With its CEO position up for grabs and trouble selling the Surface/Windows 8 combination earlier this year, a lot is riding on Microsoft's Windows 8.1 update, which was released by the company to download for free on Thursday. Here's what the Windows 8.1 update has to offer.
First off, Microsoft Windows 8.1 is not a complete redesign of Microsoft's first foray into a PC/Tablet hybrid operating system, Windows 8. There are still touchscreen tablet features like Windows' tile system, as well as a desktop mode for more traditional laptop and PC users.
But the update brings improvements to both, although traditional PC users will probably be happier as they find a few things they've really wanted for about a year.
Desktop Features - Start Button and Boot to Desktop
Perhaps the loudest complaint from Windows 8 users was the absence of the Start Menu, one of the most persistent legacy user interface devices in Windows history.
The Windows 8.1 update does not bring back the Start Menu. Kiss it goodbye. However, Windows 8.1 does something close.
Instead, there's a Start Button where you'd look for the Start Menu in desktop mode. It won't bring up a menu, but instead your Start page on the tile interface, from which you can open up apps, especially if you customize Windows 8.1 to display "All Apps" instead of the default live-tiles. That's probably the closest you'll get to a Start Menu these days.
It's important to note, though, that settings, like the control panel, can be brought up from a long press or right-click on the Start Button, giving you the other half of yesteryear's Start Menu functionality.
The other very desktop-friendly introduction in Windows 8.1 will allow PC users who really hate the tile system to boot to the desktop mode immediately, bypassing the Metro tile system entirely. That option is available on the taskbar and navigation properties.
Tablet Enhancements
Those old fogey Windows desktop fans aren't the only users getting some UI improvements. Windows 8.1 brings enhancement to tablet navigation with a couple of gesture and swipe-based features.
Some apps will have gesture-based navigation, for example, so if you're cooking and want to navigate a recipe app without touching the screen, you can do that. For times when you're hands aren't covered with sauce, Windows 8.1 brings numbers and punctuation up to the onscreen keyboard, letting you swipe for those characters and also word suggestions without having to switch keyboard modes.
The Metro interface is also more customizable, with intuitive controls to resize tiles to four different sizes, and Windows' "Snap View" allows for better multitasking with different app screens side-by-side with customizable sizes.
General Improvements
Windows search has been expanded to include web results from Bing, along with searching your computer. Bing's results will pull up more than just links, giving you splash pages with intelligent results "Knowledge Graph"-type page with menus for more useful information.
The Windows Store and Xbox Music have an improved look, with some minor functionality tweaks. The same goes for Windows' Mail app and Internet Explorer, which gives you a few more options than before.
Finally there are a few improvements to the more back-end functions of the operating system. Apps will update in the background, which cures update notification annoyance (Apple should look into that). The Start screen and Metro tile interface has been tweaked to look better on small tablets - like the recently unveiled Lenovo Miix2 - when they're in portrait mode. And the lockscreen allows you to take photos and answer Skype immediately from the lock screen. Here's Microsoft's preview video of Windows 8.1.
The Windows 8.1 update is intended for owners of Windows 8, and was released for free on the Windows Store app on Thursday morning.
On Friday, stand-alone Windows 8.1 will hit the store shelves and online for those who don't have Windows 8. Here's the list of system requirements.