Windows 8.1

Windows 8.1 gives you the familiar desktop with its taskbar and Start button, plus a beautiful new Start screen that you can customize with your favorite apps, people, and sites so that everything you love is just a tap or click away.

You also get built-in cloud storage for anytime, anywhere access to your photos and files, beautiful full-screen browsing with Internet Explorer 11, plus an exclusive collection of built-in apps like Photos and Mail, with many more apps available from the Windows Store. And that’s only the beginning.

System requirements

Windows 8.1

If you want to run Windows 8.1 on your PC, here's what it takes:

• Processor: 1 gigahertz (GHz) or faster with support for PAE, NX, and SSE2 
• RAM: 1 gigabyte (GB) (32-bit) or 2 GB (64-bit)
• Hard disk space: 16 GB (32-bit) or 20 GB (64-bit)
• Graphics card: Microsoft DirectX 9 graphics device with WDDM driver

Additional requirements to use certain features:

• To use touch, you need a tablet or a monitor that supports multitouch
• To access the Windows Store and to download, run, and snap apps, you need an active Internet connection and a screen resolution of at least 1024 x 768
• Microsoft account required for some features
• Internet access (ISP fees might apply)
• Secure boot requires firmware that supports UEFI v2.3.1 Errata B and has the Microsoft Windows Certification Authority in the UEFI signature database
• Some games and programs might require a graphics card compatible with DirectX 10 or higher for optimal performance
• Watching DVDs requires separate playback software 
• Windows Media Center license sold separately 
• BitLocker To Go requires a USB flash drive (Windows 8.1 Pro only)
• BitLocker requires either Trusted Platform Module (TPM) 1.2 or a USB flash drive (Windows 8.1 Pro only)
• Client Hyper-V requires a 64-bit system with second level address translation (SLAT) capabilities and additional 2 GB of RAM (Windows 8.1 Pro only)
• A TV tuner is required to play and record live TV in Windows Media Center (Windows 8.1 Pro Pack and Windows 8.1 Media Center Pack only)
• Miracast requires a display adapter which supports Windows Display Driver Model (WDDM) 1.3, and a Wi-Fi adapter that supports Wi-Fi Direct
• Wi-Fi Direct Printing requires a Wi-Fi adapter that supports Wi-Fi Direct and a device that supports Wi-Fi Direct Printing
• Free internet TV content varies by geography, some content might require additional fees (Windows 8.1 Pro Pack and Windows 8.1 Media Center Pack only)
• To install a 64-bit OS on a 64-bit PC, your processor needs to support CMPXCHG16b, PrefetchW, and LAHF/SAHF
• InstantGo works only with computers designed for Connected Standby

If your PC is currently running Windows 7 or Windows 8 you can check to see if it meets the requirements by running the 

Windows 8

If you want to run Windows 8 on your PC, here's what it takes:

• Processor: 1 gigahertz (GHz) or faster with support for PAE, NX, and SSE2 
• RAM: 1 gigabyte (GB) (32-bit) or 2 GB (64-bit)
• Hard disk space: 16 GB (32-bit) or 20 GB (64-bit)
• Graphics card: Microsoft DirectX 9 graphics device with WDDM driver

Additional requirements to use certain features:

• To use touch, you need a tablet or a monitor that supports multitouch 
• To access the Windows Store and to download and run apps, you need an active Internet connection and a screen resolution of at least 1024 x 768
• To snap apps, you need a screen resolution of at least 1366 x 768
• Internet access (ISP fees might apply)
• Secure boot requires firmware that supports UEFI v2.3.1 Errata B and has the Microsoft Windows Certification Authority in the UEFI signature database
• Some games and programs might require a graphics card compatible with DirectX 10 or higher for optimal performance
• Microsoft account required for some features
• Watching DVDs requires separate playback software 
• Windows Media Center license sold separately 
• BitLocker To Go requires a USB flash drive (Windows 8 Pro only)
• BitLocker requires either Trusted Platform Module (TPM) 1.2 or a USB flash drive (Windows 8 Pro only)
• Client Hyper-V requires a 64-bit system with second level address translation (SLAT) capabilities and additional 2 GB of RAM (Windows 8 Pro only)
• A TV tuner is required to play and record live TV in Windows Media Center ( Windows 8 Pro Pack and Windows 8 Media Center Pack only)
• Free Internet TV content varies by geography, some content might require additional fees (Windows 8 Pro Pack and Windows 8 Media Center Pack only)