Windows 8.1 unveiled: will it change your mind about Windows 8?

Summary: The Start button is back. But that’s just one of a very long list of changes you’ll find in Windows 8.1, which will be available as a preview in a few weeks and will be released before the end of the year. Don’t let the name or the price tag (free) fool you: this is a major update. Here’s what’s inside.

By Ed Bott for The Ed Bott Report | May 30, 2013 — 13:07 GMT (06:07 PDT)

It’s not just about the Start button.

Yes, that’s the most obvious element in Windows 8.1, the much-anticipated update to Windows 8. You’ll find the new Start button, which looks exactly like the Windows 8 Start charm, on the Windows 8.1 desktop, nestled in its old familiar home at the left side of the taskbar. You’ll also find it at the bottom of the app switcher, in place of the Start screen thumbnail that occupies that spot in Windows 8.

But there’s much more to Windows 8.1 than just that tiny button.

Yesterday, I sat down in San Francisco for a two-hour whirlwind tour of Windows 8.1 with Microsoft’s Jensen Harris and Antoine Leblond. It wasn’t a hands-on session, and I didn’t leave the room with a copy of the latest build. Like you, I’ll have to wait until the end of June to dig into this update. (A public preview for Windows 8 and Windows RT is scheduled for release at the beginning of the BUILD developer’s conference. The final version of Windows 8.1 is due before the end of the year and will be delivered free to all Windows 8 and Windows RT users through the Windows Store.)

Still, two hours was long enough to see the sweeping changes that are going into Windows 8.1. Don’t let the “point-one” moniker or the price tag fool you. This is a significant update that clearly represents much more than just a reaction to seven months’ worth of occasionally brutal customer feedback about Windows 8.