The Windows 8.1 Update released at Microsoft Build on April 2 can be viewed as both a step backward and a step forward for Microsoft's vision of a hybrid OS that's equally comfortable on tablets, slates, laptops, and desktops. In the first version of its daring two-in-one OS bet, the company put nearly all the focus on the touch interface. With this update, mouse and keyboard users finally get the attention they've been clamoring for.
It's hard to believe that it's been less than a year and half since Windows 8's initial release in October 2012, and we've already gotten a third revision. But, as the lack of a new version number or even point number indicates, Windows 8.1 Update is hardly a completely revamped piece of software.
Some may be surprised that, unlike Apple's updated Mavericks OS X, Windows 8.1 Update brings no actual new features—there's no new ebook reader or map app (it already includes the latter, and you can get the former in the Windows app Store) such as Mavericks added. What Windows 8.1 Update does bring is a collection of new interface elements and behaviors for mouse users. Best of all, none of these features requires learning anything new—they're all derived from familiar old ways of interacting with PCs. And that's not all: The update includes about 200 performance tweaks that benefit all users—of both touch and non-touch PCs.
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Apple OS X 10.9.2 Mavericks (for Mac)
Even the process of getting the update itself follows this streamlined approach: Starting April 8, Windows 8.1 users will simply receive it through the standard Windows Update mechanism—it's not necessary to download it via the Windows app store and install it. Windows 8.1 Update is also available to Windows 7 users from the Microsoft Web Store, both as a packaged DVD and on new PCs, laptops, and tablets. There are standard and Pro versions, priced at $119.99 and $199.99 respectively. The Pro version adds business capabilities such as disk encryption and network domain joining, and it is required for those who want the Windows Media Center home theater software.
Spoiled for Choice
Windows is about choices. A whopping 5,400 certified Windows 8.1 PC models of all shapes and sizes are available. There's also the choice of more than 4 million Windows applications. No other platform can claim anything close. A healthy 40 percent of Windows devices now available are touch-capable, and some people may be surprised to know that user satisfaction for these devices is actually higher than the company has measured for any previous OS, including Windows 7.
But good old desktops and laptops with keyboards and mice still make up the vast majority of Windows machines in use, and users of those machines have been the most vocal critics of Window 8. Version 8.1 partially addressed their concerns; Windows 8.1 Update really takes their needs to heart.
In fact, when PCMag got an early look at the version, Windows Principal Program Manager Chaitanya Sareen admitted that "the mouse and keyboard needed work," that they'd heard the feedback, and that "we just wanted to bring the love back to the mouse." This Update targets the mouse dead on, even giving mouse users capabilities not available in touch-tablet PCs.
What's New in Windows 8.1 Update?
Default boot to desktop for mouse-driven PCs. Probably the clearest example of Microsoft's attention to desktop and laptop users is that the OS now detects whether it's being run on a touch-capable device. If not, it boots by default to the desktop view, which looks nearly identical to the familiar Windows 7 interface. Using this device-profile detection, the updated OS also adjusts in many other ways to the needs of keyboard and mouse users, as we'll see later in this review.
For some users, this default booting to the desktop for non-touch PC users could be the biggest change. Windows 8.1 users could already change a preference setting to boot to the desktop, but when Update detects the PC type, it automatically makes desktop view the default. Most of what's new follows the same strategy: the way the operating system works changes to match the machine's profile—touch or mouse/keyboard.
Search and Power buttons on Start screen. You could always start typing at the Windows 8 Start Page, but there was nothing to tell you that until now. You could also search from the Charms—those buttons that appear when you move the cursor to one of the right corners with a mouse or swipe in from the right on a touch screen. The 8.1 Update adds an explicit magnifying-glass button to make the search capability clearer. This opens the OS's powerful search tool, which can find not only apps and files, but also Web content and playable songs.
Before this update, the power button was pretty much hidden—you had to go into the Settings Charm, and then choose Power, then Shut down (or Sleep or Restart if you prefer). Microsoft's thinking there showed the bias towards touch tablets—after all, who shuts down an iPad with the operating system software? No, you just press the hardware power button, or, more likely, let it go to sleep. Adding a clear on-screen power button in Windows 8.1 Update is sure to save new users a lot of frustration.
Modern apps on the desktop Taskbar. The so-called "modern" apps, or those mobile-style, tablet friendly, full-screen apps you get from the Windows Store, have till now mostly lived in a separate world from traditional Windows desktop programs. One of Update's key goals is to bring these worlds together, and nothing could be more of a sign of this than seeing a modern app's button on the desktop Taskbar. The Update adds the Store button to the taskbar, to further this combining of the two app types—something that should please developers of Store apps.
This could, however, have the effect of confusing desktop users, who may think a Taskbar button will open a desktop app, when in fact it's shunting them into the new app world. Compensating for this is another change in Update: Taskbar now shows up whenever you drag the mouse to the bottom of the screen in a modern app. That includes the Start screen itself. This is a nice task-switching option, but the extra buttons can make for a cluttered interface and sometimes bump into the app's own interface controls. In the case of Start, its All Apps button politely slides away after a pause.
Note that even the small tray icons at the right show up, along with system info such as network connection, battery charge, time, and date. Also note that modern apps get the "thumbnail toolbar" mini view that only desktop apps used to have. This is useful for pausing and playing media-player apps, for example.
Title bars for modern apps. In addition to getting a Taskbar, modern apps now also get a title bar, just like any Windows program for the past 20 years. The title bar appears when you start a modern app and whenever you move the mouse cursor to the top of the screen. This lets you close or minimize the app in the way Windows users have been accustomed to for decades—by clicking the x at top right.
Smarter mouse movement responses. Microsoft has made mousing around smoother and more familiar feeling with the Windows 8.1 update. The rule of thumb for getting around Windows 8 and 8.1 has long been "edges for touch, corners for mouse." Those actions call up OS features such as the Charms menu or running app list. Now, though, if you move the mouse quickly to the corner of a window just to hit its top-right X button, or to a browser's top-left back button, you won't see these OS features unless you pause the mouse. In another time-honored tribute to mouse power users, right-clicking on the Start screen opens a context menu near the cursor rather than the app bar at the bottom of the screen.
A cause of frustration to many a desktop PC user in Windows 8 and 8.1 has been the unwanted opening of modern apps when they double-click files in the desktop. The best example of this was the image file: opening a File Explorer window and double-clicking on a JPG entry would inevitably open the modern Photos app. While this app became a lot more powerful in Windows 8.1, Microsoft now takes the more sensible approach of opening your desktop-clicked image in the desktop photo viewer.
There are plenty of smaller changes in the Update: For example, newly installed modern apps still go into the full All Apps page below the Start screen, but now they're more obviously highlighted, and the Start screen itself indicates that there are new apps down there, with a message like "1 new app installed" next to the All Apps down arrow. Previously, a user might install an app only to scratch his head, wondering where it went.
Improvements in Windows 8.1 before the Update also included a more consistent look between the desktop and mobile app interfaces, lock screen slideshow and notifications, better help to get people going with the new interface, the ability to boot to the desktop, a sort of Start button, more windowing options for modern apps, and more settings in the modern interface. The Windows app store got a much-needed face-lift, and the default apps like Mail, Internet Explorer, Skype, Xbox Music and Video, and search also benefit from updates. We'll take a look at all of this below.
Help, Start Screen, Settings
Help+Tips
The Help+Tips app that debuted in Windows 8.1 addressed a top criticism of Windows 8—that it's confusing to use. Actually, Windows 8 could not be simpler to use for a lot of things—what's so hard about clicking a big tile with the name of an app on it to run it? But some essential activities of the OS are less obvious. Things like using the Charms (an always-accessible menu button bar along the right side of the screen), switching apps, and moving between desktop and new-style interface are all covered in the Help+Tips app.
Help+Tips' simple six panel interface offers help options titled Start and apps, Get around, Basic actions, Your account and files, Settings, and What's new. Going through the whole batch is not a major undertaking either, with its simple animated images showing frequently needed gestures. The app does a lot to allay Window 8 fears and uncertainties of new users. Even if they don't visit this help app, pointers right in the interface show how to use it.
Start Button
One feature that longtime Windows users cried out for after Windows 8's original release made its way into Windows 8.1—the Start button and the ability to boot to the desktop, where standard Windows programs can run just as they have for the last few versions of the OS. The Start button Microsoft has included, however, isn't quite what the longtime users were hoping for, since it opens the new-style Start screen. At Build 2014, the company previewed a future version of Windows showing a real start button menu, though one designed with a more tiled, modern look.
But really, if you think of this as a full-screen start button menu, you'll use Windows 8.1 Update just as swiftly as its predecessors. (For more tips on quickly mastering the new OS, read my 5 Tips for Using Windows 8.1 Like a Boss.)
Start Screen Tile and Window Options
Windows 8.1's tile-based Start screen tiles can come in four size choices (compared with the original Windows 8's two). A huge square, for apps with a lot of live info to display, such as mail, and a tiny one, for apps with nothing to update live. Not all apps have all size choices; it depends on what the app developer deems sensible.
The Start screen itself can display cool animated backgrounds, or use the same background as the desktop wallpaper, for a more unified interface experience. So that the Start screen doesn't get overwhelmingly cluttered with app tiles, apps only are automatically added to the All App screen, not to the main Start screen. On a touch screen, you get to this All Apps list simply by swiping up on the Start screen, while desktop users get a down-arrow button to get them there.
As to new-style app windowing, more than two modern apps can share the screen. Two apps can each take up half the screen, or, depending on what the app's developer has allowed, any portion you choose. The number of apps depends on how large the screen is and its pixel density.
Apps can even sprout a second new-style window when it makes sense, such as for Mail or for the Reading List app, which keeps the list in a narrow left-side panel while the content you want to read takes up most of the screen. With multiple monitors, you can further augment the number of app windows. Speaking of external monitors, Windows 8.1 supports Miracast, which lets you send video over Wi-Fi to large HDTVs and the like.
The Lock screen can act as a slideshow display of your photos, rather than just showing a static picture. The slides are chosen with some intelligence, too, rather than simply rotating through all your photos; for example, you may see photos from around the same time of year in previous years. Another big help, especially for small tablets, is access to the camera without the need to log in. The same goes for answering Skype calls—just tap on the notification to start video-chatting with grandma.
A big bugaboo of mine for Windows 8 was that you have two Settings tools—the new-style one and the traditional Control Panel on the desktop. Windows 8.1 Update still maintains this duality, but the modern UI settings have gotten far more robust, eliminating the need to head to the massive number of choices in desktop Control Panel. You can even change app-switching behavior in the Corners and Edges section. The Windows 8.1 Update, however, does finally include a link to the full desktop Control Panel, in its theme of integrating the two personae of the OS.
Another peeve of mine concerned SkyDrive (now slowly being rebranded as OneDrive): In order to sync documents with SkyDrive on a Windows 8 PC, you had to have two SkyDrive apps running, the modern and the desktop version. Now SkyDrive document syncing is a built-in capability of the OS, and it offers an option that lets you access any files on a PC, even if you didn't explicitly upload the file to SkyDrive. I still wish you could upload from the Pictures app, though, and auto-upload the way you can in Windows Phone.
Included Apps
Default Apps
Windows 8.1 included boosts for the default apps—Photos, Mail, Xbox Music, and Skype. First, Photos. You can actually now edit the photos in this included app. That means things like applying Instagram-esque filters as well as doing lighting and color corrections and cropping. The original Window 8 Photos app was pretty useless for anything but viewing the picture, so these are very welcome additions.
To adjust things like brightness, contrast, shadows, and highlights, you twirl a circular dial control. One cool option is to select a color with a dropper and intensify that color throughout the image—nice for green lawns and blue skies. You also get vignette and selective focus effects. And you can save a copy so that the original stays pristine. It's not as full a photo solution as Mac OS X's iPhoto, but it's come long way from the Windows 8 Photo app.
The Mail app lets you drag-and-drop emails between folders that cleverly fly out when you tap on the folder icon. Newsletters and Social Updates are sequestered to their own views, and you can also view just messages from your most important contacts—very useful if you want to make sure you don't miss an email from your boss among all those dubious pitches. But again, OS X's Mail app is slicker and more mature.
Xbox Music has been redesigned so that it's more about your music than about discovering what's in the store. The main choices are now Collection, Radio, and Explore. That's right, it now includes a Radio feature like the one Apple included with iOS 7 to much fanfare. You can also filter your songs by Album, Artist, Title, and sort by date added, alpha, artist, and genre. It's a far more useful and modern app than its primitive Windows 8 predecessor, though it's still no iTunes.
The included Reading List app lets you use the Share charm to send any web page or other document to the app for later perusal. This app is well suited to the small sidebar placement in a multi-app view, and it's synced among any devices signed in to your Microsoft account.
Skype is now a standard included part of Windows. It pops a notification at the top of your lock screen when there's an incoming call or instant message, and you can answer without logging into the PC. Skype also lets you send files or images, and will snap to a side window if you open a link through it. It also ties in with the People (contacts and social) app and in IE11 for click-to-call capability.
Bing and Other Apps
The OS's included Bing Apps mostly target home users. These include Travel, Maps, Weather, Health & Fitness, Food & Drink, Sports, News, and Finance. Bing Finance now lets you add and track your own portfolio holdings. Most people I know tend to favor another Web search provider, but I have to say that the Travel app in particular does an amazing job of helping you choose flights and hotels. For the latter, it lets you sort by the indispensable TripAdvisor ratings, pops out a map, shows photos, and links to purchase options at the best price from sites like Expedia, Booking.com, Priceline, and many others.
In more utilitarian vein, the OS also includes a modern Calculator app, as well as Calendar, Reader for PDF, XPS, and TIFF files, Scan, and Sound Recorder. The Alarms app can be used as a timer and stopwatch as well as a background-running alarm clock. All in all, it's really a pretty full set of included new-style utilities and amusement apps.
A Better Desktop PC, Too
Windows 8.1 Update maintains and improves on Windows 8's appeal for hardcore desktop users: Much faster startup, improved battery life for laptops, better security (including Trusted Boot for UEFI systems), the File History automated backup and versioning utility, clearer task manager and file move dialogs, and the ability to mount disk image files as virtual drives, among other benefits. To top it all off, Windows 8.1 Update actually has a smaller disk footprint than its predecessor.
Powerful Search
When you invoke the Search charm and enter a query, you'll see suggestions not only for apps, but also for popular web searches and more. Even before your query, you can change the scope of your search from Everywhere to Settings, Files, Web Images, and Web Videos. But the result page offers more than most computer search features. If you search on any popular musician, you can play their top songs, watch their videos, and scroll through pages of website info. If you search on "Chicago," you'll see a Bing Map, the current weather for that city, and attractions.
IE 11, Store, Printing, Business Features
Internet Explorer 11
Internet Explorer 11's modern, full-screen incarnation lets you use as many tabs as you want, and these tiles scroll along the bottom rather than at the top, nearer to the address bar for easier access. HTML5 support continues to improve, and surprisingly, the browser now supports WebGL, something Microsoft had long resisted! It's kind of mind-blowing to see Chrome WebGL Experiments such as Yi-Wen Lin's Blossom running in IE. Still lacking, though, is support for WebRTC's getUserMedia command, which gives web pages access to your webcam and microphone. For more, read PCMag's full review of Internet Explorer 11.
The Windows Store
The Windows Store, where you get modern apps, shows a large featured app "ad" that alternates among several curated app choices. Next, you'll see Picks for you, based on your previous choices. Swiping or scrolling right reveals large thumbnails for Popular Now and New release apps, then the standard Top paid and Top free sections. No longer are there over a dozen categories to scroll through, but instead, you can invoke the list of categories by swiping in from the top or bottom (or right-clicking the mouse) to display the app bar. This bar also shows a tile for Your Apps, including those you've installed on other PCs, and Your account, where you edit billing info.
The individual app page shows a three-panel view of the description on the left, a large image area for app screenshots in the middle, and ratings and reviews on the right. One thing I still miss, however, is the ability to simply launch an app from the store right after I've installed it, as I can do from the iPad's App Store and from Google Play.
Store apps can offer in-app purchases, and users are now able to install purchased apps on as many devices as they like.
New Ways to Print
Printing sounds so outdated these days, but there are still times when I've wandered the office looking for a printer that works for me. New NFC support in Windows 8.1 means that your PC can just recognize the nearest working printer and print to it, assuming the printer supports NFC. Another hot topic is 3D printing, which Windows 8.1 supports natively. You can print from any app that supports 3D printing, with drivers automatically downloaded and installed just as they are for paper printers.
Business and Security
Windows has a strong business case, with the ability for IT pros to manage huge numbers of machines, controlling their access to corporate resources. Windows 8.1 furthers the case, with better BYOD mobile controls and better security. With 8.1, Defender was improved as has native VPN connectivity. An "auto-triggered" VPN option will automatically connect a remote Windows 8.1 client to a website or other work resource that's behind a company's firewall, for example. But I still don't see a leader among the built-in VPN options—Cisco.
The Workplace networking option of Microsoft's OS can grant mobile workers access to internal apps and websites. If an employee leaves the company, IT can remove just the business assets, so the whole device doesn't have to be wiped. All this applies to Windows RT as well as x86-based PCs.
Bringing Desktops Back Into the Windows Fold
After some time in the shadows, desktop and laptop users are once again cherished members of the Windows family. Windows 8.1 Update brings a slew of thoughtful conveniences that both bring back familiar ways of interacting with the PC and integrate the new world of modern, touch-friendly apps. Microsoft is by no means abandoning its goal to provide a two-in-one OS—one that's comfortable on both tablets and traditional PCs, but in this version mouse users have been given the attention previously reserved for touch-screen users.
Even if you never use a modern-style mobile app, you can take advantage of Windows 8.1 Update's faster startup, better multitasking, and better system tools. But I dare you not to try some of the new and ever increasing catalog of simple touch-friendly apps—even if you're not on a touch-capable device. Windows 8.1 Update spans the device world from high-power desktops to laptops, to mini tablets. For its fast operation, full set of included apps, and improved support for mouse and keyboard input, Windows 8.1 Update earns a PCMag four-star rating.
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