The official Windows 8.1
Update 1 files are yet again available from the Windows Update servers.
These update files appear to be identical to the files that were
originally made available a couple of weeks ago; Microsoft hasn’t made
any further changes. The links are included below.
If you want to
download Windows 8.1 Update 1 for free, ahead of its official launch on
April 8, you’re in luck! Just follow these simple instructions…
Yesterday,
it emerged that Microsoft had already placed the final version of
Windows 8.1 Update 1 on the public Windows Update servers. Normally,
because these files have cryptic, unguessable file names, they would’ve
remained hidden April 8 — but, as luck would have it, Microsoft made
another mistake: By adding a new key to your registry, you could fool
Windows Update into thinking you were a Microsoft employee, at which
point it would grab the files and begin the update. (This technique of
testing products internally is known as
dogfooding. It’s a fairly common practice.)
Sadly,
as you’d expect, Microsoft has since plugged the registry hack — but
not before a lot of people downloaded the updates… and then uploaded the
updates to digital file lockers, like Mega. If you know where to look,
you can now download and install Windows 8.1 Update 1.
How to download and install Windows 8.1 Update 1
As
always, we have to preface this with the usual disclaimer: Downloading
Windows updates from anyone other than Microsoft is risky. At the very
least, you should ensure that the SHA hash of the downloaded file
matches by using the
Microsoft File Checksum Integrity Verifier
(a free tool). If you have any important documents on your computer,
you should back them up, too (this should be an unnecessary precaution,
though; Update 1 is just a bunch of patches, rather than a complete
reinstallation).
So, there are two routes to obtaining Windows 8.1
Update 1. First, you can try the official download links from
Microsoft, harvested by enterprising
Neowin forum member FaiKee. At the time of publishing they work, but if they don’t, use the Mega download links instead.
Official Windows Update download links:
Mega download links:
If
those links go down (unlikely), the files are almost certainly
available from other file lockers, or from your favorite torrent index.
Once
you’ve downloaded Update 1, you will have six separate patches that
need to be installed in a very specific order. Your computer will need
to reboot a few times during the process.
- KB2919442
- KB2939087
- KB2932046
- KB2919355
- KB2938439
- KB2937592
Windows
8.1 Update 1 Desktop. Note how Metro apps can now be minimized to the
taskbar. There’s no sign of ‘Update 1′ in the system info window,
interestingly.
And that should be it! If you’re a
mouse-and-keyboard user, you will find that Windows 8.1 Update 1 makes
the Metro interface a lot more palatable. Whether this will move you to
actually use the new Start screen, I’m not so sure. Unless there’s a
Metro-style app that you
really want to use, you will probably still find yourself on the Desktop, using a third-party app to bring back the Windows 7-style Start menu.
Still, on the rare occasion that you find yourself thrust into the new
Metro interface, Update 1 makes the whole experience feel a little less
you’re being brutally plucked out of one operating system and
unceremoniously dumped in another. So that’s good.
On the Desktop
side of things, Update 1 doesn’t do a whole lot. I’m sure there will be
some small, useful tweaks, but the main changes appear to be better support for high-PPI displays,
and audio/video files will now be opened in Photo Viewer and Media
Player respectively, rather than bouncing you into Metro. For the 23
people using Windows 8.1 on a tablet, Update 1 adds a Search button to
the Start screen, and some of the stock Metro apps have been
updated/improved. Thrilling stuff. Microsoft’s hunt for Windows 8 market share continues.