My, how quickly the tables can turn in the fickle world of consumer technology.

When Microsoft’s designers and engineers took to the drawing board to dream up Windows 8, the 9.7-inch iPad was the 800-pound gorilla of the tablet market, gobbling an insane amount of market share and laughing at Android’s attempts to break Apple’s stranglehold on slates. The future, it seemed, lay in big screens.

Then the Kindle Fire, the Nook tablet, and Google’s Nexus 7 appeared. Consumers fell in love with smaller, cheaper tablets overnight, and on October 23, 2012, Apple capitulated to popular demand and released an iPad mini of its own.

Three days later, Microsoft released Windows 8 to the public. With a design optimized for 10-inch-plus displays, it was already behind the times.

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If you were going to sum up Windows 8 in a single sentence, “It’s all about the apps” would do the trick. And that’s why a new study from Soluto, a company that offers a remote troubleshooting tool for Windows PCs, suggests a somewhat stark reality for Microsoft's new-look operating system.

Windows 8 was rebuilt from the ground up to revolve around finger-friendly Windows apps. The modern UI Start screen is chock-full of Live Tiles generated from those apps, virtually all of Microsoft’s default programs sport that oh-so-modern (a.k.a. the interface formerly known as Metro) luster, and users don’t even get the option of booting straight to the desktop. You have to stare the Start screen’s shiny, shifty app collection in the face every time you boot up your PC.

With that heavy a focus, Windows 8’s very future hinges on the success of its apps. Soluto’s report digs into how often people really use those apps on a daily basis.

The news isn’t wonderful. Of the 10,848 Windows 8 devices studied by Soluto, the majority of traditional desktop and laptop users—even ones using a device with a touchscreen—fail to open a modern-style app daily. (Note that this study refers only to modern apps, not to traditional desktop programs.) Even on tablets, the devices best suited for Windows 8’s modern UI, just 56 percent of all users launch a Windows 8 app day in and day out.

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Gmail offers powerful customization options even if you don’t install a single browser extension. You can switch keyboard shortcuts on and off, modify individual shortcuts, enable experimental features, and more.

But there are some things even Gmail’s extensive customization settings can’t do, and that’s where these free Chrome extensions shine. They range from gentle tweaks to a full-blown Gmail makeover. You decide how drastically you want to change Gmail.

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After coming out swinging a few days back with a Surface ad that focused on Office, Microsoft has a new ad that confronts the iPad head-on. And here’s the crazy part: it’s surprisingly amusing.

The commercial is a takeoff of Apple’s iPad Mini piano commercial. In the Microsoft version—entitled “Windows 8: Less talking, more doing”—the company pokes fun at Apple’s personal digital assistant Siri, all the while showing off the advantages of a Windows 8 tablet over the iPad.

“Sorry, I don’t update like that,” Siri says when the disembodied hand often seen in Apple commercials tries to get Live Tile updates from the iPad’s grid of icons. “Sorry, I can only do one thing at a time,” Siri chimes in again while a Windows 8 tablet shows off the Snap feature that lets you view two apps at once.

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Writing a book, a research paper, or a script may seem intimidating when sitting in front of a blank word-processor window, trying to figure out where to start. Yarny is a cloud-based, distraction-free editor that can help writers stay organized and focused on their work.

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Foxit Software's PhantomPDF (in both Standard and Business editions) make a good choice for basic office needs, but it suffers from an identity crisis once you get to the high-end features. Foxit's download page makes the bold claim that it is "Better than Adobe Reader and Acrobat," but a more accurate statement would be that it might be better, in very specific circumstances that may or may not apply to you.

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FreeSpace 2 and other space combat classics kept the genre alive, albeit on the back burner, for years Then indie game studio Born Ready Games came along and decided to create a modern space combat simulator: Strike Suit Zero ($20).

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Even great game franchises fall prey to mergers, acquisitions, and the vagaries of the game business. Such was the fate of FreeSpace 2, a space simulator originally released in 1999 to great critical acclaim, as part of the Descent and FreeSpace franchise. Due to business circumstances, it was the last in the series—but it can still be played today for the price of $10. and its source code, released in 2002, has been adopted by an active community of coders and modders.

The original game remains commercially available to this day through GOG, a service specializing in old-time games. While the original FreeSpace 2 offered very impressive graphics for its time, it can't hope to match modern space-sim games in the visauls department.

Fortunately, it has a lot to offer in terms of gameplay and depth. Cockpit and HUD controls are intricate and well thought out, from subsystem targeting, through automatic speed matching, to smart indicators on your HUD showing a target's distance and bearing even when it's out of your field of view. FreeSpace 2 also makes good use of the keyboard, with an interface that expects you to memorize many keys.

If you enjoy FreeSpace 2's detailed gameplay and only wish for some updated graphics, you're in luck: Open-source, free mods dress FreeSpace 2 in updated graphics from franchises you probably already know, and include new storylines and game mechanics to boot. I tried Diaspora, a mod based on the Battlestar Galactica 2004 remake, and was impressed by its slick graphics. It was nice to find myself in the pilot's seat of a Viper, trying to prove myself as a nugget (and badly failing).

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Plenty of applications help you show off your photos, and plenty help you show off your videos. But too few tools exist that allows you to show them off together. Enter Fantashow Pro, a $50-per-year (or $5-per-month) application allows you to combine still photos with videos to create a custom video slideshow.

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Microsoft Flight is the current incarnation of a long and illustrious franchise of games, dating back to 1977. Unlike SimCity, you can start playing Microsoft Flight for free: Simply download the game and embark on a series of missions planned to both teach you the basics of flight, and hook you into buying later missions and additional aircraft. Microsoft Flight is the last of its kind: Microsoft permanently stopped work on the game in July 2012, just a few short months after releasing it.

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Beyond the Hotspot software that comprises the bulk of their business, Connectify Inc. makes another utility for laptop enthusiasts: Dispatch.

Connectify Dispatch works by simultaneously leveraging the multiple network adapters and high-speed USB ports available on modern systems to boost bandwidth and reliability. Each Internet connection you add to Dispatch's list of active adapters increases potential download speeds and provides automatic failover in the case one of the connections fails. For the most part, this works swimmingly. However, there's a bit of the devil in the details.

Setup is straightforward and largely automatic. Users are presented with a window that lists available adapters and indicates whether or not they are bound to Dispatch. A graph charts the combined bandwidth on tap, and settings allow for customized application routing, bandwidth caps for metered Internet feeds, and various routing strategies that maximize efficiency in marginal networking situations.

The first prerequisite is an obvious one: You need access to multiple, separate Internet connections for Dispatch to work as advertised. The hidden detail here is that combined bandwidth isn't directly additive. Two 20 Mbs connections won't yield a 40 Mbs single-socket download, for example, but they will allow for loads to be balanced and intelligently routed to an available adapter with the most suitable bandwidth. BitTorrents and other software that utilize multiple sockets will allow downloads to reach full combined speeds, however.

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There's a lot to be said for software that just works. That isn't to say that Adobe Reader doesn't work, but it has a lot of baggage attached to it that Foxit Reader doesn't. As a result, Foxit is significantly smaller and faster.

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I never thought a truck-driving simulator could be fun, but Euro Truck Simulator 2 proved me wrong. There is something soothing in watching the world go by from the high and mighty cockpit of a Volvo FH16 Globetrotter XL. If you are used to more traditional racing games, getting used to the way trucks handle in the game may take some time. They really do feel like trucks: Slow to accelerate, jarringly fast to brake thanks to air brakes, ungainly to maneuver, and immensely powerful.

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It's official: The Windows Blue update will be dubbed Windows 8.1, it'll be available for Windows 8 and Windows RT devices alike, and it will cost you the low, low price of zip, nada, zilch.

Interestingly, the free Windows 8.1 update will be available through the Windows Store, not the usual Windows Update method.

"Windows 8.1 ... continues the journey we first began with Windows 8 last fall," the confirmatory Windows Blog post commented this morning. "Windows 8.1 will help us to deliver the next generation of PCs and tablets with our OEM partners and to deliver the experiences customers—both consumers and businesses alike—need and will just expect moving forward."

What's that mean? Early leaks of Windows 8.1 gave us some tantalizing glimpses into the future, while we have some strong suggestions and logical guesses (hello again, desktop!) of our own.

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She's your mom. She's risen to every challenge, not the least of which was raising you to be the fine, upstanding PC enthusiast you are today.

Yet despite all of Mom's successes, you're still the go-to techie in the family. With Mother's Day just around the corner, it's your turn to streamline her desktop, protect her precious data, and put a smile on her face. Just install these apps and gadgets on Mom's computer, and surprise her with a much better PC experience on Sunday morning.

Many business users rely heavily on Evernote for managing documents and other information, but the service's Achilles' heel has long been its lack of markup capabilities.

That's where Skitch comes in. Now owned by Evernote, this desktop/mobile app provides a simple but effective set of tools for annotating documents, the idea being to get your point across visually when communicating remotely.

And it just got a much-needed feature boost: Skitch for iOS (and Mac) now supports PDF annotation.

That may not sound like a big deal, but for anyone who uses Evernote to store and especially share PDFs, it's welcome news indeed. Now you can mark up PDFs with text, arrows, shapes and highlighter tools, then sync them back to your account and/or share them with co-workers.

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Microsoft kicked off a new promotion aimed at Windows XP customers, who have just one year to ditch the 12-year-old OS before it’s retired from support.

Small- and medium-sized businesses still running Windows XP and Office 2003—the latter also will be retired a year from Monday, on April 8, 2014—can purchase licenses to Windows 8 Pro and Office 2013 Standard at a 15 percent discount, Microsoft said on a promotional website.

Caveats apply: Customers must be running XP Professional, the Windows 8 Pro and Office 2013 Standard licenses must be purchased as a package via Microsoft’s Open License program, and the deal is capped at 100 licenses for each. The discount is good through June 30.

Microsoft pointed customers to a list of partners who will offer the Open License discounts.

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Windows 8's uptake pace slowed in February for the third straight month, an analytics company said today.

According to Net Applications, Windows 8's February usage share—including what the firm labeled as "touch" for Windows 8 and Windows RT—was 3% of all Windows PCs, up from January's 2.6%.

Windows 8's share increase in February was about four-tenths of a percentage point, smaller than January's gain, which in turn was smaller than either December's or November's.

The new operating system also fell further behind the pace set by Windows Vista in 2007: In its fourth month of availability, Vista powered approximately 4% of all Windows PCs. The full percentage point gap between Windows 8 and Vista was the largest so far in the tracking Computerworld has conducted.

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Regardless of whether your business is Fortune 500 big or mom-and-pop small, transitioning to a new operating system is a major endeavor—and a major headache. There's a reason why so many companies still use Windows XP, after all. So when you do bite the bullet, you want to make sure you're picking an operating system that meets all your needs.

But wait! The decision-making process isn't done once you've decided to transition your company to Microsoft's latest operating system. Like previous versions of Windows, Windows 8 comes in several editions. There’s the basic, straightforward Windows 8—similar to the Home edition in previous versions of Windows—as well as costlier Windows 8 Pro and Windows 8 Enterprise versions, both of which offer additional business-friendly features.

Which is right for your business? It all depends on your company's particular needs. Let's break down what each version of Windows 8 brings to the table.

Windows 8

Most small businesses will be fine running the standard version of Windows 8, which we covered in-depth in our official Windows 8 review. While the flashy visual overhaul may have given the OS a whole new look and feel, Windows 8's desktop mode is basically Windows 7 sans a Start button—along with several under-the-hood tweaks that improve the operating system's overall speed and responsiveness.

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The wait is over for Office 2013 and Office 365. Starting Tuesday, the latest version of Microsoft’s venerable productivity suite goes on sale to consumers and academics, both on Microsoft’s Office.com site and at retail outlets. You can buy the traditional stand-alone desktop software or, for the first time, consumers and students can buy Office as a subscription service that will make multiple installations cheaper.

Along with assorted new features and a design overhaul, Office 365 subscription services introduce the much-touted "Office on Demand" feature that allows subscribers to access full versions of Office applications on Web-connected PCs.

Windows users can still buy stand-alone versions of Office 2013 the old way (for prices ranging from $140 to $400). But if you need even the least-expensive edition on more than two or three computers in your household, you might wind up paying more than you would under the $100-a-year Office 365 Home Premium subscription plan (see our previous story on Office pricing), which covers up to five desktop installations (PC or Mac) versus a single installation for the stand-alone license.

For students, faculty members, and anyone else who qualifies for the Office 365 University license, the deal is even sweeter: Microsoft is charging a mere $80 for a four-year subscription that covers two desktop installations.

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Winzip has been a household name in file compression for two decades. WinZip 17 takes file compression and management to the cloud with Google Drive, SkyDrive, and Dropbox integration—and now a new update is available that adds Box to the mix.

WinZip was a pioneer of the freemium software business model—basically providing the software for free, and relying on the moral compass of customers to pay for the product if it proved to be useful to them. I used to download a wide variety of shareware applications following a similar strategy, but WinZip was the first one I ever felt compelled to actually pay for.

Over the years, hard drive and flash drives have grown exponentially in size, and the cost of storage has gone down, so the need for a file compression utility has declined. However, the rise of photos and videos—which can be massive files—and the desire to upload information to social networks or cloud storage services has brought it back in vogue. It’s much easier and faster to upload a 100Mb file instead of a 1GB file.

WinZip has evolved to be a much more comprehensive file management tool than it once was. It still provides file compression, but now it also includes the ability to convert documents to PDF, add custom watermarks to PDF files, and post files directly to popular social networks.

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Like every new Windows release, Windows 8 is more secure than the operating systems that came before it. That's due in large part to three major enhancements: An increased emphasis on UEFI Secure Boot optimizations, the extension of the SmartScreen Filter across the operating system, and the default inclusion of a more robust version of Windows Defender, which now protects against all kinds of malware—not just spyware.

Windows Defender's increased scope doesn't sit well with computer manufacturers, however. OEMs make beaucoup bucks by installing those trial versions of McAfee, Norton and other security suites you'll find bundled on boxed PCs. Windows Defender's default installation threatens that gravy train.

Microsoft tossed its partners a bone by allowing OEMs to deactivate Windows Defender in order to ship boxed PCs with alternative security solutions installed. That's all well and good from a "variety is the spice of life" perspective, but one side-effect that isn't so hot is what happens when you fail to register that third-party security software: Windows 8 doesn't automatically reactivate Windows Defender by default. In other words, your pretty new prepackaged PC is wide open and vulnerable to all the nasties of the 'Net.

Fortunately, activating Windows Defender is a snap. Here's how to do it.

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Has your computer's hardware started freaking out, freezing up or behaving in weird ways since you've made the jump to Windows 8? Don't lay blame at the feet of a mischievous gremlin. Instead, it’s much more likely that your devices simply aren't rocking the most up-to-date Windows 8-compatible drivers.

Yes, a simple driver update might just fix your Windows 8 hardware woes.

The Windows 8 Upgrade Assistant does a decent job of identifying which parts and software in your rig need an update prior to installing Windows 8—and Microsoft's Windows Compatibility Center website offers the same feature for DIY types who prefer to search for specific programs and hardware—but many devices still fall through the cracks, and you'll need to manually update any drivers Microsoft can't snag itself. (Note that the process outlined below works for Windows 7, as well.)

How to update Windows 8 drivers

Before you get your hands dirty, however, you should see if Windows Update has automatically checked for driver updates. Not all drivers are available through Windows Update, but many are and it’s the easiest way to proceed.

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Ahh, Windows 8. If you’ve decided you're ready to plunk down your hard-earned cash to give this modern UI a shot, you'll want to spend a few minutes considering just how you take your first steps into the Windows 8 experience.

You have three ways to install Windows 8 after you’ve purchased it: (a) Run it as a virtual machine on your current operating system; (b) dual-boot it alongside your current operating system; or (c) perform a full install and overwrite the OS you're currently rolling with. While the installation methods vary in complexity, all three are within the grasp of even Windows novices, and each brings its own pros and cons to the table.

Let's take a deeper look at each option.

Running Windows 8 in a virtual machine

One of the easiest ways to play with Windows 8 without having it affect your current operating-system setup is to install it in a virtual machine. While you can get fancy and purchase premium VM software like Parallels Workstation for this purpose, a completely free program called VirtualBox accomplishes the same thing, minus a few bells, whistles, and advanced options.

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Windows 8 has a few new features (like the charms menu, the Start screen, and gesture commands) which may seem pointless or needlessly confusing at first blush. Experienced Windows users running a non-RT version of Windows 8 may be tempted to ignore these new features entirely in favor of working exclusively through the Desktop app.

That's a reasonable sentiment, and it's totally feasible because Windows 8 works equally well whether you stick exclusively to the new Windows 8 interface or the traditional Windows desktop. But Windows 8 really shines when you learn to use the charms and gestures to quickly swap back and forth between the Start screen and the desktop, multitasking and sharing data between new Windows 8 apps and your trusty desktop software.

Before you can do that, you need to get comfortable taking your hands off the keyboard. After a few weeks working and playing with Windows I'm starting to learn how the new control scheme, designed to work equally well on desktops, laptops and tablets, can help you work faster and more efficiently if you take a little time to learn and integrate it into your workflow. With that in mind I've put together a brief guide to helping you get more done in less time on your desktop or tablet by mastering Windows 8 touch controls and their keyboard/mouse equivalents.

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Just one problem: Removing the virus hadn't restored all my sister-in-law's icons and data. The hard drive still showed nearly full, meaning nothing had actually been erased, but for all intents and purposes, the stuff was still MIA.

Fortunately, I found a utility that worked a seemingly major miracle: It brought everything back.

It's called UnHide. This free, self-contained utility is available via BleepingComputer courtesy of a user named Grinler. Just download and run the program, then be prepared to wait. On my system, it took 10-15 minutes to restore everything.

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I frequently get email from frustrated readers needing tech help. Occasionally their dilemmas are interesting enough to cover here in Hassle-Free Tech (see "Reader Q&A: Gmail Without Web Access, Too Much Security" for my last roundup). This week I try to help Greg, who is in turn trying to help his in-laws with a big problem. Also this week: I review Iobit's Advanced SystemCare 5 Free, which promises to clean out your Windows system and get it running faster.

Windows Freezes at Login Screen: Hardware Problem or Windows Problem?

Reader Greg is trying to help his in-laws solve a pretty major laptop problem: "When it powers on, it comes to the login page and freezes. The mouse won’t move and I can’t type in anything into the password field. The disk access looks busy, which I know is typical when a PC starts, but even after it eventually slows down, neither the mouse nor keys will work. I tried firing it up in the various Safe Modes but the results are the same."

Greg also notes that he tried a system-recovery disk he created on a different system, but had no luck with that, either.

Problems like this can be difficult to diagnose. The fact that you're "locked out" even when booting into Safe Mode suggests there might be some kind of hardware failure, but because it sounds like the boot process is running its course in the background, there might be something else afoot.

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I’m quite sure I didn’t request or enable that feature.

Previously, each update would note the time it was posted: “8 minutes ago,” “2 hours ago,” “yesterday,” and so on. Now, Facebook tacks on information about where I was when I posted: “near Wolverine Lake,” for example.

Unlike!

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That all depends on what kind of supplement you're looking for. You only need one antivirus program, and Microsoft Security Essentials fills that role. But an antivirus program isn't the only kind of security software you may need.

Don't be misled by the term antivirus program. These programs don't just protect you from viruses (which, technically speaking, are passé, anyway). They protect you from Trojans, worms, spyware, rootkits, and all sorts of malware. As the term is generally used, an antivirus program is software that loads automatically when you boot, then stays in the background, protecting you against malware in real time.

But no software is perfect, so it's a good idea every week or two to scan for malware with another program. But you don't want another antivirus program; two of these running in the background at all times, doing the same job, is asking for trouble. You need an on-demand malware scanner--a program that only runs when you launch it and scans only when you ask it to. I recommend either SUPERAntiSpyware or Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware, or both.

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If you need a basic website to house and promote your business, these five services let you design, publish, and host your site for free--or for a small monthly fee--all from the comfort of your browser.

These services all feature "What You See Is What You Get" (WYSIWYG) website editors. In other words, you don't have to know a single line of code in order to build your own, professional-looking business website. Next, to make your brand's look and feel match your print materials, here's how to create print materials such as business cards and brochures.

(The website images shown herein are simply examples created for the purposes of this article.)

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