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OK I've finally done it and taken the plunge into the latest version of Windows by installing it on my main PC. Yes, Windows 8.1 is now installed and ready to go mainly due to the fact that I've been 'told' that it's better than the original Windows 8 offering which I skipped completely and in a hat-tip to those who convinced me so far so good but not before a little bit of work to get it to work in a way that suits me.

But before we get into that let's cover the basics. Windows 8.1 is a point release as mentioned to the much 'Marmited' Windows 8 which addresses a number of issues and confusion experienced by new users. Now like I said apart from the release candidate and supporting a few units at work I've done pretty well to avoid Windows 8 so I can't really comment on what was apparently wrong with it but with 8.1 I do have to say that I've not had to throw my monitor across the room in a fit of rage so I guess there's been a lot of ironing out.

The Interface Previously Known As Metro

There's no avoiding the elephant in the room which is the new tiled start screen. To be perfectly honest I don't really care for it, mostly because it's for a touch interface and I've installed it on a PC with a keyboard and mouse so it does nothing for me whatsoever. I can see that on a tablet that there is a place for it in your life and you can't please everyone but with the 'Metro' (and yes I'm still going to call it that) interface and the option to drop into the desktop it just gets confusing so the first thing that I did was to banish it from my life. Now with 8.1 you can do this pretty easily with a couple of settings and the next time you login the Windows Desktop is now front and centre. Now I'm not saying there isn't a place for Metro but for the way that I use a PC it just had to go.

The Desktop

Now that that's out of the way we have a PC back and I'm loving it. What Microsoft have done with the desktop elements of 8.1 are pretty phenomenal. It's slick, it's fast and most of all it's stable. I can already notice a marked improvement in performance. It almost feels like I've shoved a shed-load of RAM into my PC but all I've done is upgraded the operating system.

The only problem is as an old school Windows user I love my Start Menu. One of the criticisms of Windows 8 was the lack of a Start Button which Microsoft have reintroduced but all it actually does is to take you back to the Metro interface which I've just gone to lengths to banish. Now there is no option within the OS to add menu back but there is saviour in the form of Classic Shell which is a simple and best of all free app what gives you a Windows XP/7 Start Menu and to be honest this is the icing on the cake as far as I'm concerned. It now means that I can be locked to the desktop at all times and be just as productive as I was in Windows 7 but with the benefits of the improved OS architecture.

With all that sorted I've actually been enjoying my experience over the last few days. Like I say it's really fast. Wake from sleep is greatly improved, launching apps is lightning fast and copying of files from location to location puts a little smile on my face because it's far less clunky that it was in Windows 7 and its predecessors.

The Conclusion

If you're a Windows 7 user there is not a real need to upgrade to Microsoft's latest and greatest. Yes there are performance improvements but not enough to shell out the extortionate amounts they're asking for it. If you're on the original Windows 8 you HAVE to go and get it and hey it's a free upgrade. It's not for everyone but if you know what you're doing you can really make it work for you.

Author

Paul Wright

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