The Best Update. Review on Windows 8.1

Windows 8.1 has now been out for a few months and is a freely downloadable update. Microsoft has already released what is the equivalent of a first Service Pack for it,

Windows 8.1 Update 1. The latter should already have landed automatically on Windows 8 systems via Windows

Update; you need to have Windows 8.1 already installed beforehand. So did Windows 8.1 fix what was wrong with Windows 8? And does it really required yet another update in the form of Windows 8.1 Update 1.

From Facebook to the full-featured Mail app and modern Outlook, a "peek" bar in the modern version of Internet Explorer 11 and the new Windows Scan app, you get all of the Windows 8.1 extras that were teased in early 2013.

We are still waiting for the proper touch versions of the Office apps but that's the waythings work in Microsoft's new'continuous development' world. And of course, you get the interface changes and SkyDrive integration we saw in the Windows 8.1 Preview.

The Start button is back and you can use the same image for your Start screen as your desktop background.

SkyDrive is built in to sync files - on both Windows 8.1 and Windows 8.1 RT - as well as settings and the layout for your Start screen and desktop taskbar. But Microsoft's second bite at the convergence of PCs and tablets doesn't back away from what we still want to call Metro; in fact, there are more built-in modern apps than in

Windows 8, more settings you can change without jumping to the desktop and more options for how you position modern apps on screen. The question is how well these two platforms sit together, and how much of an improvement

• if any - Microsoft has been able to deliver in a year.