Microsoft Offers Early Look at New Windows 8.1 Features

Microsoft is cooking up some significant updates to Windows 8 and is offering an early look at what users can expect.

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The tech giant is working on Windows 8.1, which it says will include updates that address many of the complaints it has received since Windows 8 was released last fall. Users were slow to adapt to the radical new operating system, frustrated over the lack of traditional "windows" with menus, among other issues.

Yesterday at the Computex 2013 technology expo in in Taipei, Taiwan, Microsoft delivered the first public demonstration of the Windows 8.1 update. It also released a video featuring Jensen Harris of the Windows User Experience team walking through some of the new features the company has come up with so far. Among them: a customizable Start screen with new color schemes, an updated All Apps screen that allows users to sort their apps by most used or topic-specific categories, and a new "app-like" search tool that shows web search results and internal PC search results – for documents or other files -- all in one place.

Related: Microsoft Working on Major Update to Windows 8

Although Microsoft says the Windows 8.1 update won't be available to consumers until later this year, the video below outlines many of the new features users can expect: