But desktop users who are willing to look past the Modern interface will find that Windows 8.1 offers some welcome enhancements to the operating system, along with a few nagging tidbits that make us look forward to the next update.
Windows 8.1 User interface
Let’s start with the biggie: the Start button. A variant of the Start button from operating systems of yesteryear makes its return in Windows 8.1, but really, it’s only a cheap facade.
Windows 8.1’s “Start button,” shows up on the OS’s desktop mode, but it does not present one with a delightfully simple pop-up menu of one’s apps. No, it merely takes you to Windows 8.1’s Start screen.
You can have the Start button automatically pull up Windows 8.1’s “All Apps” menu via a setting in the Taskbar and Navigation properties, which is kind of like the illegitimate child of the Start screen and the Start Menu. Still, a conventional Start Menu, the All Apps view ain’t.
On the plus side, Microsoft has boosted the number of options found in Windows 8.1’s right-click context menu. Power users will surely appreciate the additional tweaks, including—finally—a means of shutting down your computer from the desktop (if Alt+F4 isn’t your thing).
Jumping over to the Start screen for a minute, we love that Microsof thas cleaned up the look and feel of the tiles. For starters, Windows 8.1—unlike its predecessor—doesn’t just slap every single “shortcut” that an application creates upon installation as a new tile on the Start screen. That which you install gets kicked over to the All Apps view by default, leaving your Start screen pure and pristine. Only the programs that you specifically pin get placed there—and that includes apps you grab from the Windows Store.
Microsoft also brings a few tweaks to tiles themselves. You can now uninstall everything that Microsoft’s dumped onto your Start screen en masse by right-clicking and group-selecting/uninstalling that which you don’t want. For the tiles you want to keep, you can now select between one of four different sizes for each (or change a batch at once)—Weather, for example, will expand to take up four normal tiles’ worth of space and dump plenty of information about the forecast right on the front of your Start screen.
[highlight] We also like how Microsoft has enhanced the various customizations one can do to the Start screen. [/highlight]
For the photo-maniacal, Windows 8.1 now lets you set up slideshows on your lock screen if you don’t like looking at the same ol’, same ol’ whenever you boot into Windows 8.1. Heck, you can even “boot” into your system’s webcam (or included camera) from the lock screen itself. This desktop OS is starting to look more and more mobile by the minute.
Windows 8.1 also gives the lackluster Modern-based PC Settings menu of its predecessor a much-needed kick in the pants. Take, for example, the new option that allows you to turn Hot Corners on and off (without having to resort to third-party freeware), the specific controls regarding Windows 8.1’s new search techniques (we’ll get to that), and the brand-new SkyDrive options you can access from Modern by default (also fodder for later).
We still wish that all of your system’s settings were unified regardless of where you go to edit them—the Start screen or the desktop’s Control Panel.
Windows 8.1 search
One of the major “improvements” Microsoft has made to Windows 8.1 includes a complete reworking of the operating system’s core search functionality. Before, it was a bit of a convoluted mess—you’d start typing in Modern and, once you entered a good enough selection of letters to describe what you were looking for, you’d have to select what, exactly, you were trying to find: an app? A system setting? File? Some kind of data within an individual Windows 8 app?
Too much clicking. Yuck.
Microsoft goes a bit to the other extreme, however, in Windows 8.1. Now, when you start typing in the operating system’s Start screen, you get a default search of everything on your hard drive, period. That includes files, Windows settings and options, and as a special bonus, an ever-present web search courtesy of Windows 8.1’s integration with Microsoft’s Bing search engine.
We appreciate the gesture, but not every time we type in “Diablo” are we keen on seeing a web search related to the Lord of Terror. Sure, you can flick off the web-based search option within Windows 8.1’s aforementioned preferences. But sometimes we do like having a web search attached to our search. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.
All in all, we like the new search if for nothing else than the reduction to the number of clicks a user must perform when trying to find something. The trade-off, however, is that you can no longer search through the specific parts of apps by default—for example, you aren’t able to search through your email by simply typing on the Start screen. You now have to load the Mail application and perform a specific search within that in order to find, say, an Amazon receipt. Close, but not quite, Microsoft.
Windows 8.1 Skydrive integration
We confess, we aren’t big users of Microsoft’s cloud service, but we do appreciate the SkyDrive integration in Windows 8.1. The cloud storage is now accessible via File Explorer (once you’ve attached your account to the operating system, that is). Like Dropbox, draggingand-dropping things between SkyDrive and your local desktop is quite simple—the same kind of convenience you might have enjoyed had you, say, installed the SkyDrive desktop app on Windows 8.
That said, SkyDrive isn’t quite like Dropbox. Microsoft has ingeniously built a fun little twist on synchronization into SkyDrive, whereby files are only loaded to your desktop—assuming you have an online connection to the net—when you want them. Sure, you get the icon and file details to suggest that the file itself is actually there every time you go to click it. Only, it isn’t. Not unless you’ve set it, or its containing folder, to always be available to your system if/when your system’s offline.
Desktop users might not care much about disk space or bandwidth, but we definitely see the usefulness for those using SkyDrive access on, say, a laptop or tablet. Assuming that you don’t have a ton of stuff that will quickly fill up SkyDrive’s 7GB of free space per user, you can even set the OS to save your documents, photos, and files to the cloud by default.
As much as we like SkyDrive’s closer integration with the OS—including all those fun settings you can synchronize to your Microsoft Account, should you wish to tap into your version of the OS on another piece of hardware—there are still annoyances. One, the SkyDrive Modern app remains a pain for non-touch-friendly users.
Second, Microsoft’s tighter integration of SkyDrive costs you one of its more useful features—Fetch, or the ability that users previously had to tap into the full drive architecture of their SkyDrive-connected systems to grab any file on the desktop they wanted. It was akin to a having a permanent network tunnel to one’s connected systems, and one that was as ideal for grabbing files as Google’s Remote Desktop app is for controlling one’s system from afar. Alas, Microsoft kills off this helpful feature in Windows 8.1. You can still use a Windows 8.1 system to grab files from a non-Windows 8.1 PC, but Windows 8.1 systems cannot have their files grabbed.
Windows 8.1's new Windows store
While Apple and Google still win the day with the usefulness of their respective app stores, Microsoft has at least put noticeable effort into making its store more practical, more browse-able, and just all-around more user-friendly.
Loading the Modern app brings up the same ol’ familiar (and horribly horizontal-scrolling) interface one should be used to by now. However, Microsoft puts its app recommendations front-and-center, in addition to lists of trending apps, new apps, and the much-anticipated listing of top apps by price (free or paid). That’s much, much better than the crappy, categorical scrolling of Windows 8.
Even better, right-clicking anywhere within the Windows Store app presents a topmost bar bearing the aforementioned categories, should you wish to peruse specific type of apps. Each category gets its own trending, new, and top free/paid listing. Kudos to Microsoft for the changes—now how about getting to work on offering some popular apps? (Instagram, anyone?)
[highlight] Overall Windows 8.1 impressions [/highlight]
At the end of the day, we can’t help but feel as though we’re sitting in a barrel on the edge of a waterfall—that Microsoft is but one, tiny push away from giving users everything they’ve asked for (namely, a more explicit desktop/mobile split). We’re so close already—even that new little Start button in Windows 8.1, while somewhat pitiful, is a ray of hope.
We’re being a bit overdramatic, of course, as we generally appreciate all the tweaks that Microsoft has brought to the table in Windows 8.1. While they mainly center on personalization, customization, and one’s core experience with the operating system, the updated search features and SkyDrive integration—for those who use it—are welcome additions.
Modern-based system settings are less of a pain in the butt (but could be further improved), and some of the other tweaks are still only really applicable to hardcore finger-tappers, like Microsoft’s improved split-screen treatment for its Modern apps. If you’re running Windows 8, you really don’t have much of a reason not to upgrade. If you’re still a Windows 7 user stuck on the fence, it’s a little trickier.
Windows 8.1 is certainly more compelling of an experience than the now seemingly forgotten Windows 8. However, you’re still going to face off against a tablet experience packed into a desktop operating system. Modern apps, while improved, will still lack the poweruser conventions (and speed) of their desktop-based counterparts. For desktop users, your standard monitor will be of little use for Windows 8.1’s touchscreen-themed tweaks. You’ll wonder why your system’s settings are split between two different environments. The
list goes on.
Should you give Windows 8.1 a go? Given that it doesn’t look like Microsoft is going to give us a 100 percent desktop-centric Windows moving forward, you’re going to have to take the new OS plunge sometime; Windows 8.1 makes the water just a little bit warmer.
