Windows 8.1 Is Here!!!

[dave068]

I'm downloading it now from Windows Store and it's taking ages. It's just over 3 Gig to download and the way it's going I might just have the new Start Button in time for Xmas!

[AB Editor]

Ha!

Let us know what you think when it's finished.

[SlackAlice]

Best of luck, I'm staying with W7, until all you kind people have ironed out all the bugs by acting as free paid developers.

[heathfield]

My WinXP is a bit slow these days, but I'm perfectly happy with it. I remember MS being castigated for an OS that had 500 million lines of programing in it, but 3 Gig? Good lord !

[AB Editor]

Windows 8 has been very quick for me. I have a feeling it's actually less resource heavy than XP was? Might be worth looking at an upgrade to get more life out of your current PC.

[hc4361]

I've been using it for months.
I installed W8 when it was released last December and then upgraded to the beta version of W8.1 when that was released.

I love W8 - find it much faster to load/shut down, love the whole look and layout and find it easy to use.

People used to complain about pressing the Start icon to shut down the pc - it wasn't logical. Now they are complaining about the lack of a Start button.

[DrFilth]

how do you shut it down if you don't have a start button

[hc4361]

You hover over the right of the screen and the charms appear. (Or swipe from the right side if you have a touch screen)
Click settings - power - shut down.

[AB Editor]

I like the context search very much.

How is 8.1 hc?

[jake-the-peg]

Surely by now you know Microsoft has 2 teams of developers writing alternate operating systems

The Good team and the bad team

Win 95 Bad
Win 97 Good
Millenium - Bad
XP - Good
Vista -Bad
Win 7 - Good
Win 8 - Bad

I'm sticking with Win 7 until 9 comes along!

[hc4361]

I'll be installing the final version of 8.1 today or tomorrow but the beta version is great.

As you say, Ed, it is much lighter on resources than Windows 7, XP and Vista and is speedy.

I suppose if I wanted to I could put the 'Power' icon in my taskbar for quick access but I don't see it as a hassle.

[Old_Geezer]

All they had to do was rename the start button and the complaints for shut down, and later for a missing button, would not have been an issue.

Luckiily I'm still on XP at work for at least a week. At home I'm tolerating, with as much good grace as I can, the annoyances of 7. Not going to change to 8 until forced to or until they make it look professional rather than some kind of comic, that apparently brings up stuff when you hover that you probably didn't want comoing up in the first place. (Shades of 7 there then.)

Wonder if one can skip 8 and it's upversions, and wait until MS move towards sanity ?

[DrFilth]

hc4361 some seem to like it most do not from what i hear

[jake-the-peg]

yes finger trouble on the keyboard there

And yes you can add in NT

NT7 Bad
NT8 good

[jno]

I've never had much trouble with Windows, but by looking at jake's list I now discover why: I've unknowingly skipped all the bad ones.

[bibblebub]

Is 8.1 currently only available via Windows Store? I was under the impression that doing the usual check for updates in Control Panel was all that was required, with a download of only a few hundred MB - but I've just tried checking for that update and there's nothing there yet.

[bibblebub]

^ should have mentioned that it's for the upgrade from 8 to 8.1

[DrFilth]

will you be able to buy a new computer with this windows 8.1 already on so you still have a start button and the look of vista/ windows 7

[bibblebub]

I must have misinterpreted something that I found online about the upgrade so I have also started the download from Windows Store.