8.1 features Microsoft removed from Windows 8.1

Good-bye, Messaging. Farewell, My Computer. These and some other features were left behind.

Forget about the desktop improvements and Bing Smart Search: Windows 8.1's biggest draw may be the sheer volume of new and hidden features. Seriously--it's jam-packed.

But apparently Microsoft needed to clear room for all the fresh ideas. Windows 8.1 shaves away many of Windows 8's auxiliary features. Some of the removals are blatant once they're pointed out, while others are more obscure, but all are off the table in Windows 8.1.

1. Messaging app

Windows 8's IM capabilities were handled by the aptly named Messaging, one of the core apps shining front and center on the live-tiled Start screen. No more: Microsoft has kicked Messaging to the curb less than a year after the app's arrival, replacing the Windows 8 native with Skype.

As high-profile as the swap is, it's no great loss. Messaging was pretty lackluster and largely overlapped Skype's core functionality. Meanwhile, Skype's communication services are also being baked into the Xbox One and Outlook.com (but not Windows Phone). One bummer: Messaging supported Facebook Chat, while Skype does not.

2. Windows Experience Index

Ever since the Vista days, Windows provided a "Windows Experience Index" score in your My Computer properties. The WEI score was supposed to be a numerical indicator of your PC's brawn. Powerful PCs received higher scores, and so on.

Unfortunately, the WEI's scoring criteria weren't well known, and it placed odd, seemingly artificial caps on the highest possible scores. (Windows 7's cap was 7.9, while Vista's was 5.9.) Whether for these or other reasons, the WEI never seemed to catch on, and it's nowhere to be found in Windows 8.1.

3. Facebook and Flickr in the Photos app

Regrettably, Windows 8.1's Photos app no longer supports Facebook and Flickr image integration.

"In Windows 8, we wanted to provide a way for folks to view their photos on other services, knowing there would be few (if any) apps in the store at launch that would do so," a Microsoft representative said. "Now there are many apps in the store that offer ways to view photos on other services."

A Facebook app launched in the Windows Store the same day as Windows 8.1, but its image-management and sharing capabilities aren't as flexible as those in Windows 8's Photos app. And despite Flickr's sudden disappearance from the Photos app, an official app for that service has yet to appear in the Windows Store.

4. Libraries?

Your Documents, Music, Pictures, and Videos libraries aren't visible by default in Windows 8.1--but that doesn't mean they're not there. Activating them is easy, as shown in the single screenshot below.

Some websites are reporting, though, that Windows 8.1's libraries ditch Public folders. Our experiences are a bit more hit-and-miss: Public folders appeared in my Windows 8.1 libraries after I upgraded from Windows 8, but they were a no-show in the libraries of another PCWorld editor.

Don't let that bring you down! After reenabling libraries using the method outlined above, just right-click a library and select Properties > Add... to toss additional folders into the mix.

5. Windows 7 File Recovery, kind of

Ominous portents swirled when the Windows 8.1 Preview pushed out without the Windows 7 File Recovery' image-backup option found in Windows 8, especially since Microsoft has clearly stated that the tool is being deprecated in favor of Windows 8's File History. And yes, it's still missing in Windows 8.1.

But fear not! Though Windows 7 File Recovery is dead in name, it lives on in spirit as System Image Backup'. Just head to Control Panel > System & Security > File History, and then look in the lower-left corner.

6. Apps splashed on the Start screen

In Windows 8, all newly installed apps and desktop programs automatically received a tile on the modern Start screen. That isn't the case in Windows 8.1: Now, you have to dive into the All Apps screen and manually pin new software to the Start screen.

That's a big win in my book, since installing desktop programs often plopped tiles for dozens of auxiliary executables, languages, and other options on the Start screen alongside the link to the base program, resulting in a distressing amount of clutter. Less-seasoned computer users may become confused when installed apps fail to appear on the Start screen by default, however--especially since the returned Start button's behavior trains you to consider the Start screen as a "modern"-day Start-menu replacement. Steel yourself for the support calls from family and friends.

7. My Computer

Yes, the nearly 20-year-old My Computer' moniker has retired, giving way to the more cloud- and cross-platform-friendly This PC'. Desktop fallout from the focus on "One Microsoft" continues--though this is an admittedly trivial change.

8. SkyDrive desktop program

Keen-eyed SkyDrive users will note that jumping to Windows 8.1 erases the discrete (and optional) SkyDrive desktop software that served to keep local files in sync with the cloud. And that makes sense: Microsoft's cloud service weaves itself tightly into Windows 8.1, and the desktop program's functionality has largely been replaced by the update's native SkyDrive support.

8.1. SkyDrive desktop-program functionality

Continuing with that theme, some of the more obscure yet helpful functions of the SkyDrive desktop program haven't been replicated by Windows 8.1's native features. For one thing, upgrading to Windows 8.1 kills SkyDrive's remote Fetch feature.

Also be aware that unlike the desktop program, SkyDrive in Windows 8.1 relies on symbolic links to point to cloud-stored files in File Explorer, even though everything appears to be saved locally at first glance. This "smart files" functionality can save a lot of space on tablets and other storage-restricted devices, but if you'd like to keep local copies of your stuff, right-click the SkyDrive icon in File Explorer and select Make available offline.

You can also right-click individual files and folders and choose to make them online-only or available offline.

Still worth the upgrade

Don't let these little omissions dissuade you: Windows 8.1 is superior to Windows 8 in virtually every way. It represents a much less jarring version of Microsoft's grand vision of a cross-platform future--though it still won't win over folks whose lips instinctively curl at the merest mention of the word "Metro." Check out PCWorld's definitive review of Windows 8.1 for all the juicy details. (And if you're one of those desktop diehards, you might want to check out our guide to banishing the modern UI from your Windows 8.1 PC.)

Wikipedia bans 250 accounts on pay-for-article concerns

The fifth and seventh paragraphs of the story "Wikipedia bans 250 accounts on pay-for-article concerns," posted Monday, misspelled the name of Sue Gardner, executive director of the Wikimedia Foundation. Her name was spelled correctly elsewhere in the story.

Touch Room, a weird little iPhone app, lets you touch people, E.T.-style, through your phone.

For all the junk food apps they’ve introduced to our daily diets, it’s hard to argue with the fact that smartphones give us an incredible array of tools for staying in touch with our loved ones. High-quality video chat has made it possible to catch up face-to-face no matter where you are in the world and apps like Snapchat have given us new forums for expressing intimate, vulnerable, and spontaneous moments. Still, though, whether you’re reading a text message or watching a friend’s smiling face, both are trapped behind a slab of glass. Touch Room, a weird little iPhone app, facilitates a different type of interaction altogether. It lets you reach through that glass window and actually touch someone.

You could argue that the app doesn’t do anything at all. You open it, establish a “touch room,” and send a link to a friend. There’s nothing inside the room until you put your finger on the screen–when you do, your fingertip shows up as a red dot. When your friend puts a finger on their screen, their fingertip shows up as a red dot too; as they move it, the virtual fingertip darts around your screen in real time. Then, when your two fingertips overlap, both phones vibrate. That’s it. The app does nothing besides letting you and a loved one execute a remote, synchronous smartphone version of an E.T.-style finger-to-finger kiss. 

Chris Allick and Pablo Rochat, the developers behind Touch Room, are aware that compared to today’s fantastically sophisticated apps, theirs “seems quite useless.” They admit that they were content to build “the absolute simplest application that would be allowed into the App Store to deliver this experience to people.” But they were right about their calculation: Just a taste of that experience is enough. It’s a glimpse into an entirely new type of virtual interaction that far beyond texting to become something much more immediate and intimate and visceral.

"It’s a glimpse into an entirely new type of virtual interaction."

“Whenever two people experience the vibration and sense of connection,” Allick says, “they all have the same reaction: ‘Wow.’” He’s right–even after years of rapid-fire texting, routine FaceTime calls, and complex mobile games that let you interact with other players in real time, the experience of using Touch Room is different. It is, if only momentarily, a little bit thrilling. Stripped of anything but the interaction itself, this undeniable symmetry emerges: You know when your friend has her finger on the screen and you know when she takes it off. You know where she’s touching her screen. And when you’re both touching your phones in exactly the same place, you know for that moment, you’re both feeling the exact same physical sensation of your devices buzzing in hand. The spartan interface foregrounds that immediacy–something Allick says Rochat was very much trying to preserve. “He wants the most powerful design element to be the other person you are interacting with,” Allick says, which is actually a pretty profound idea.

Allick and Rochat work for the ad agency Goodby Silverstein & Partners and built the app as part of the company’s BETA Group–a division that focus on creative technology and design. Allick had long been interested in kinetics and haptic feedback, but the spark for Touch Room came recently, when one of the firm’s executives mentioned how much he’d like to be able to touch his kid while on vacation. “There is something so simple an elegant about the desire to touch from afar,” Alick says. “Why not? Well, it’s a rather complicated technical problem.”

Still, recent advances in real-time networking technologies are making it possible to achieve, and the duo sees Touch Room as a proof of concept–a glimpse into a future of real-time haptic feedback. “For me and Pablo, Touch Room is supposed to be a thought-provoking experience,” Allick says. “Are designers and technologists creating products and experiences that actually help us and make us feel more connected?” When you use Facebook, for example, are you building relationships or just hoping to rack up some “likes”? In Allick’s view, with many of today’s social apps, “we’ve become addicted to the attention we receive, not the connection.” With Touch Room, the connection is undeniable, and it’s a little bit exhilarating.