Microsoft announced a significant update to Windows 8.1 today at the company's Build developer conference in San Francisco. The update will be available as an automatic update to all Windows 8.1 users on April 8.
The update is centered mainly on mouse-and-keyboard setups: desktops and laptops. The taskbar — long a hallmark of the Windows desktop — gains new prominence with the update. It's now visible in Modern (aka "Metro") apps when a user moves the mouse cursor to the bottom of the screen.
Users can also pin Modern apps to the taskbar, and the Windows Store is pre-pinned with the update — both to alert users about the capability and to increase the discoverability of Modern apps.
The Start screen has some more features, too. Right-clicking on a live tile will call up a drop-down menu instead of the "ribbon" along the bottom. There are also notifications for freshly installed apps, which are marked with a clear label "New."
The new version of Windows includes improvements to Internet Explorer, which will give IT managers more tools to customize capabilities. That way, some legacy enterprise systems will now be compatible with Windows 8.1.
The Windows 8.1 Update, announced in conjunction with Windows Phone 8.1, comes just five months after the previous major upgrade, Windows 8.1 itself. Although Microsoft announced Windows 8.1 in June last year, it didn't debut until October.
Wednesday's update leaked last month when Microsoft put the software on an unsecured server, but with non-obvious filenames. By tricking their systems into thinking they were Microsoft employees, outsiders were able to obtain the files and install the update.