Sarah Tew/CNET
With
the second major revision to Windows 8, somewhat confusingly named
Windows 8.1 Update, Microsoft seems to have finally remembered that
there are PC users out there who still work with a monitor, keyboard,
and mouse. Not everyone is happily tapping and swiping away at tablet
and hybrid screens yet, and the loudest complaints about the OS have
been regarding its lack of support for those who use their PCs in a more
traditional fashion.Windows 8.1, released in October 2013, was a course correction of sorts, walking back some of the more egregious nods to trendy tablet thinking found in the original release of Windows 8,
including a limited-use Start button and a search function that no
longer required you to search apps, settings, and files separately.
Despite these improvements, Windows 8.1 still felt like a
one-size-fits-all solution, cramming a slate-style mentality onto every
screen.
With Windows 8.1 Update, you now get a computing
environment that feels flexible enough to work on 8-inch tablets as well
as 27-inch desktops. Touch is still the preferred input method for
working in the tile interface many still call Metro, but at last, mouse
and keyboard users aren't completely left out.
These select features stand out as the highlights of Windows 8.1 Update (read more about the rest of the new features here),
and the most likely reasons you'll finally feel OK about upgrading if
the somewhat tortured history of Windows 8 has scared you off before
now.
Screenshot by Sarah Tew/CNET
The return of the X-to-close button
If
you have a touch-screen device, anything from an 8-inch tablet to a
27-inch tabletop PC, one of the first Windows 8 moves you no doubt
learned was to swipe a finger down from the top of the screen to the
bottom in order to close native Windows 8 apps (accompanied by an
awkwardly stilted animation). But with a mouse, the same move was both
counterintuitive and hard to pull off consistently. Simply adding the
top-right-corner X button to close is such a no-brainer, it makes the
entire Windows 8.1 Update download worthwhile.
One weird catch,
however. Closing a Windows 8 bumps you back to the traditional desktop,
even if you were previously in the Metro interface. Inexplicably odd.
Screenshot by Sarah Tew/CNET
Different views for different screen sizes
Got
a traditional-size laptop or monitor screen? Then you'll boot right
into the familiar desktop view from previous versions of Windows, rather
than the tile-based menu. Of course, you can still switch at will, but
having the classic desktop as the main event rather than a hidden
feature is what politicians would call "walking back" a controversial
move. Small tablet-style screens still boot to the tile view, which
makes sense, and a taskbar properties menu allows for even more
customization.
Screenshot by Sarah Tew/CNET
Right-click support for Start screen tiles
The
blocky tiles that make up the Windows 8 Start screen can be baffling.
Launch a new PC for the first time, and you'll find a different mix of
apps represented by these tiles, in different sizes, and grouped into
different sections, all with little rhyme or reason. Even worse, some of
the largest tiles offer no usable information beyond a simple icon
drawing. That particular problem hasn't gone away, but at least it's now
easy and intuitive (that's a word that keeps on popping up, in case
anyone at Microsoft is paying attention) to simply right-click on any
tile and resize it, hide it completely, or even pin it to the classic
desktop taskbar.
Screenshot by Sarah Tew/CNET
An easy-to-find power button
Short
and simple, and exactly the type of common sense feature inexplicably
missing from Windows 8 for its first 18 months of life. In the
upper-right corner of the tile interface, there is now a big power icon,
which can restart, shut down, or set your system to sleep. Previously,
if you were using a mouse and/or didn't have a touch screen, you had to
hover the mouse cursor at the upper-right corner, then carefully
navigate down to the Setting section, then down to the tiny power button
all the way at the bottom of the screen. Search gets a top-corner icon
as well, but that was at least easier to find access pre-Update.
Screenshot by Sarah Tew/CNET
Add any app to the desktop taskbar
As
mentioned previously, you can now right-click on any Windows 8 app (the
kind that runs full-screen by default) and add it to the classic
desktop taskbar. Even if you hate the tile view, there are some good
apps hiding there, and I personally really like the built-in News app.
Now you can still access these without having to navigate to the
tile-filled Start screen first.
Screenshot by Sarah Tew/CNET
Battery, time, network, and date indicators in the Start screen
Actually,
these are all basic-but-useful features still missing from Windows 8.
Even after more than a year and a half, PC users can't simply glance at
the vaunted Start screen on their laptops, tablets, or hybrids, and see
how much battery life they have left, to say nothing of the ability see
the time or date. As always, activating the Charms bar gives you some of
this information (with just a very basic visual icon for the battery
and connection icon for the Wi-Fi network), but it still hides lots of
very practical things from view without user interaction. In contrast,
thanks to the live tiles on the Start screen, the latest sports scores,
recipes, and promoted app store apps are always easy to see.
Despite
this oversight, the updates included in both Windows 8.1 and Windows
8.1 Update are small pieces that add up to a very different feel from
the original Windows 8 experience. If the OS had launched in this
condition in 2012, we'd likely have a much different view of it, rather
than waiting for common-sense features to trickle in over time. That
said, for the first time, I now feel like using Windows 8 on a nontouch
all-in-one desktop is now a viable experience, rather than something
that constantly requires you to think about workarounds and compromises.
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