From Facebook to the full-featured Mail app and modern Outlook to a
"peek" bar in the modern version of Internet Explorer 11 to the new
Windows Scan app to the new Bing logo, you now get nearly all of the
promised Windows 8.1 extras.
We are still waiting for the touch
versions of the Office apps but that's the way things work in
Microsoft's new 'continuous development' world. And of course you get
the interface changes and SkyDrive integration we saw in the Windows 8.1
Preview.
The Start button is back, you can boot to the desktop and use the same image for your Start screen as your desktop background.
Ratings in depth
SkyDrive
is built in to sync files - on both Windows 8.1 and Windows 8.1 RT - as
well as settings and the layout for your Start screen and desktop
taskbar.
But Microsoft's second bite at the convergence of PCs and
tablets doesn't back away from what we still want to call Metro; in
fact there are more built in modern apps than in Windows 8, more
settings you can change without jumping to the desktop and more options
for how you place modern apps on screen.
The question is how well
these two worlds sit together, and how much of an improvement Microsoft
has been able to deliver in a year.
Installing Windows 8.1
If
you already have Windows 8, upgrading to Windows 8.1 is very simple. It
will be the first app you see every time you open the Windows Store and
the installation happens very quickly.
You don't have to
reinstall your desktop applications or your Windows Store apps, and all
your files are still there (as are libraries and the icons pinned to
your taskbar. Update Windows 8.1 Preview to RTM and you get your Start screen layout but you have to click the tiles to install appsIf
you sign in with a Microsoft account you haven't used before, you might
have to use a code that Microsoft emails or texts to you (if you've set
that up in the past) to confirm it's you; that works like trusting a PC
in Windows 8 but you don't have to do it as a separate step.
If
you have Windows 7 (or earlier versions), you have to install Windows 8
(the same process as when Windows 8 first came out) and then upgrade to
Windows 8.1.
If you've been trying the Windows 8.1 Preview, you
can't upgrade directly to the RTM version (which Microsoft warned people
about all along).
If you can't revert to Windows 8, you still do
the update from the Windows Store and your files will stay on the
system, but you'll have to reinstall your desktop programs.
If
you've already upgraded another PC using the same Microsoft account
you'll see tiles for the Windows Store apps you have installed on that
other PC (marked with a little download icon) and you can tap on the
tiles to install them.
Once you've got into the Windows 8 and 8.1 world, upgrades become almost seamless (previews aside). You just have to get there.
