TORONTO — Hollywood blockbusters have been making their debuts this week at the Toronto International Film Festival. And while Windows 8.1 isn’t quite ready for its red carpet moment, Microsoft was at TIFF showing off the upcoming OS update.
With Windows 8 debuting last fall to a less than thrilling response, Microsoft has a lot riding on what has to be one of the most eagerly anticipated incremental updates in operating system history. The vendor has a tough line to straddle, between moving to a new, unified, touch-first interface across all devices, and bringing back some of the features desktop users miss from Windows 7.
We spoke with Microsoft Canada at TIFF and got a look at five of the cooler new features in Windows 8.1, which will launch as a free update to Windows on Oct. 17.