How To Directly Upgrade Windows 8 To Windows 8.1 Update

About two weeks ago, Microsoft officially announced and released Windows 8.1 Update to the public. Windows 8.1 Update is a free update available to all PC users running Windows 8.1 RTM and is an effort to make the tiled Windows operating system easier for desktop and laptop users.

Ability to run Windows Store apps in the desktop environment, ability to pin Store apps to the taskbar, title bar in Store apps, and search and power button on the Start screen are some of the key features introduced with this update. More importantly, this Update is a mandatory update for Windows 8.1, meaning that users need to have installed this major Update in order to get security updates in future.

Even though it’s possible to manually download this Update from Microsoft and install the same, this Update has been available through Windows Update service since its public release on April 8th. As you should know by now, Windows 8.1 Update can only be installed on computers running Windows 8.1 RTM and you can’t install this Update in Windows 8. In other words, Windows 8 users must upgrade to Windows 8.1 first in order to get this Update via Windows Update service or to manually install it.

If your PC is running Windows 8, there is an easier way to upgrade the installation to Windows 8.1 Update directly. You just need to follow the given below instructions to directly upgrade your Windows 8 installation to Windows 8.1 Update. That is, users running Windows 8 can also upgrade to Windows 8.1 Update by following the given below instructions.

Upgrading Windows 8 installation to Windows 8.1 Update

NOTE 1: When you upgrade your Windows 8 installation to Windows 8.1 Update, you get all the features and tweaks included in Windows 8.1 plus features and tweaks introduced with Windows 8.1 Update.

NOTE 2: Although it’s possible to uninstall Windows 8.1 Update, you can’t uninstall Windows 8.1 Update when you perform a direct upgrade from Windows 8 to Windows 8.1 unless you have a backup image of the system drive. Be sure to create a backup image before beginning to install the update.

NOTE 3: You must have at least 5 GB of free disk space on your Windows 8 drive. If you don’t have enough free space, you can either manually delete files and uninstall some programs or extend the system partition by following our how to extend the system partition in Windows guide.

Step 1: Launch the Store app. To do this, switch to the Start screen and then click or tap the Store tile to open the official Windows Store.

Step 2: Here, on the Home page of Store, click on the large tile titled Update to Windows 8.1 for free to see the following page. Note that even though the tile says only Windows 8.1, it now includes Windows 8.1 Update as well. So, when you upgrade your Windows 8 installation to Windows 8.1, your PC is automatically upgraded to Windows 8.1 Update.

Step 3: Click on the Download button to begin downloading required files. Downloading the Update might take few minutes to hours depending on your internet speed connection.

Once the download gets completed, Windows starts upgrading the installation. Once done, you’ll be asked to reboot your PC to complete the upgrade process. That’s it! Good luck!