Wayne Williams

I hate waiting for my computer to boot up. My impatience stems from when I owned an XP system that took upwards of five minutes to get to a usable state no matter what I did to try and speed things along. Scarred by that experience I used to leave my system on permanently (just flipping the monitors off when I stepped away), but obviously that wastes electricity. Switching to an SSD, and configuring Windows to boot as quickly as possible, offered a decent solution.

The problem is Windows 8.1 seems to be designed to slow you down. Once your computer has booted up there is a lock screen to clear, then you have to enter your password and log to in your Microsoft account. Obviously Microsoft has done this for security purposes, and that's great. But if you don't share your computer with other people, and are confident no one will have access to your PC, you can configure the OS to bypass both delaying stages and boot straight in.

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Windows 8.1 Update is out today, as if you didn’t know, and is a mandatory update for all users of the latest iteration of the tiled OS.

We’ve covered it in depth here, and Microsoft released a power guide for it yesterday, but if you still want to know more about what’s new, and why you might want to consider upgrading to "New Windows" Microsoft has rolled out a selection of introductory videos.

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Although millions of people will continue to use Windows XP after today, the 'end of life' milestone is still hugely significant. It’s the official end of a very long era for XP.

I remember the operating system’s launch clearly. It took place on Thursday, 25 October, 2001, with events coordinated globally across 63 cities. Microsoft chairman Bill Gates hosted the New York launch, while CEO Steve Ballmer presided over the London event. I attended the latter which was held at the Royal Festival Hall on London's South Bank. Security was very tight -- attendees were searched going in, and our bags were X-rayed -- this was a high profile event, and with the horrors of 9/11 still very raw in everyone’s minds, the organizers were taking no chances.

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One of the (many) new features that the Windows 8.1 Update -- out today -- adds to the OS is a PC Settings tile.

This tile opens the PC Settings screen, saving you having to go through the Charms, and provides access to settings for PC and Devices, Accounts, OneDrive, Search and Apps, Privacy, Network, Time and Language, Ease of Access, Update and Recovery and, most importantly, Control Panel. It also lets you personalize the Lock screen, your account picture, access the Picture Password and view recently used settings. The tile is available in the Apps screen, but isn’t displayed on the Start screen by default.

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Windows 8.1 Update goes officially live tomorrow, and will be pushed out to all Windows 8.1 users via Windows Update. I think it’s an improvement, although it is the third big set of changes for users to master since the OS was first released not quite 18 months ago.

To help potentially confused users discover what’s new, and how to get more from the OS, Microsoft has rolled out an updated Advanced Power User Guide filled with tips and tricks.

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With XP’s end of life imminent, you’d imagine users of the 13 year old OS would be scrambling to upgrade, but as NetMarketShare’s latest statistics show, that’s not the case at all. There have been a lot of XP-related surveys produced lately, and the results make for interesting reading.

IObit surveyed 5,000 XP users and found that 61 percent of them were keen to stay with the OS. The company, which has just released PCtransfer to make the transition from one PC or OS to another a little bit easier, also found that 57 percent of users were put off by upgrading because of the fear of losing important data. 38 percent of those surveyed cited the time it would take to make the switch as the main reason for avoiding the task.

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Thirteenth in a series. Apple has confirmed that its Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), will be kicking off on Monday June 2, at San Francisco’s Moscone West. The five day event will give developers (and the press of course) the chance to "learn about the future of iOS and OS X". At last year’s conference Apple unveiled iOS 7, Mac OS X 10.9 Mavericks, a new MacBook Air lineup, iTunes Radio, iCloud Keychain, and much more.

In other news, Microsoft says its newly released Office apps have been downloaded 12 million times since launch.

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In an effort to make its tiled OS more popular, Microsoft has been forced to make a series of compromises. People haven’t been rushing out to buy touch screen computers, and Windows tablets lag a long way behind Android and iOS devices, so with the Windows 8.1 Update Microsoft has made changes designed to appeal to keyboard and mouse users and further bridge the gap between the desktop and the Modern UI.

Sure, the result is a Frankenstein product, and the compromises made along the way are obvious and awkward, but you know what? Windows 8.1 with Update installed, is actually a damn fine OS. If this was the product that Microsoft had rolled out as a successor to Windows 7, I suspect it would have been a lot more popular and received a lot more praise.

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Microsoft has just unveiled the Windows 8.1 Update at Build, and it will be rolling it out to users of the tiled operating system on April 8. MSDN subscribers can download it today.

Thanks to leaks, we already knew a lot about it, and even posted our thoughts here previously on BetaNews. I called it a Frankenstein product stitched together with compromises, which it undoubtedly is. My colleague Mark Wilson calls it the final nail in Windows 8.1’s coffin, but Brian Fagioli thinks it’s great. You’ll soon be able to try it out for yourself, but in the meantime here’s what it offers.

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This year’s Build developer conference is set to get underway shortly, and Microsoft will, among other things, be introducing a major update for Windows 8.1 designed to make it more appealing to keyboard and mouse users.

Yesterday I reported on NetMarketShare’s breakdown of desktop operating system market share in March, which showed XP losing some ground, Windows 7 growing nicely, and Windows 8.x creeping upwards still, but very slowly. Today StatCounter releases its figures, and while the percentages are different, the overall picture remains just as gloomy for Microsoft’s tiled operating system.

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Whether you love or hate them, Google’s April Fools' Day announcements are something we’ve come to expect, and they’re usually pretty creative, even if they don’t fool many people. Some of this year’s pranks include Google+ Auto Awesome Photobombs with The Hoff, Gmail Shelfie and Google Maps: Pokémon Challenge.

Ten years ago though, Google made what was easily its greatest April Fools' announcement ever -- introducing the world to Gmail, a new free webmail service. Few people fell for it though, as the 1GB of free storage being offered was too fantastical. Hotmail, the market leading service at the time, gave its free users just 2MB and had a policy of ruthlessly deleting new messages once that limit was reached. If you wanted to increase the size of your inbox to 10MB you could, but at the cost of $19.95 a year. And here was a search engine promising 500 times as much storage, for free? Yeah, right. Nice try Google!

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In a week Windows XP will reach its end of life. Microsoft has done its best to tell people they need to switch operating systems or face the consequences, but if the latest desktop OS share trend from NetMarketShare is anything to go by, Windows XP users really don’t seem too worried. In March, XP’s share dropped just 1.84 percent, from 29.53 percent to 27.69 percent. Hardly the signs of a mass exodus, although at least the share fell this month, unlike the previous two, when XP usage actually went up.

Microsoft has, naturally enough, pushed XP users towards upgrading to Windows 8.x, or "new Windows" as the tech giant likes to refer to it, but Windows 7, or "old Windows" proved yet again to be far the bigger draw.

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Whatever size tablet you opt for, there’s a good chance you’ll fill the available space in no time at all. Apps, photos, and HD movies all consume a sizable amount of space, forcing you to manage your storage wisely.

If you own an iPhone or iPad you can boost your device’s available capacity with an LaCie Fuel 2.5 inch wireless drive. The LaCie Fuel offers wireless streaming to up to five devices without an internet connection, and Airplay compatibility for mirroring content on a larger screen. It can also create its own Wi-Fi network and act as a hotspot when connected to the internet via Wi-Fi.

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After repeatedly bashing Google for going through its user's personal messages in the whole "Don't Get Scroogled by Gmail" campaign, Microsoft went one step beyond automatically scanning messages for keywords in order to serve up adverts, which Google does, and actually read a user’s private email, which Google doesn’t (as far as we know anyway).

Microsoft felt its actions were justified -- it was trying to prove a blogger had leaked pre-release Windows builds -- but users were rightly concerned that Microsoft had shown it was willing and able to read their personal emails should it choose to. The statement the company issued in light of the concern over its practices was hardly reassuring, and suggested Microsoft would do it again should the need arise. Today, Brad Smith, General Counsel & Executive Vice President, Legal & Corporate Affairs, Microsoft, has posted a follow up blog that essentially says Microsoft made a mistake and will be making changes to ensure reading customer emails in this way won't happen again.

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Twelfth in a series. Microsoft rolled out Office for iPad this week, and it's excellent. Like Apple iWork, it's not a single app but rather three individual apps for Word, Excel and PowerPoint (an updated OneNote is available too). You need an Office 365 subscription to get the most out of it, as without one you can only view documents.

Other featured apps this week include a modern remake of Little Big Adventure (a classic game from the nineties), a touch typing tutor, a drawing app for children, a sweeping and rather too addictive Game of Thrones RPG, a Captain America tie-in, and a group text messaging app.

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