What’s new in Windows 8.1 Update ?

Windows 8 has undoubtedly been a milestone in terms of change but not success. Microsoft has been patiently listening to the community and fixing everything possible to please its customers. The windows 8.1 update did manage to please few but much more was expected from the redmond based company. It has been no surprise that Windows 8 has failed to hit the bull’s eye or as a matter of fact, anywhere near it.

Microsoft is now back with an update to Windows 8.1, it has listened to the feedback and we are safe to say at least few users are going to be kind-of satisfied with the changes implemented. The major changes include the following –

Wider hardware compatibility

Until now windows 8.1 needed a minimum of 1GB RAM and 32GB of storage space to run smoothly but with the latest update, Microsoft has managed to cut it by half. The new minimum requirements are 1GB RAM along with 16GB of storage space.

Quick Power Off Button

Another issue which almost everyone had was the non availability of the power button within reach, Microsoft has fixed this by placing a power off shortcut right on the start screen towards the upper right.

Boot into your desktop

This was the first issue that frustrated users since day 1, The metro UI was more for the touch based users and it was a bad decision to force people to use it on non touch devices. With this update, users can directly boot into the desktop like previous versions of windows.

Universal Taskbar implementation

All of the above implementations were really necessary and good but  this specific decision to implement the taskbar through out the OS, irrespective of the fact whether you use modern UI or classic windows UI. As such, any app running the new modern UI would have its content on the bottom obstructed by the taskbar which is a real bad approach by microsoft. We hope to see this fixed before the update rolls out.

No more annoying metro apps for images/videos

While you are in the desktop mode and choose to open any of your images/videos, they no longer open in the annoying metro apps. Rather they will now open in desktop mode.