Gadgetory

in what seems to be becoming kind of a trend these days Microsoft has listened to user feedback and with its Windows 8.1 Update is directly addressing some of the missteps it took with Windows 8 first up the Start button makes its triumphant return left clicking on it will switch between desktop and touch interfaces but a right-click gives you options you've probably been missing for the past eight months another off requested change was the ability to boot directly to the desktop and now you can simply you right-click on the taskbar select properties choose the navigation tab and under Start screen check go to the desktop instead of start when I sign in and after that everything will be all old timey for you search was already really powerful when those eight but now gets a level increase search now delivers results from your PC apps and the web in one fell swoop popular searches like known actors get a hero page less popular search queries like me get typical web stuff mostly completely unrelated to anything I actually do know that's not my Wikipedia page I don't even have one settings get a complete overhaul with Microsoft adding plenty of options like power and sleep and display options among plenty of others previously these were only the able through the desktop but now make an appearance in touch the built-in camera app now does more than just crop a lot more you can change the brightness and contrast of a pic rotate the image and my favorite is the new color enhancement tool to select the color you want to enhance by dropping the cursor on an asset that shares the same color and then enhance or D enhance to your heart's content snap view is now more flexible and can fit up to four apps on screen at once if your screen has at least a 2560 by 1440 resolution that is otherwise you'll see a maximum of three Xbox music is a facelift and now you can create radio stations based on the type of music you like much like Pandora or Spotify and a new interface makes it easier to do things like make playlists finally the Windows story gets a redesign with a cleaner and somewhat more sophisticated and instead of having to always update your apps they'll be updated automatically and only the system admin for the computer you're using can change that option app pages surf is more pertinent information about the apps like reviews ratings and app details there are plenty of other changes but those are kind of the big picture ones that really stood out to me when those 8.1 will be available later this year as a free update to Windows 8 check out cnet.com for further coverage I'm Eric Franklin and this has been a first look at Windows 8.1 preview