Microsoftfinalized its upcoming Windows 8.1 Update recently, but the company appears to be sharing it a little early today. While the software maker is expected to release the update officially in April, Microsoft has only detailed a few of the features in the update and has not yet provided an official release date. Links to download a final version of the Windows 8.1 Update, thanks to Microsoft’s Windows Update service, have been discovered. A series of patches are required to obtain the...

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Above is a quick video showing you some of the features of the Twitch broadcasting app for Xbox One and […]

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Windows 8.1 Update 1 which Microsoft also has referred to internally as Windows 8.1 Spring Update and Windows 8.1 Update is designed to make Windows 8.1 more palatable and familiar to users who prefer to use mice as much, if not more, than touch. Word of Windows 8.1 Update 1 existence and feature set began leaking months ago. Pre RTM builds of the update have been leaking for weeks. The RTM build has not yet leaked to the Web as of March 4. During Mobile World Congress, Microsoft execs...

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If you are willing to make a few tweaks to your registry, you can get Windows 8.1 update 1 right now. By adding a value to your registry, this will give you access to download and will get you the bits right now, without accessing any third party. Several users have reported that the method is working and have successfully downloaded the update. The current thought is that by tweaking the registry, it mimics your machine to be that of a user who is dogfooding the update and then sends the bits...

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Bloomberg BusinessWeek has published a fascinating story on the backroom politics around former CEO Steve Ballmer retirement as CEO. The part of the piece entitled Microsofts Nadella Manages Legacy of Ballmer Board Split that I found most interesting is the drama around the decision to buy Nokia handset business. According to reporter Dina Bass and colleagues, the Microsoft board initially was divided over the wisdom of the move, with Ballmer in favor and founder Bill Gates and unnamed other...

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Nadella first day as CEO is today, February 4. Current CEO Steve Ballmer is out, effective immediately. Nadella believed to have been, all along, one of a small handful of alleged internal candidates for the Microsoft CEO job has been at the company for 22 years. As of 2011, he ran Microsoft lucrative server and tools businesses. His official title, as of the July 2013 One Microsoft reorg, became Executive Vice President of Cloud and Enterprise. Given Microsoft is remaking itself as a devices...

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While many Windows Phone developers were justifiably worried about the muddling of messages that would be created by Microsoft Nokia supporting the arch enemy of the Windows Phone OS, Android, there are a couple reasons Microsoft may decide to keep the X family alive. The first reason is somewhat counterintuitive. It about developers, developers, developers. But in this case I dont mean Windows Phone developers. With the X, Nokia is clearly wooing Android developers who want to build apps for...

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When critics described .1 as a step backwards, I disagreed: Responding to customer complaints is never wrong, I argued, and the new version of the OS made it more acceptable on the many different types of PCs and devices on which Windows now runs. With Update 1, however, I'm beginning to question the validity of this new direction, and am now wondering whether Microsoft has simply fallen into an all too familiar trap of trying to please everyone, and creating a product that is ultimately not...

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