Windows 8.1 is here-it launched at 4 a.m. Pacific time and is rolling out globally.
Do you use Windows 8? If so, then get the new version. It's a solid, necessary update (and a free one to boot). It has features that will please longtime Windows users who were uncomfortable with 8, as well as features that push the concepts behind Windows 8 even further. It's a recommitment to the touch-based future of Windows Store apps, while making more room and allowance for the desktop and a tacit recognition that some people will only want to operate in that old familiar environment.
It's only been 12 months since Windows 8 shipped. It has not been a triumphant year.
It's only been 12 months since Windows 8 shipped. It has not been a triumphant year. Steven Sinofsky, Microsoft's longtime Windows chief, is gone. He got the axe just after Windows 8 shipped. Given Microsoft's woes over the past decade, you could make a compelling case that they fired the wrong Steve. But just this August, on the cusp of Windows 8.1's release, the company fixed the error: Steve Ballmer, Microsoft's longtime CEO, is now on his way out too.
Between the two Steve slayings, it took a $900 million write down on Surface RT, the computer that was meant to be the physical embodiment of its new, stripped down Windows operating system. Disgruntled PC Manufacturers have been in revolt, openly criticizing the company and its next generation OS. If Windows 8 has had a defining cultural moment, it wasn't its lavish launch, or any number of commercials, but this YouTube video of a befuddled gentleman trying to use Windows 8 for the first time.
And so now we have Windows 8.1 - in an earlier era this would have been called Windows 9 because it is not what you might think of as a point-one upgrade. Sure, it makes cosmetic concessions to its seething user base, who just wanted their Start button back and the ability to never, ever have to use the system formerly known as Metro. It gave them both of those things, kind of. But it is more than anything else a step further along the road away from the traditional desktop PC. It is even more cloud-focused. More touchable. Better able to embrace a wide variety of form factors and devices.
The thing is, Microsoft had to reinvent itself. PC sales would be lagging with or without Windows 8. The so-called post-PC world has been apparent to the point of cliché for a very long time now. If anything, Microsoft was too slow to move to it. It couldn't make an abrupt break with its past, stranding its massive install base at their desks while it took up the tablet. And so it gave us Windows 8-the bridge between tablets and desktop; a way to tiptoe between x86 and ARM processors.
People hated it. But it was the right thing to do. As I've previously argued, Microsoft is a lumbering giant, but with Windows 8 it began lumbering in the right direction. Windows 8.1 represents another plodding, yet massive, step forward.
Search has become the dominant feature of the operating system.
Let's start with the ways it goes back to the past. There is a button where the Start button used to be, and clicking on it will do a vaguely Start-button like thing, which is to take you to your Start Screen where your applications live. You can boot to the desktop now with a simple settings change (although it took two Microsoft representatives multiple tries on a total of three devices to demonstrate how to do this). Because you can make your Desktop background mirror your Start Screen background, swapping between the two is less jarring now, although you still get a sense of transition. It feels more like diving into a warm pool and less like being ripped from a moving car.
But the meat of Windows 8.1 is in the way it moves forward, not how it looks back. The most notable change is to the way Search has become the dominant feature of the operating system.
One of the Charms (think: software buttons) that you can access from a right-side swipe is a Search function, and in 8.1 Search has become universal. It queries your local files and folders as well as Bing, and gives you the results in a graphic-heavy manner designed to make it easy to find what you need at a glance. You get previews of web pages, photos pulled from the web, and even the ability to pull up songs and other media that you can play with a single click. Search for a person or a place, and it will show big, graphic-heavy cards with automated information about the query.
The cloud is the other dominant organizing principle, or even connective tissue. Make changes in one place, and they are reflected across all your devices. Microsoft pushes you to save everything to SkyDrive by default, so you can access everything from anywhere. You can set devices to sync in various ways so that, for example, your desktop has a local copy of all your photos, while your smaller tablet only has a subset. While you'll get some SkyDrive storage for free (7 GB) if you really use this, you're going to have to buy more.
The other major thing you'll notice is that you can personalize Windows 8.1 to a greater degree, especially around applications. Live Tiles are even more alive-make one for a web page and it can pipe information from that site's RSS feed. They offer more sizing options, and organizing them into groups is much easier. You can reorganize your windows too. While Windows 8 only allows you to use set fractionals of the screen for multi-window (Snap state) views, 8.1 allows you a greater degree of flexibility to alter the number and position of those windows.
Meanwhile, the company has given its default applications-especially Mail and Music-real and needed overhauls. Both felt like beta releases in Windows 8, and both have finally gotten up to speed in 8.1.
Should you upgrade? Yes. It's a solid update. The people who hated Windows 8, however, likely aren't going to be much more pleased with 8.1. While it makes concessions to the desktop, Microsoft clearly is thinking more about touch and a future where devices are mere screens meant to reflect data stored on a server somewhere.
Mat Honan is a senior writer for Wired's Gadget Lab and the co-founder of the Knight-Batten award-winning Longshot magazine.
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