So I’ve been playing around wit Windows 8.1 lately as it just was released last week and I have to say I am overall pretty happy about it. Microsoft added a lot of cool new customizations to the start screen. This includes being able to resize app tiles and they finally added back the start button….YAY! I know a lot of people are excited about that. Also, things seem to be more transparent and less of the flat color design. Also, Microsoft has added Search Everywhere (which includes a Bing Search from the desktop) and better multi tasking with up to three full screen tiles running at one time. Other than that not too much of a change from Windows 8 but I still think people will be happy considering it is a free update.

With this said, there are still a lot of bugs. This is to be expected though as Microsoft still has not come out with a release date for Windows 8.1. Some of the issues I’ve seen so far include GPU issues. My monitor kept telling me it had no connection until I unplugged my monitor and plugged it back in. I also have a recurring issue where I will randomly will lose internet connection but the computer still says I have a connection. Finally, I have an issue with the pictures app. Every other picture is blank for some reason and will not show up. Also, the live tile isn’t working. They have been releasing some updates and stability has improved a bit…but I still notice a lot of stability issues.

Ultimately, I am really excited for this update to be stable but if you can deal with an unstable system (or have a VirtualBox) it’s worth giving it a try. I’ll add some more updates as I run across issues in the future.

Where you can get it:

preview.microsoft.com – go here if you already have Windows 8

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-8/preview-download – to get an ISO file