Windows 8.1: Update

I just installed the Windows 8.1 update. The most important thing I can tell you is DO NOT start it after 6 PM. It took over 3 hours to install on my laptop this evening. It took about 2 hours to download and pre-install the update, then the reboot / configuration took another 45 minutes.

Before you get started, I recommend you read this review from The Verge. It's pretty thorough and informative and tells you what you will and won't get from the update (e.g. still no Start button in desktop. Anyway, here's the article: Windows 8.1 review.

To get the update started, log into your computer like you normally would, then navigate to the Store, as explained in my 12 Oct article.

When you open the Store, you'll see a link / button to install the Windows 8.1 Update. Click on it and the download / install process will begin.

Like I said, for my laptop, it took about 2 hours to download and run the pre-install process before letting me know it was time to reboot. During this timeframe, you can do whatever you want - I was surfing Facebook, chatting with friends, playing games, etc.

The reboot / configuration process took about 45 minutes and appeared to actually perform as many as 3 partial reboots between phases. As this process is running, you'll see these phases:

• Applying changes (no idea what's actually happening here)
• Preparing devices (downloading, installing, and configuring the appropriate device drivers)
• Applying PC settings (more vagueness)
• Setting up a few more things (WHAT THINGS?)

Each of these will be accompanied by a percentage meter that gives you an indication of the progress. No more "progress meter" bar like in previous version of Windows. And, you may see vague phases in between these that say "Getting ready".

Once the reboot / config process completes, you'll need to sign in again with your user account and accept the End User License Agreement (EULA). That's followed by several basic configuration tasks such as do you want to use Bing to search in Internet Explorer? Do you want to have your computer automatically download and install important updates? Do you want to Defender to report suspicious files back to MS for evaluation as possible malware? Etc.

Once that completes, you'll go through several more configuration phases:

• Taking care of a few things
• Installing your app

During this process you'll be advised not to turn off your computer. Duh.

Once everything finally finishes, you'll end up on your Start screen. I've read and heard that a lot of people are noticing that their computer is noticeably faster. I haven't noticed that yet.

I did notice some things, though:

• As soon as the update completed, Toshiba update was telling me to install certain driver and application updates so that everything would be compatible with Windows 8.1. (I'm installing them now.)
• As soon as the update completed, I had errors opening certain items that I didn't have issues with before. (Maybe another reboot will resolve this.)

Before the update, when you moved your mouse to the lower left corner, you'd see a preview of the Start screen. Now you see the new Windows logo and you can click on it to toggle between the Start screen and the Desktop.

Rumors of the return of the Star button have been greatly exaggerated. If you need the Start button / Start menu THAT badly, there are freeware apps to give you that feature. I use Classic Shell, as addressed in my 23 Sep post. I certainly don't NEED it, but it's a nice option.


Windows 8.1 doesn't appear to be a major departure from Windows 8. It really seems more like a Service Pack to resolve several issues. Anyway, I'll drive on with the blog as before and address topics as they relate to both versions of the OS.

I'll also try to throw in some Windows 7 topics once I finally finish these first few Window 8 posts.

As always, constrictive criticism is welcome, so feel free to comment.

Windows 8: Initial Boot Up and Configuration, Part 2

Hi. I'm back. I've been kind of busy lately and had some personal stuff to focus on.
 
The short draft I made a couple weeks ago for this post listed only two items:

• Installing games
• Installing 3rd-party software such as Chrome.

 A couple weeks ago, I had some ideas of what I wanted to show you, but I seem to have forgotten any "important" points. So, I'll just wing it.

BTW, in case you haven't caught on, as an IT Geek, I admittedly have a weird sense of humor. You might want to learn to deal with it 'cause it ain't goin' away. And if you're a spelling / grammar Nazi, get over that, too. I'm not writing a graded term paper for Lit or shootin' for a Pulitzer. I'm trying to make these posts informative AND fun. I know some people find this stuff really dry and I want to avoid that.

So, on with the show.

Installing games can be done several ways, depending what type of media you're installing from. If you're installing from a CD or DVD, you put the drive in the drive and follow the normal steps. Autorun will probably present you with a pop-up menu asking what you want to do with the disc. You can select the setup or install option, as appropriate. I installed most of my games this way since I have the optical discs. I did it from the desktop as if I were still using Win7.

If you've already installed the game, and need the CD / DVD to run the game, you'll probably see the same autorun pop-up asking what you'd like to do. Usually, if you select the setup option, it'll boot to the same menu as when you originally installed the game, but will now have the option to play instead of install. I usually click the "X" in the upper right corner to close the autorun pop-ups and launch the game from my Start menu.

Installing Windows games from the Windows 8 Start screen is a little different. Let me back up a minute. Installing 3rd party games from optical media on the Win8 Start screen is very similar to the Desktop process. installing games from the Windows Store is the difference process that I'm referring to.

On your Win8 Start screen, you may see a section called "Games". I don't remember if I set that up myself or not. Either way, you'll see a tile with a silhouette of an Xbox controller that says "Games".

Click on that tile, and you'll see something similar to this. If you scroll all the way to the left, it'll also show any Xbox account you may have set up. If you scroll all the way to the right, you'll see something like this:

Click on the "windows games store" hyperlink and that's exactly where you'll go next.

As you can see in the screenshot, you can sort by new releases or genres. Just like most of the Win8 tiles menu screens, you can scroll left and right and check out games. Clicking on a tile will give you information about the game and offer you the option to install it. Some of the games are free and some are "for pay".

This is where I installed Solitaire, Minesweeper, Pac Man, etc, from. No, Solitaire and Minesweeper are no longer installed as basic apps in Win8. You have to download them from the store.

BTW, Win8 has something new. Some of the games can supposedly run on a Win8 PC AND on an Xbox console. I'm not sure how that works since I haven't tried it. Maybe I'll try it this week let you know how it goes. One thing I do know is this . . . I read in several places about how Win8 would supposedly let you play Xbox games. Not entirely true. Games made for Xbox will NOT play natively in Win8. There are supposedly emulator apps that allow that, but I haven't tried it . . . . hmmm . . . . sounds like another possible future post . . . .

Installing other non-games apps is a similar process. You'll see a tile on your Win8 Start simply called "Store". I think that's supposed to be a shopping bag on the tile.

Click on the Store tile, and you'll see (dah dah dah) Store.

There are numerous genres from which you can select apps. They come up in my laptop in the following order:

• Spotlight
• Games
• Social
• Entertainment
• Photo
• Music & Video
• Sports
• Books & Reference
• News & Weather
• Health & Fitness
• Food & Dining
• Lifestyle
• Shopping
• Travel
• Finance
• Productivity
• Tool
• Security
• Business
• Education
• Government

I don't recall which genre contains apps like Chrome. But, you can click on the "Top Paid", "Top Free", and "New & Rising" tiles to see what's available in each genre. As with the games, if you find something that interests you, you can click on the tile for more information and decide if you want to install it or not. Also just like with the games, some apps are free and some aren't.

 

 

It's really THAT simple.

 

Buuuuuut, if you're like me and still in "transition mode", you can do what I did . . . . I opened the Desktop, launched Internet Explorer, navigated to http://www.google.com/ and selected the option to install Chrome. It'll detect your OS and install the appropriate version. This'll allow you to launch the "normal" Chrome from your desktop, or launch the app from your Win8 Start screen.

 

My next post will cover how to modify your Win8 Start screen. You may have noticed from my screenshots that I've already modified mine a bit. I found a couple existing web pages that explain the process. I'll paraphrase them and share those URLs.

 

As always, I'm open to questions and constructive comments.