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In Pictures: The Windows 8.1 Preview
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1. Microsoft's Most Expansive Service Pack To Date

Windows 8.1 (previously referred to asWindows Blue”) represents a major update to Windows 8. Microsoft is showing that it’s still committed to the Modern UI (the proper nomenclature for the interface formerly known as Metro). Windows 8.1 adds numerous settings to the Modern UI, as well as a handful of new and updated apps, all in the interest of keeping users in the new environment longer.

But this latest version also shows that Microsoft is attentive to the reactions of users who weren’t convinced by the Modern UI and simply want to remain in the older Desktop environment. Windows 8.1 restores the Start button (though not the Start Menu) and makes it possible to boot directly to the Desktop.

The Preview version is available at preview.windows.com. Unfortunately, running Windows 8.1 in a virtual machine is hit-or-miss. So, before taking the Preview for a spin, back up your data. And, should you decide to run the Windows 8.1 Preview on your main machine, be aware that you’ll need to download all of your Windows Store Apps again when you switch over to the final version. If you’re more cautious and prefer to wait for the final release, read on for more information about the biggest changes thus far.

2. Return Of The Start Button

That’s right folks, the Start Button is back! Well, on the taskbar at least; the corresponding Start Menu is still missing in action!

Clicking the Start Button brings up either the Start Screen, with its Live Tiles, or the slightly reconfigured All Apps screen, which is somewhat closer to the traditional Start Menu's content. In Windows 8.1, you’re able to choose the screen that gets displayed by default.

Right-clicking on the Start Button (or Windows + X keys) brings up the advanced menu just like the current Start Tile in Windows 8. The advanced menu in Windows 8 also gets enriched, but more on that later.

3. Mitigating Metro, By Default

Along with the return of the Start Button, one function that a majority of non-touch PC users were clamoring for was the ability to boot directly to the Desktop without seeing the Modern UI Start Screen at all. You're able to do that in Windows 8.1. A new Navigation tab in the Taskbar and Navigation properties window (right-click on Taskbar) lets you control how Windows behaves when it boots.

In another concession to traditional PC users, Microsoft also adds the ability to disable Hot Corners. From here, you can set the All Apps screen to appear when the Start Button is clicked instead of the Start Screen.

So, if you hated Metro, you now have more options to summarily ignore it.

4. Shut Down From The Desktop

With Windows 8, you had to call up the Start Screen or the Charms Bar if you wanted to restart or shut down your PC. In Windows 8.1, the Shut down menu is once again accessible from the Desktop. All you need to do is right-click on the Start Button and hover over the Shut down entry to bring up options for Sleep, Shut down, and Restart.

5. New Tiles, Both Small And Large

Live Tiles are definitely the most iconic feature of the Start Screen. Windows 8 only offers two sizes: a square and a double-sized rectangle. Windows 8.1 adds two more sizes. One is smaller than the current square, while the other is larger than the current rectangle. The Tiles are now referred to as Small, Medium, Wide, and Large.

Small Tiles are roughly equivalent in size to regular icons, making them very useful if you want a denser, more mouse-friendly Start Screen. Unfortunately, these Tiles aren’t Live, so they won’t update with information like the other sizes. However, this makes them great for apps that don't need to be updated, and perfect for Desktop apps that lack Modern UI tiles at all.

On the other end of the spectrum, Large Tiles can display twice the information as Windows 8’s big, rectangular Live Tile (now referred to as “Wide”). These are handy for reading the contents of your latest email or displaying an upcoming Calendar meeting directly on the Start Screen. And for you desktop-only users, should you need to escape the Modern UI in a panic, the Desktop Tile can now be made to dominate the Start Screen.

6. Customizing Tiles

Customizing the Start Screen is slightly more convenient in Windows 8.1. Right-clicking anywhere on it (or pressing the Menu key on the keyboard) brings up a new Customize button in the lower App Bar, where the All Apps button is in Windows 8.

When Customize mode is engaged, the Tiles darken and zoom out slightly. Name group also appears above each Tile group, allowing you to name and rename clusters of tiles without zooming out to Group view.

From there, multiple Tiles can be selected, making it easier to move several of them at the same time, or group them together in one operation. You can also uninstall multiple apps at the same time, too.

7. A Smarter, Faster Search Charm

The Search function of the Charms Bar is also reworked in Windows 8.1. Results now automatically come from Apps, Settings, Files, Bing, SkyDrive, Windows Store, and any other apps on your system. In Windows 8, you must first define the scope of the search by choosing what to search for (default is Apps). With Bing included, Web search results now appear below the list of all possible local results.

8. Never Fear, Search Hero Is Here!

Now, when you press Enter on a search, the results are presented in the form of an interactive App Microsoft calls the Search Hero. If you enter the name of a band, a Hero will display the artist, his or her top hits, photos, and so on. If you’re planning a trip to France, you get photos, information on current events, and attractions worth visiting. The idea is not only to give you a broader set of results that reaches into the Web, but to also categorize the most appropriate results in an attractive, easy-to-read fashion.

9. All Apps: Your New Start Menu

With Windows 8.1, the All Apps screen becomes as essential as the Start Screen itself. When you install an application, it’s no longer automatically placed on the Start Screen, but in All Apps. So, in effect, the All Apps screen acts as the de facto replacement for the estranged Start Menu.

All Apps is now accessible from an arrow button in the lower left-hand corner of the Start Screen, and touchscreen users can simply swipe between them. And as we showed you earlier, you can even make the All Apps screen the default destination of the Start Button.

An application-specific search box is located in the upper-right corner, and the icons can be arranged by name, installation date, category, or even frequency of use.

10. Making Charms More Mouse-Friendly

In Windows 8, calling up the Charms Bar with the mouse meant that you had to drag it toward the middle of the display to select a Charm after first activating the bar with a hot corner. The Charms Bar was already anything but charming to mouse users, but the extra drag event was even more cumbersome on large displays with high resolutions.

Windows 8.1 addresses this by having the Charms appear closer to whichever right-side hot corner you used to bring the bar up, minimizing cursor travel and making Charm selection faster.

11. New Modern UI Customization Options

A new Personalize menu in the Settings Charm lets you change the color scheme and background of the Modern UI. You can still choose between background “tattoos”, but now the main background and accent colors are independently selectable. There are a huge number of color choices for each: 324 for the background and 216 for the accent.

Selecting the Personalization menu from the Charms Bar on the Desktop opens the Personalization window of the Control Panel.

12. Desktop Wallpaper In Metro

Windows 8.1 lets you use the same background image for the Desktop and the Modern UI touch environment. Now, when you switch from the Desktop to the Start or All Apps screens, you don’t feel as if you've completely changed environments.

This seemingly tiny tweak really does a tremendous job of making the transition gentler and more natural. It makes the Start and All Apps screens feel more like simple fullscreen Start Menus, such as Launchpad in OS X or Dash in Ubuntu, than the shocking shift to a completely different user interface.

13. More Flexible Snapping

With Windows 8, you can only display two Modern UI apps on the same screen at the same time, and one of them was in a fixed, sidebar-like format. In Windows 8.1 it’s possible to display two, three, or four apps on the same monitor (a minimum screen resolution of 2560x1200 is required for the fourth app). What’s more, the width of the apps can be adjusted freely. So, you could, for example, “snap” two apps and have each occupy one half of the screen.

And these new snap rules apply on a per-screen basis. If you’re rocking three monitors, you can display up to twelve apps.

14. Expanded Modern UI PC Settings

Windows 8.1 also stands out for the new settings it adds to the PC Settings menu, the Modern UI version of the Control Panel. Although the Control Panel is still very much a presence (and going back and forth is still confusing), touch-oriented users won’t need open the Desktop Control Panel quite as often now that more settings are available through PC Settings.

15. Lock Screen Enhancements

The settings controlling Windows 8’s Lock Screen let you shoot photos, even when the system is locked. Another one lets you answer Skype calls. Additionally, the Lock Screen display can be set up to operate as a digital picture frame, or to display a slide show of the photos in your Pictures folder.

16. Display Management In The Modern UI

Many adopters of Windows 8 complained about going back and forth between the Modern UI and the Desktop in order to change resolutions. In Windows 8.1, the Modern UI’s PC Settings now includes a function for changing your display resolution, managing multiple displays, adjusting screen orientation, and setting the timeout before the display goes into standby mode. You can also manage the new compatibility with Miracast, which lets you wirelessly mirror your device screen to another display.

17. Device Management In The Modern UI

The Devices tab of Windows 8.1’s PC Settings lets you add or remove hardware, manage printers, toggle whether or not to download over metered data connections, and configure the default save-to location.

18. Network Management In The Modern UI

The Windows 8.1 Preview features a new Network screen in PC Settings that hosts settings for connecting to various types of networks. Although Wi-Fi properties are available in Windows 8 via the Settings Charm, and while 8.1's Network screen serves primarily to connect to Wi-Fi access points, it now lets you connect to a VPN without switching back to the Desktop Control Panel.

19. Notification Management In The Modern UI

The Notifications screen in Windows 8’s PC Settings has a panel for managing the applications running in the Modern UI. It lets you specify the applications permitted to send notifications to the Lock Screen and define times of the day you don't want to be disturbed.

20. App Management In The Modern UI

The Search & apps menu item in Windows 8’s revamped PC Settings utility holds a new entry called App sizes. From here, you can monitor how much storage space each Modern UI app is using. This feature is definitely more geared towards users of mobile devices where disk space is limited. In fact, this screen only tracks the disk usage of Modern UI apps purchased through the Windows Store.

21. Configuring Default Applications

The Defaults page in the Search & apps menu is, not surprisingly, for configuring the default applications used by your system. It’s where you choose your default Web browser, Email client, Music player, Video player, Photo viewer, Calendar provider, and Map address provider, for starters. Default apps can also be chosen by file type or even protocol.

Desktop software is defined here as well, and we anticipate that anyone who uses the Desktop exclusively will still rush to this screen right after getting Windows 8.1 installed.

22. Deeper SkyDrive Integration

Like it or not, SkyDrive is an even more tightly-integrated part of Windows 8.1. You no longer need to install a synchronization app on the Desktop; SkyDrive is automatically listed between Favorites and This PC in the Desktop File Explorer, unless you're on a Local User Account. Plus, Windows RT users can now utilize SkyDrive on the Desktop.

23. SkyDrive: Now For Power Users

Now that SkyDrive is being more prominently featured, Microsoft necessarily upgraded its cloud service. You can now choose the folders that get synchronized to your device for offline access. If you search the content of your files from the Desktop File Explorer, even the SkyDrive files that aren’t synchronized still show up in the results. Plus, SkyDrive’s entire folder structure is displayed (again, even what isn’t synchronized locally). For example, if you open a folder that’s not synchronized, thumbnails appear even though the photos themselves aren’t physically there.

SkyDrive’s list of the settings that get synced between your different Windows 8.1 devices is expanded and reorganized with more granularity, too.

24. SkyDrive: The Modern UI File Manager

Indeed, the Modern UI went without this most basic operating system element up until now. To the PC power user, we can't live without it. Microsoft seeks to remedy the situation in Windows 8.1. While early screenshots of the Milestone releases pointed to a dedicated Modern UI File Explorer, the latest builds of the Preview reveal an option in SkyDrive called "This PC". Selecting it reveals the contents of your local storage instead of your SkyDrive account.

25. File History Is No Longer Desktop-Only

Windows 8 introduced File History, an automatic backup system fairly similar to Time Machine on OS X. Like Time Machine, File History lets you go back and recover older versions of files that you modified or even deleted. The function improves with Windows 8.1, and can now be controlled from the Modern UI environment. In Windows 8, File History was one of the few new Desktop-only features.

26. Internet Explorer: Turning It Up To 11

Just like Windows 8, version 8.1 also ships with two Internet Explorers: one for the Desktop and the other for the Modern UI. IE11’s design is reworked for a better touch experience, with all controls clusterd in the lower App Bar instead of split between the App Bar and the upper Navigation Bar. Internet Explorer 11 is also more compatible with the latest standards than IE10. Not only is HTML5 support improved, but the browser now supports the MPEG-DASH video streaming standard and WebGL.

27. IE11 Gets Tab Sync

In Windows 8, IE10 was able to use SkyDrive for synchronizing your Favorites and passwords between different Windows-based PCs and tablets. Windows 8.1’s IE11 goes even further. Like Chrome, IE can now synchronize open tabs between all your Windows devices, including Windows Phone 8.

28. Finally, A Calculator!

The Modern UI Calculator app is totally new to Windows 8.1 (one of the more embarrassing oversights in the original release). This basic OS feature has three modes: standard, scientific, and converter. Incredibly simple, yet absolutely essential.

29. Finally, An Alarm Clock!

Want your tablet to act as your alarm clock? With Windows 8.1, it can! Microsoft corrects another Windows 8 oversight by including an Alarm App, which lets you set multiple alarm times simultaneously. You can also set alarms for later and simply activate them as needed. The Alarm app includes stopwatch and timer functions, too.

30. Finally, A Sound Recorder!

Keeping with the theme of correcting Windows 8’s omissions, Microsoft includes another shockingly-absent utility: Sound Recorder. This is another completely new Modern UI app. As its name describes, Sound Recorder lets you record sound from the microphone on your desktop or tablet PC. The application is basic, but works well for memorializing conversations, audio memos, epiphanies, or anything else that doesn't require super high-quality playback.

31. The Cookbook With Hands-Free Page-Turning

Food & Drink is an entirely new feature for Windows 8.1. It's another Bing app, a lot like Finance, News, Sports, and Travel, offering food and cocktail recipes, culinary tips, and a wine list. But Food & Drink has a new hook: Hands-Free Cooking Mode. You're able to use your tablet's webcam to help you page through recipes without touching the display. That’ll come in handy when you’re up to your elbows in dough!

Food & Drink also contains a shopping list function and meal planner.

32. The App That’s Looking Out For You

The other new Bing app that comes standard with Windows 8.1 is called Health & Fitness. It offers a wealth of advice for watching your diet and taking care of your body. The app features exercise instructions and fitness videos, functions for tracking fitness goals as well as medical conditions and treatments, a ton of pharmacological reference information, and even interactive 3D maps of the human body.

33. Reading List

Like the "reading list" or "read later" feature of some Web browsers, the Reading List app is a place to store things for later. Unlike similarly-named features in browsers, the Reading List app isn't simply for webpages, but just about anything from other Modern UI apps. The Reading List is basically a new unified destination for all kinds of things, and items can be added to the Reading List via the Share Charm.

34. Windows Store: The Grand Re-Opening

The Windows Store undergoes some remodeling for Windows 8.1. It now does a better job of finding the best and most useful applications. Instead of category-based organization, it offers multiple lists: Spotlight, Picks for you, Popular now, New Releases, Top Paid, and Top free. The lists can, however, be filtered by the old categories. For example, you can view only Games suggested for you, or only the most popular paid Productivity apps.

35. Xbox Music: The Remix

The Xbox Music app in Windows 8.1 is entirely rewritten. It now gives priority to the music in your library rather than to online services. Online services are still present though, along with the automatic compilation function. In addition, there’s now a Radio feature that automatically creates “stations” for you with music based on your tastes.

The Xbox Video app is also redesigned to be simpler and easier to navigate.

36. Photorealistic 3D Maps

Even though it’s not part of the Preview version, the Windows 8.1 Map app should be much more evolved than the Windows 8 implementation. It's expected to have extensive search functions and personalized suggestions, voice support, trivia, and most of all, 3D displays of certain cities.

37. Modern UI Video Editing

A new app called Movie Moments is intended to be the Modern UI equivalent of Movie Maker. Although it isn't standard in the Preview, Movie Moments could be available soon in the Windows Store. The app lets you trim and assemble sequences, add music, and add text.