s also a replacement option to show your Desktop wallpaper behind the railway line start screen, that makes a surprisingly massive distinction when it involves the jarring juxtaposition between the two interfaces.

Why did we've to wait 2 years for this?

In short, Windows 8.1 takes Windows 8 — that very was Associate in Nursing abomination for mouse-and-keyboard Desktop users, and solely slightly higher on tablets — and makes it usable. The irony, though, is that nearly all of the changes created to Windows 8.1 were originally seen 2 years ago by beta testers of the original Windows 8 Preview.

When you contemplate that Windows 8 and eight.1 are in development for a grand total of five years, and Microsoft has been creating operational systems for quite twenty years, and Windows seven was one amongst the simplest OSes ever discharged, it’s very exhausting to imagine how Microsoft got the original unleash of Windows 8 therefore, so wrong. (Personally, i think Microsoft solely enforced the railway line interface terribly late into the development of Windows 8, when Apple’s iPad on-going to blow up… but that’s another spoken language for an additional day.)