Calculator is there as I use it?

Why couldn't Microsoft come up with 8.1 in the first place? disconnect from customer experience? or tech-monopoly ego?

Been using the preview on my Surface RT and so far its been good. A few glitches with regard to freezing up after sleep but its a preview so I expect stuff like that.
One of the things I would like W8 to support is allow users to resize their tiles to much larger sizes if the app supports it. Would be nice to have, say a mail app with all your mail, calendar with all your days appointments, etc displayed. Just not sure why they are so restrictive with what tiles can do.

good article, it was laid out nicely.
I plan on getting win 8.1, the boot to desktop and start button are important ones for me. I don't have a touchscreen monitor....but soon after I install Win 8.1 I plan on buying the leap motion.

@Cliff Tsay I'm guessing they decided they'd make more money if they hyped windows 8, then released windows 8.1 a bit later.
I can't think of ONE reason why I would choose windows 8 over 7.

I'm using MATE on Windows 8 and it is still better that Windows 8.1 for desktop / laptop users who prefer to do things the old trued-and-true way.
Why is it that Microsoft cannot give us the CHOICE anyways? It seems they are so arrogant that they think they can force their crappy new OS on us, when all we want is to do things the same way as always.
Sometimes change is NOT a good thing.

“asdf” says: “I can't think of ONE reason why I would choose windows 8 over 7”.
Well, I can think of at least a dozen. But, if I had to ignore eleven of those reasons and pick just ONE.... It would be the ability to use the “Refresh PC” option when the system starts slowing down and I start facing problems and random error messages due to a missing or corrupt system file or an incorrect Registry value.
With Windows 7, your only option is to put up with it, or back up all your personal data, format the hard disk and reinstall a fresh copy of the Windows 7 OS, but that requires some expertise and valuable time, because you'll need to first install Windows and then you'll have to reinstall all device drivers for your particular computer make, favorite software, games, personal data etc. and, oh yeah, you'll also need to customize all your settings again.
However, in Windows 8, the "Refresh PC" option reinstalls the factory Windows OS but keeps your personal files and settings (and Apps).
The "Refresh PC" option first copies your personal data (favorites, documents, pictures, music, games etc.), settings Apps and device drivers to a different location and then reinstalls Windows from scratch.
After reinstalling Windows, it then restores all the copied data so, after using this option, you'll have a brand new factory Windows 8 OS along with all your personal data, settings and Apps. I do that every couple of months ('cause it's so quick and EASY).
That ONE option, beats the hell out of Windows 7 all by itself.

Thanks for the tips and tricks for Win8. I am hoping 8.1 will give me a more positive experience than I am currently having with Win8.
It would be nice to downgrade to Win 7. Win 8 makes me like Win7 even more.
With Windows becoming more like a tablet computer operating system, I guess some would rather get a tablet with either iOS or Android instead of the 'bloated' software from Microsoft.
If most computer users usually just use their computer for going online, it would more sense to get a tablet computer or perhaps a thin client or something similar to Googles Chrome Box or Chrome Book (usually less expensive - IIRC).

Xander77, you just made me want to install Windows 8 right away. That one perk is truly enough to win the hearts of many that have had to reinstall windows from scratch multiple times. That and this new update might just see me give it a shot today. Sucks that it took this long to get what we wanted.
I would have installed windows 8 upon release but the learning curve was a bit steep and I was perfectly fine with Windows 7 at the time so there was no obvious incentive to get windows 8. Getting rid of the start button was a dumb move by microsoft (imagine how many more systems they would have sold just by including the start button right from the very beginning) and people who use their PC for more than just entertainment purposes would agree. This version should have only been available on touchscreen latops or tablet/laptops hybrids as it's not suitable for desktops.
They went for a tablet approach and completely forgot about their business side of things (Schools, corporations etc..) Maybe they should have released a professional edition that kept most of the much loved aspects of windows 7? That would have saved them a lot of headache. I read somewhere that group testing for windows 8 didn't start until the product was released to the market. That was a huge fail right there. Makes me wonder who makes the decisions. Oh, I think he definitely did pay for it...
I also think Windows 8 was launched a bit too early because most people have no real need for it atm. Windows 7 was a much needed upgrade from that flopcrap called Vista which was why it was well received upon induction.

I do have a nice 10.5 " CTL Win 7 Touch Tablet and am just waiting for you to decide the bugs are out and it's time to GO WIN 8.1