windows 8.1 features

When Microsoft released Windows 8 back in October, 2012, the company faced serious backlash from its loyal fans for eliminating the Start Button (aka Start Orb) from the mix. Unlike its predecessors, Windows 8 boots to a Start screen, which presents the good ‘ol desktop as a regular app tile. The Start screen replaces the Start Button with a Start tile that pops up whenever the mouse pointer hits the bottom-left corner. After playing around with Windows 8.1 Preview for a while, all we can say is that Redmond did finally listen to the users. Taking a 180 degrees turn, Windows 8.1 not only brings back that familiar Start Button, but also allows users to boot straight to the desktop. That aside, the Start screen itself has been improved quite a bit, providing users with more flexibility in altering tile sizes and more ease in creating & editing tile groups. After the break, we’ll be taking a closer look at each of these features.

The Start Button

The Start button was the first delightful thing we noticed after getting the updated OS up and running. Unlike Windows 7, the Windows 8.1 Start button sports a flat, plain-white design that fits well with the new look and feel of the OS.

Hover the mouse pointer over the Start button and you will see the logo change to the accent color (a dark shade of purple by default) over a black background. The animated gleam that passes over the logo (both here and in the Start Charm) might not seem very Modern UI-esque, but it does add a nice effect.

What a lot of users might find disappointing is that the Start button simply opens up the Start screen. That’s right; still no fly-up menu like the one we had grown accustomed to through previous versions of Windows. Fret not, though, as we’ve already covered some of the best alternatives to the Start screen. Also, you can set the new Start button to somewhat replicate the behavior of the old Start Orb by having it open the All Apps screen instead of the Start screen. We will discuss this along with other navigation options in an upcoming post.

As odd as it might sound, the Start button doesn’t appear at the bottom-left corner of the Start screen itself unless you move the mouse pointer there. It would have been nice to have the button permanently present there to make things a bit snappier.

New Start Screen Tile Sizes & Customization Options

You won’t find any drastic change in the Start screen of Windows 8.1 Preview. It looks exactly like its Windows 8 counterpart, the only difference being there are now dynamic Start screen backgrounds with subtle animations, and new tile resizing and sorting options. For now, there seems to be just one animated background, that being the default one with the betta fish. One other very handy addition is the option to set the current desktop wallpaper as the background of the Start screen.

Moving on to tile sizes.

Up until now, you had only two tile sizes to choose from. Windows 8.1, following in the footsteps of its mobile counterpart, gives users much more flexibility in this regard. When you right-click a tile, a new button labeled ‘Resize’ appears in the app bar.

Click this button and you will find two additional options for increasing or decreasing the size of the selected tile; Large and Small. In Windows 8 you could only switch between what Windows 8.1 calls ‘Wide’ and ‘Medium’. The new Large size is basically a Wide tile with twice as much height. The Small size is quarter of a Medium tile.`

Although Small tiles allow you to pack more shortcuts into a single stack, remember that any tiles reduced to that size will stop displaying live information. Moreover, touch-based device users with oversized fingers might find tapping the new Small-sized tiles a tad troublesome.

We are not quite finished with the Start screen yet. Another improvement Windows 8.1 Preview has brought to this part of the OS is the way you can customize tile groups. In Windows 8′s Start screen, you needed to click the miniscule (-) button in the bottom-right corner of the screen to zoom out to a bird’s-eye view of the screen and then right-click a stack of tiles to specify a group name. Windows 8.1 has effectively refined this process by cutting it down to fewer steps. Right-click anywhere on the Start screen and select the new Customize button from the app bar to instantly bring up the tile grouping option. Right-clicking any tile does the same.

When customization is active, you can quickly name or rename tile groups to your liking by clicking the text field over each.

Batch Tile Moving On Start Screen

The Start screen is now much easier to edit and arrange thanks to the addition of a very basic feature that, a lot of users will agree, should have been there in the first place: batch moving of tiles. In Windows 8, you could unpin multiple tiles from the Start screen at once but you were only allowed to move one tile at a time. In 8.1, you can select as many tiles as you want and drag to move the entire selection to another group or an entirely new one. The group moves as one tile (the one you drag), with the total number of selected tiles indicated in its top-right corner.

 

Easier Access To All Apps From Start Screen

The All Apps screen is now much easier to access as well, with its shortcut having been moved from the concealed apps bar to the forefront. Clicking the arrow below the bottom-left most tile on the Start Screen or swiping upwards on the screen.

When Windows 7 was launched, many people cited the new OS as what Vista should have been in the first place. The story behind Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 is pretty much the same. The best thing is, Windows 8.1 Preview hasn’t just brought back the features Windows 8 had shed, it has left it up to the users to decide whether they want to use them or not.

Bad Sectors Explained: Why Hard Drives Get Bad Sectors and What You Can Do About It

A bad sector on a hard drive is simply a tiny cluster of storage space — a  sector — of the hard drive that appears to be defective. The sector won’t respond to read or write requests.

Bad sectors can occur on both traditional magnetic hard drives and modern solid-state drives. There are two types of bad sectors — one resulting from physical damage that can’t be repaired, and one resulting from software errors that can be fixed.

Types of Bad Sectors

There are two types of bad sectors — often divided into “physical” and “logical” bad sectors or “hard” and “soft” bad sectors.

A physical — or hard — bad sector is a cluster of storage on the hard drive that’s physically damaged. The hard drive’s head may have touched that part of the hard drive and damaged it, some dust may have settled on that sector and ruined it, a solid-state drive’s flash memory cell may have worn out, or the hard drive may have had other defects or wear issues that caused the sector to become physically damaged. This type of sector cannot be repaired.

A logical — or soft — bad sector is a cluster of storage on the hard drive that appears to not be working properly. The operating system may have tried to read data on the hard drive from this sector and found that the error-correcting code (ECC) didn’t match the contents of the sector, which suggests that something is wrong. These may be marked as bad sectors, but can be repaired by overwriting the drive with zeros — or, in the old days, performing a low-level format. Windows’ Disk Check tool can also repair such bad sectors.

Causes of Hard Bad Sectors

Your hard drive may have shipped from the factory with bad sectors. Modern manufacturing techniques aren’t perfect, and there’s a margin or error in everything. That’s why solid-state drives often ship with some defective blocks. These are marked as defective and are remapped to some of the solid-state drive’s extra memory cells.

On a solid-state drive, natural wear will eventually result in sectors becoming bad as they’re written to many times, and they’ll be remapped to the solid-state drive’s extra — or “overprovisioned” — memory. When the solid-state drive’s extra memory runs out, the drive’s capacity will start to drop as sectors become unreadable.

On a traditional magnetic hard drive, bad sectors can be caused by physical damage. The hard drive may have had a manufacturing error, natural wear may have worn part of the hard drive down, the drive may have been dropped, causing the hard drive’s head to touch the platter and damage some of the sectors, some air may have entered the sealed area of the hard drive and the dust may have damaged the drive — there are many possible causes.

Causes of Soft Bad Sectors

Soft bad sectors are caused by software issues. For example, if your computer suddenly shuts off due to a power outage or a pulled power cable, it’s possible that the hard drive may have shut off in the middle of writing to a sector. In some cases, it’s possible for sectors on the hard drive to contain data that doesn’t match their error-correction code — this would be marked as a bad sector. Viruses and other malware that messes with your computer could also cause such system issues and cause soft bad sectors to develop.

Data Loss and Hard Drive Failure

The reality of bad sectors brings home a chilling fact — even if your hard drive is otherwise working properly, it’s possible for a bad sector to develop and corrupt some of your data. This is another reason why you should always back up your data — multiple copies are the only thing that will prevent bad sectors and other issues from ruining your hard drive’s data.

When your computer notices a bad sector, it marks that sector as bad and ignores it in the future. The sector will be reallocated, so reads and writes to that sector will go elsewhere. This will show up as “Reallocated Sectors” in hard drive S.M.A.R.T. analysis tools like CrystalDiskInfo. If you had important data in that sector, however, it may be lost — possibly corrupting one or more files.

A few bad sectors don’t indicate that a hard drive is about to fail — they can just happen. However, if your hard drive is rapidly developing bad sectors, it may be a sign that your hard drive is failing.

How to Check for and Repair Bad Sectors

Windows has a built-in Disk Check tool — also known as chkdsk — that can scan your hard drives for bad sectors, marking hard ones as bad and repairing soft ones to make them usable again. If Windows thinks that there’s a problem on your hard disk — because the hard drive’s “dirty bit” is set — it will automatically run this tool when your computer starts up. But you’re also free to run this tool manually at any point.

Other operating systems, including Linux and OS X, also have their own built-in disk utilities for detecting bad sectors.

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Bad sectors are just a reality of hard disks, and there’s generally no reason to panic when you encounter one. However, you should always have backups of your important files just in case a freak bad sector strikes — and rapidly developing bad sectors can certainly suggest oncoming hard drive failure.

Goodbye Microsoft Security Essentials: Microsoft Now Recommends You Use a Third-Party Antivirus

Microsoft Security Essentials (Windows Defender on Windows 8) was once on top. Over the years, it’s slid in the test results, but Microsoft argued the tests weren’t meaningful. Now, Microsoft is advising Windows users to use a third-party antivirus instead.

This revelation comes to us from an interview Microsoft gave. Microsoft’s official website still bills MSE as offering “comprehensive malware protection” without any hint that they no longer recommend using it. Microsoft is not communicating well with its users.

A Strong Start

Microsoft Security Essentials was once on top of the rankings. In 2009, AV-Comparatives.orggave it a very high score and said it was the best-performing free antivirus.

MSE was very appealing to Windows geeks like us, who quickly latched onto it. It received very good malware detection scores, was extremely speedy, and was free. Not only was it available for free — it wouldn’t hassle you and try to upsell you to paid antivirus solutions, like AVG and avast! do. MSE was a breath of fresh air — both in its interface and its speedy performance. Its test results showed it was ahead of the pack, so it was best antivirus at the time.

We’ve been recommending MSE as the free antivirus to use for years because of this. It’s included by default on Windows 8 and named “Windows Defender.” This is one of the big security improvements in Windows 8 — you have an antivirus included so every Windows user has protection. It would be nice if Windows users finally didn’t have to seek out a third-party antivirus.

Sliding Scores and Excuses

Over the past several years, Microsoft Security Essentials has slid in the malware detection scoring tests. AV-TEST’s 2011 annual review ranked Microsoft Security Essentials last place in protection among all the products it tested. In October 2012, Microsoft Security Essentials scored so low that it lost its AV-TEST certification. In June 2013, MSE received a zero protection score from AV-TEST — the lowest possible score. It’s also come last in other recent tests, including one by Dennis Technology Labs.

The below chart shows MSE at the bottom of AV-TEST’s charts for July and August 2013. When it comes to malware protection, it tested below every other antivirus program tested.

At the time, Microsoft argued that the tests were not representative of the real world. They said they were focused on trying to stop real-world threats, not compete in tests where the detection of rare malware was a significant factor. They argued that avoiding false positives was an important goal and that real-world experiences were more important than arbitrary test results.

Geeks like us here at How-To Geek believed them, taking them at their word. We certainly had used Microsoft Security Essentials on our personal computers for years. We hadn’t encountered any malware, even after performing scans with other antivirus programs to get a second opinion. We liked Microsoft Security Essentials for being so lightweight, unintrusive, and not trying to upsell us to paid security suites full of system utilities we don’t need. We liked the idea that Windows 8 users wouldn’t need any additional antivirus protection, eliminating another complicated system tool from Windows users’ lives.

Microsoft Has Stopped Trying

The Microsoft Security Essentials website promises “comprehensive malware protection” and “award-winning protection,” so users would be forgiven for believing that Microsoft was committed to making MSE a capable antivirus solution. But Microsoft is now saying that MSE is only basic protection that users shouldn’t rely on.

In an interview with Dennis Protection Labs, Holly Stewart, the senior program manager of the Microsoft Malware Protection Center, said that Microsoft Security Essentials was just a “baseline” that’s designed to “always be on the bottom” of antivirus tests. She said Microsoft sees MSE as a first layer of protection and advises Windows users to use a third-party antivirus instead.

According to Holly Stewart, Microsoft “had an epiphany a few years ago, back in 2011, where we realised we had a greater calling and that was to protect all Microsoft customers.” She says that Microsoft passes its information on to other antivirus makers and helps them make their products better. “We used to have part of our time directed towards predicting test results,” but these people have now been directed to focus on emerging threats and share that information with other antivirus companies.

She went on: “We’re providing all of that data and information to our partners so they can do at least as well as we are. The natural progression is that we will always be on the bottom of these tests. And honestly, if we are doing our job correctly, that’s what will happen.”

Nevertheless, she argues that “baseline does not equal bad” and says they provide a high-quality antivirus. But Microsoft themselves are recommending users not use MSE, so it’s hard to take that seriously. This isn’t a product average people should use — it’s better than no antivirus, but not something we should recommend. Microsoft is doing a disservice to its users by telling antivirus testing companies that they don’t recommend MSE for average users and telling average users that MSE provides them with “comprehensive malware protection” on their website. Microsoft needs to pick one message and stick to it.

If You’re a Geek, You Can Get By With MSE

Now, if you’re a geek like we are, MSE and Windows Defender are very usable. If you have good security practices and know what you’re doing, you can manage just fine with this lightweight option. But average Windows users don’t always follow proper security practices and should use a strong antivirus that does well in tests — as Microsoft themselves now recommend.

If you’re a geek, you probably shouldn’t recommend MSE to your friends or install it on your parents’ computer. Yes, it’s a shame — MSE’s lightweight and hassle-free nature make for a great interface and a faster computer. But the core of an antivirus is the detection engine, and Microsoft appears to be throwing in the towel here.

So What Should You Use?

To find an antivirus product that actually offers good protection, consult an antivirus test website and see how your antivirus of choice stacks up. Luckily, one thing hasn’t changed in the latest test results: We still don’t recommend purchasing a paid antivirus because there are solid free options.

avast! Free Antivirus has done well in tests, offering comprehensive and free antivirus protection. Unfortunately, it’s heavier than MSE, its interface is more overbearing, and it tries to upsell you to a paid product you don’t really need. But that’s the price we pay for solid antivirus protection. For average users — not geeks who can get by with the minimum protection — we’d recommend avast! Free Antivirus.

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We’d like to apologize for continuing to recommend Microsoft Security Essentials for so long, in spite of test results. We found it worked for us and we didn’t like how heavy and obnoxious other antivirus solutions can be. We believed Microsoft when they argued that MSE provided “comprehensive malware protection” for real-world threats and that antivirus tests weren’t representative of real-world results, as MSE performed well for us. We feel betrayed by Microsoft — they made an internal decision to let MSE decline without telling us. They’re still communicating two different messages — one to antivirus testing companies in interviews and one to average users on their website.