Windows 8.1 is Here!

$119.00 seems a bit cheap for an OS. Need more info. 

My friends laptop runs Win8. Will 8.1 be like a service pack? 

Go to Windows Store you will find it there by the way it's 119.99 sorry about that if you already have Windows 8 it's free upgrade. no it's a new O.S! but like i said in previous post those of us running windows 7, vista  or xp can download tomorrow but it will cost 119.99 for basic 8.1 or 199.99 for pro version!

I understand that part. Does the download auto-install or will it be like an ISO?

You have to go into the Windows Store app and click the download button. I'm installing it now on my laptop. It says it's 3.2gb in size.

No it is not an ISO, it does not auto-install I believe Microsoft has to verify that you have a genuine windows 8 o.s then you download, at the moment their servers are very slow due to all the people upgrading so be patient ! 

WAY TO GO ALMONTY IF YOU CAN PLEASE HELP OTHERS TO TOO GET ALL THE RIGHT INFO !

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/home

You can download it from the store by from there.

Next question, files and folders. Will 8.1 install without affecting them.

Thanks Island Dog I can't download running Windows 7 x64 Thanks to all for their guidance in helping others to get it all correct! By the way how do you get karma!

It's 2/3 of the way done. I hope all my files and folders are still there. I know it will install IE 11 and a different way to manage apps.

Please let us all know how it goes !

As long as you are running current versions of those two you should be fine.

I can't say for sure about the files and folders , ALMonty is downloading it as we speak he will probably have more info soon. As far as stardock they already have support for windows 8.1 I do believe . Just remember this back up, back up, back up always just in case.

With the older Start8 (pre 1.17 I think) the Windows button would sit on top of ours.  Later versions of Start8 corrected this.

I checked out the video and you can switch between start screen and desktop like 8.0 and the start button is there. How Start8 will react to that remains to be seen. Its still flatter than a pancake. lol

Please everyone let me know how you like it , it will be my guiding decision on weather i put out 120.00 dollars or not although it does look pretty good except for the pancake thing!!

I use Start8 and WindowsBlinds' Icon Packager' CurserFX plus On Windows 8.1 RTM. with no issues. I like 8.1 better than 8.0. It seems like you have a little more control over the os.  

This is good news!  I thought the rollout date was going to be tomorrow and didn't have much faith that it would be on time.  I'm looking forward to upgrading Win8 and giving 8.1 a test drive.

:) 

a trivial word of caution for those that are anal regarding their start screen tiles.

The color of the tiles in 8.1 is now based on the primary colors of the icon itself. You will have a mess of different colored tiles now and there isn't a dang thing you can do about it (unless you want to spend countless hours with OblyTile). Decor8 will NOT be able to fix this either.

Everything is up and running. Few changes I see so far. The word Computer in the start menu changed to This PC, added a couple more stupid apps.the app store is different. As for Start 8 I couldn't find a way to turn it off so I don't know what it looks like without it. I even tried to shut it off with the Task Manager and it's still there (flaw). I use WindowBlinds so it doesn't really matter. Using Iconpackager my live folders went to default and won't go back to the package icons. But all my stuff is still where I put it.

I upgraded two systems to 8.1 RTM a couple of weeks ago (I got it from TechNet), all files and folders are still there and I had no issues at all.

You can right click on the This PC icon and rename it to whatever you want with no adverse effects.

I changed it but it still says This PC in the start menu.