Upgrade to Windows 8.1 preview!!!

Windows 8.1 brings some greatly desired new features–a start button,powerful new included apps,a better browser,better start screen personalisation,and lots more.You can know more about–The top new features in windows 8.1 preview.Microsoft has released a preview of its new and improved windows 8.1 for its users.The final version will be released at the end of this year and will be available as a free update for windows 8 users.Till then you can upgrade to the windows 8.1 preview.

Now the query arises here is –Do we need to upgrade?This question you can answer yourself, and Is it safe to upgrade?
Actually,this version is just a preview, so this version may have lots of bugs,but those who like experimenting with new softwares can upgrade to 8.1.

The upgrade is absolutely free and very easy.There are two methods available for upgradation:-
1) Windows store(Recommended)–Only for windows 8 pro and RT users
2)Download ISO files from here

Note:- You will not be able to downgrade back to windows 8 after upgrading,so be careful!!!!

Let’s start upgrading………!

Minimum system requirements:-

Microsoft lists the minimum system requirements for Windows 8.1 as follows:

• Processor: 1 gigahertz (GHz) or faster,
• RAM: 1 gigabyte (GB) (32-bit) or 2 GB (64-bit),
• Free hard disk space: 16 GB (32-bit) or 20 GB (64-bit), and
• Graphics card: Microsoft DirectX 9 graphics device with WDDM driver.

Upgrading through Windows store

To get started click here .From here, click or touch the “Get the update” button. This will initiate a download of a very small .msu file that will make the update available on the Windows Store. You can either choose Download and then run it, or just Open.

You’ll then see a security warning on which you can simply click Open

This runs the Windows Update Standalone installer–but note that this isn’t the actual OS updater–that comes later. Click Yes to run this system updater. After half a minute or so, you’ll see a message saying Installation Complete, with a Restart button. Click that (or you can click the Close button if you’re not ready).

You’ll go through a typical Windows Update shutdown, and when your system comes back to life, you’ll see a bar across the Start screen offering to take you to the Windows Store to install the upgrade.

You’ll now be on the Windows 8.1 Store page, just as though it were any new-style app. If you head back to the Store front page, the featured app space will be occupied by the 8.1 Preview ad.

From the Update page in the Store, click or touch the “Download” button. This starts a long multi-gigabyte download, so you may want to go grab a cup of coffee or tea. The progress bar switches messages several times, from Downloading, to Getting Update Ready, to Scanning, to Applying Changes, and Gathering info.

After another reboot, you’ll see a colorful fish (a fish has appeared on Windows betas since Windows 7) and more percentage counters. Messages like Getting Devices Ready, Applying PC settings will appear, followed by another reboot. More percentage counters and messages like “Setting up a few more things,” and “Getting ready” appear.

Once all the progress counters and reboots are done, you’ll see the user license agreement. Agree, you don’t have much choice if you want the update. Next come the typical Settings options, such as whether updates are automatic. I just use the Express settings. You’ll then be asked to sign into your Microsoft Account, but you’ll have to verify yourself by having a code sent to a trusted email account or mobile.

Your final choice is whether to use SkyDrive. I recommend allowing this; not only does it let you migrate your PC settings, customizations, and touch apps, but also offers a very convenient, built-in online file storage capability that both the system and other apps can use.

Finally, you’ll see the Windows 8.1 Start screen, which looks identical to the Windows 8 one, except it will have a fish-themed background that demonstrated the new moving Start screen backgrounds of Windows 8.1. But that’s just the start of the new features you’ll discover.

Get a List of Software Installed on Your PC with a Single Line of PowerShell

Suppose someone asks you for a list of applications you have installed on your computer. To get this information, what’s the first thing you would think to use? Third-party program? Not us, we have PowerShell.

 How to Get a List of Installed Software on Your PC 

 Getting a list of installed software is as simple as using this straightforward WMI query.

                 Get-WmiObject -Class Win32_Product | Select-Object -Property Name

You will probably want to export that to a file though, which is also easy enough — we’ll send the output using the > symbol and adding the path to a new text file that we want to create.

Get-WmiObject -Class Win32_Product | Select-Object -Property Name > C:\Software\PCapps.txt

What makes using PowerShell really neat is that if you do this on two different machines, you can easily compare the software installed on them.

Compare-Object -ReferenceObject (Get-Content C:\Software\PCapps.txt) -DifferenceObject (Get-Content C:\Software\LAPTOPapps.txt)

Any entries with a side indicator pointing to the right (=>) mean that the software is installed on my laptop but  not on my PC, and any entries with a side indicator pointing to the left (<=) mean that the software is installed on my PC but not on my laptop.

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12 System Tools You Don’t Have To Install on Windows Anymore

Windows includes its own versions of many widely used system utilities. A variety of new utilities were added to Windows 8, but many of these utilities are available on Windows 7, too.

 If the first thing you do after setting up a new Windows installation is install all your preferred utilities, this can speed things up. Better yet, these utilities are available on every Windows computer you’ll come across.

 Antivirus

Windows 8 includes an antivirus program known as Windows Defender, so all Windows users will finally have an antivirus program on their computers. Windows 8 no longer hassles users to download and install an antivirus immediately after setting their computer up. Windows Defender in Windows 8 is essentially Microsoft Security Essentials with a new name. If you use Windows 7, you can install the free Microsoft Security Essentials. If you use Windows 8, you don’t have to install a third-party antivirus.

Firewall 

If you’re still using a third-party firewall, you should know that it isn’t completely necessary. Windows’ built-in firewall does the same job of blocking unsolicited incoming traffic by default and blocking access to sensitive network services, like network file shares, on public Wi-Fi networks.

 Users who love tweaking their applications and managing which are allowed to connect to the Internet will prefer a third-party firewall, but every Windows user using Windows XP SP2 and later has a solid firewall.

Security Suite

 In addition to antivirus and firewall features, Internet security suites also include anti-phishing, cookie-deletion, and other security features. None of these features are necessary — your browser includes built-in phishing protection and can automatically delete cookies when you close it, if you prefer to get rid of cookies. You don’t need to install a cluttered, bloated security suite to protect your system. 

This is especially true on Windows 8, which includes additional security features like that SmartScreen feature that scans all applications for their trustworthiness before running them.

Partition Manager

 For basic partition management on Windows, you don’t need any third-party tools. Just use the Disk Management application included with Windows to shrink and enlarge existing partitions, create new ones, and format them. This tool includes more than enough features for most basic partitioning operations, although more advanced partition-moving features may require a third-party tool. 

The Storage Spaces feature on Windows 8 can even combine partitions on several drives into one big, logical partition.

ISO and IMG File Mounting

If you need to mount ISO or IMG files to access them as virtual discs, you no longer need to install a third-party tool. Windows 8′s File Explorer includes integrated disc-image-mounting tools. Users who need to mount other types of disc images, or who are using Windows 7, will still need to install a utility for mounting disc image files.

Disc Burning

 Windows has integrated support for burning data to discs, erasing rewritable discs, and even burning ISO image files directly to disc as of Windows 7. Third-party disc-burning suites aren’t necessary. If you still need to burn audio CDs, you can even do this from within Windows Media Player.

PC Cleaning App

 PC cleaning apps are generally scams, especially the ones that want you to spend money to “make your computer feel like new.” If you do want to delete temporary files and generally free up storage space on your computer, you can use the free Disk Cleanup tool included with Windows. If you really want a third-party PC cleaning tool, just download CCleaner — skip all the paid PC cleaning applications.

Startup Manager 

Windows 8 includes a new startup manager built into the Windows Task Manager. It allows you to view and control the applications that start with your computer at startup, finally providing an easy and obvious way to control this. On previous versions of Windows, users had to use the hidden MSConfig tool or use a startup manager like the one built into CCleaner.

File Copying

 TeraCopy is a popular file-copy replacement for Windows 7 and earlier versions of Windows. It allows you to pause file-copy operations and deals with errors in a more intelligent way, rather than halting the operation and waiting for input.

 If you upgrade to Windows 8, you’ll find that these features have now been integrated into File Explorer (formerly known as Windows Explorer), giving all users a more powerful and intelligent way to copy and move files.

Advanced Task Manager

 Process Explorer is a powerful replacement for the Windows Task Manager. It shows more information, including a hierarchical tree view that displays processes in relation to each other. This is particularly useful for applications such as Google Chrome that generate a lot of processes.

 On Windows 8, the new Task Manager now includes more information and provides a hierarchical information that makes it easy to view an application’s processes at a glance, so users who depended on Process Explorer for this particular feature won’t need to install it anymore.

PDF Viewer

 Windows 8 includes a PDF viewer, allowing you to view PDFs without installing a program like Adobe Reader. Unfortunately, Windows Reader is a Modern app and doesn’t integrate well with the desktop, although all PDFs do open in it from the desktop by default. 

Nevertheless, if you use Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox, your browser has an integrated PDF reader. You can associate PDF files with Chrome or Firefox to have them open in your browser, eliminating the need for third-party PDF readers if you just need to view simple PDF files without any advanced features.

Virtual Machines 

Windows 8 includes Hyper-V, which allows you to create and use virtual machines without installing a third-party virtual machine solution like VirtualBox or VMware. We’ve covered how you can use Hyper-V to install Ubuntu in a virtual machine without installing any additional software.

Most of the tools here aren’t the most powerful options, so many users may still prefer to install third-party software and get more features. However, Microsoft has been slowly adding important software to Windows, and every version requires fewer essential third-party system utilities.

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