Less than a year ago we were preparing to launch Windows 8, which introduced our vision of highly personalized mobile computing. And here we are today announcing the global availability of Windows 8.1. Windows 8.1 demonstrates our commitment to continuously improving the product to create a richer customer experience. We are excited to have customers start updating their devices today and getting to experience new Windows devices this holiday season.
Out now for free for everyone with Windows 8.
Start8 and ClassicShell have both been updated to work with Windows8.1
Too bad you need third-party tools to make something decent that was to be expected from the GUI in the first place.
Not really.
My parents bought a new PC two weeks ago, and moved from XP to Windows 8.
They feel right at home with the new interface, after learning what changed.
My parents had the opposite reaction. They were totally confused by windows 8.
After figuring out that you get VERY DECENT menu from stock Windows 8 by right-clicking on the lower left corner, I started to think, that Windows 8 is actually totally usable system out of the box.
The new start menu is a little better in the sense it separates the main start screen from applications.
But as always with Microsoft, Agenda > Usability. If when I press the start button it went straight to the applications list, it would be fantastic. Yet to open applications you have to press start, then press the down arrow. Reaally stupid.
Plus, I can’t get rid of the really annoying “Secure Boot Disabled” label. I know it’s disabled, I did it myself to dual boot properly..
Other than that, it’s just basically the same as Windows 8.
umm…
Right click on task bar….properties….Navigation….make app list the default for the menu.
Oh.. thanks! Too late though. After a reboot, Windows 8.1 stopped working (simply does not boot anymore) on my Sony Vaio. Not even sure how to fix it..
Am I the only one who almost choked when reading that?
If I was going to “personalize” my mobile computing, it would not look/act like Windows 8, that’s for sure!
I barely noticed Windows 7.1 was released today. It’s so last month.
I still think Windows 2003 is the best version of Windows ever, in terms of speed/stability/functionality. And I use it to this day – a modified version that is converted to a desktop workstation.
I was highly anticipating Ubuntu 13.10, which I am downloading now…instead of installing Classic Shell on top of Winblows 8 I am gonna install Mate on Ubuntu.
Under the hood anything before vista is pretty much junk. Incomplete threading model. It might have looked nice but a very amateur OS.
Installed in less then 20mins.
It feels faster. And we got our official Facebook app.
SkyDrive is much better.
I enjoy Windows 8, but will pass this update.
Start button is stupid and I don’t like new start menu.
Wafflez,
“Start button is stupid and I don’t like new start menu.”
Funnily enough, even some MS employees think so.
http://news.softpedia.com/news/Microsoft-Accidentally-Shows-Windows…
It would be very interesting to see how many MS developers are using 3rd party shells to fix the “legacy desktop” on windows 8.
Uh that’s actually an ad agency using concept photos they got off of the internet.
Nelson,
“Uh that’s actually an ad agency using concept photos they got off of the internet.”
That’s probably true.
The youtube link is censored and I didn’t see the video. That photo may have been used for the article after the video was taken down and is not necessarily what was in the video. I believe this is common practice in the news industry to attach whatever photos are on hand to add media to otherwise bland looking articles, especially when authentic photos are not available.
For example, that’s exactly what they did here since the original source didn’t have a photo:
http://www.theverge.com/2013/10/17/4849098/nsa-docs-detail-surveill…
Uhm, why? To the best of my knowledge, the start screen/menu/button changes are all optional.
You cannot remove start button from task bar.
And I really prefer “old” feeling of 8.0 menu. It’s slightly different and it slightly pisses me off.
I kinda like not having a start button now. Updating anyway.
8.1 is much more efficient in terms of resource usage, and ports more settings over to metro.
The desktop’s had some nice touches added to apps, too.
If you like 8, you’ll probably like 8.1 more; it’s a fuller implementation of the same concepts.
Yeah. The return of the Start button is kinda strange. In previous versions of Windows, it was connected to the Start Menu. With 8, there was no button, and there was no menu. Different, but not strange.
However, having the button without the menu is weird. The Start screen doesn’t feel connected to the button, and I wish I could remove it.
I’m starting to think that that weirdness is what made me move to Linux. No button, no menu? No problem. But, Button without the menu? Eww.
One year ago, you had to use the new Start Screen, because Microsoft decided it for you.
Now, you have to use the new Start Button, because Microsoft decided it for you.
Resistance is futile.
It probably because collectively the internet lost it shit with the removal of the start button.
Seriously Microsoft are the only company I hear criticized because they listen to what people say.
lucas_maximus,
“Seriously Microsoft are the only company I hear criticized because they listen to what people say.”
Shoving everyone towards metro is not listening.
Yeah, well it’s one thing to give people a car instead of a faster horse. It’s quite another to give them a lame pony.
Trying to give the customer something better than what they asked for is all well and good, but you have to actually give them something better. And Windows 8 is not it. Putting a tablet UI on a desktop is just plain a horrible idea, and Windows 8.1 doesn’t fix that. The two paradigms are just too different.
Recently:
* Xbox One, people didn’t like how selling digital copies of games worked … they changed their policy.
* people bitched about the start button not being there even though there are two Start buttons on most keyboards, they put it back.
The start screen works exactly like the older Windows 7 start menu if you use it via the keyboard.
The new “Start button” is not the Start button they removed if it doesn’t bring up the Start menu. And no, that full-screen touchscreen-based Metro launcher is not what I’m talking about. When Microsoft brings back the Start menu, then you can safely say that they are actually listening. Until then, they are being stubborn as they have always been, forcing change.
It works exactly the fucking same as the old start menu in Windows 7 if you use the keyboard.
One of these days I am going to post a video of my fingers on the keyboard to prove the point.
I use a Windows 7 PC for 8/9 hours a day at work. I use a Windows 8/8.1 PC at home. I do nothing different on the keyboard and they work exactly the same.
Actually, you don’t have to do either one. It takes all but 5 minutes to install Classic Shell or Start8, and then you’re done. But a year after the fact and people are still bitching about it.
‘But why should I have to install a 3rd party util to have the OS do something that it should do out of the box?’ Well, a few things here:
– When it comes to 3rd party utils on Windows, how many of us have never installed Teracopy, or ProcessExplorer, or a Windows Explorer replacement, or any number of other 3rd party utils to enhance the OS? Hell, in Windows 7, I used to have to install DaemonTools (to mount native ISOs) and Ultramon (to get task bars on multiple monitors), but I don’t need either of these two on Windows 8. I also don’t need USB 3.0 drivers, and the built-in task manager is actually decent.
– Windows isn’t the only one ripping out features – think stock Android as well. (SD cards, support for non-standard bluetooth game controllers, CIFS, etc)
– The reason that Classic Shell was invented in the first place is because people hated the Start menu in Windows 7, so that certainly ain’t a WIndows 8 thing
This a thousand times.
I tend up installing on a new workstation or OS install quite a few applications I can’t live without, some I have paid for others are free.
Wait… Android is getting crappier too? Why is the world going insane?!
*sigh* I guess that’s just another reason to be glad that I’m waiting for the world of featureful, free smartphone OSes to catch up with the maturity level of Desktop Linux before considering a phone.
In some ways, it is. I mean, it still gets new features, but some stuff they’re afraid might confuse grandma gets ripped out. USB OTG support? Not anymore
It’s the war on power users. Although as with most things, you can still hack it back in.
*nod* One of the reasons I’ve never used GNOME.
(It probably also contributes to my avoidance of Xfce but, since LXDE is comfortable and I’d need to install PCManFM anyway to get tabbed file browsing, why bother mixing in something heavier than I need?)
I have never heard of Teracopy. I have never used any Windows Explorer replacement. And if you just say “3rd party utils”, hell, no OS supports every of your needs! Please do NOT generalize your view as if it is common.
Right, that was kind of my point. Classic Shell is just a 3rd party util in a long list of 3rd party utils that a lot of power users install. And some of these same people are now acting all butt hurt that they have to install a 3rd party util, and some of them were even using it on Windows 7!
There was not widespread hatred for the changes in Windows 7 and the start menu did not puke your program files randomly into a god awful collage.
So no that isn’t a valid point.
No, it just stuck them in a clusterfuck of cascading menus.
I helped a friend (who is decidedly not a tech blog reader) buy a laptop recently. I had heard negative things about windows 8 from them personally, so I was kind of shocked that they wanted windows 8 on the new laptop. I sat down with them to help them set it up, it turns out that this person now loves windows 8. There is a learning curve, but apparently its not that steep and somethings they added are a big hit ( like the curated app store).
I think at some point it will at least stop being a negative for people and they’ll just accept that this is the way computers are now. Personally, I’ll stick to a more traditional interface on KDE for now.
The exact same thing happened with Windows Vista, Windows XP before it. Everyone moaned until they got used to it and it wasn’t that bad really.
Any sort of change that is enforced however beneficial, is strongly opposed because it requires some learning.
Agreed. Often people don’t know what’s good for them.
Trust the usage data, not the user.
Its a dangerous thing to start thinking that you are smarter than the customer at knowing what they need. If you are going to back that up by citing usage data, you’d better have a lot of statistically relevant data. That or have few competitors.
Citation needed.
Google do it. Apple do it.
Edited 2013-10-17 20:07 UTC
Than perhaps they have a massive amount of user testing that they conduct, or they have limited competitors.
There are far too many mini Steve Jobs that I’ve met and worked for that want to be geniuses in design or tech. They use stories from Jobs’ career and think that anyone can do the same thing just by having a strong opinion. Apple, actually, designed parts of the mac interface based on extensive research into user design, incorporating things like fits law.
I met these types. Yeah they exist.
I don’t think it happened here tbh. I think Windows 8 is very much like MacOS 10.0 … lots of people hated the first verion of OSX.
I was pretty buzzed when I saw Windows 8 presentation and tbh despite some problems (due to my old hardware), it has been decent.
And who exactly would have more user testing than Microsoft? They published their rationale complete with such usage data which showed exactly how people used the Start Menu.
There is no grand conspiracy to kill the Start Menu, if it were genuinely used as intended it’d likely still be in Windows.
Actually Sinofsky simply spoke of “metrics” and didn’t reveal detailed data.
He basically said most people only use a few applications. Wow what a genius, who would ever guess that casual users don’t install many applications? So insightful!
When asked why that justifies removing the start menu for power users who use dozens of applications, he deleted the question. When asked why that justified not giving a *choice* to use *existing software* he deleted the question. Quite a talent really, blogs pages of b.s. that beta-nerds like yourself fall for and then hides when the questions from developers and power users come out.
Why are you defending the era of idiocy at Microsoft? Ballmer is being fired just like Sinofsky and here you are, still talking about the whole thing as if it wasn’t one of the most bone-headed moves in tech history. Well the board has changed sides so you might want to consider jumping ship as well. Don’t be the last NuMicrosoft defender standing….er I mean kneeling.
The Start Menu in 7 was a glorified application launcher for less frequently used programs, users pinned items to the taskbar. The taskbar actually took on much of the responsibilities of the Start Screen today.
I don’t see the usage broken down into “developer” or “power user” anywhere, or even how they’d know that. The data provided was in aggregate.
And get over your Sinofsky crush dude, its weird.
Nelson,
“I don’t see the usage broken down into ‘developer’ or ‘power user’ anywhere, or even how they’d know that. The data provided was in aggregate.”
Can you link to exactly what data you are referring to?
Sure.
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/archive/2011/10/03/evolving-the-start-me…
and
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/archive/2011/10/04/designing-the-start-s…
Nelson,
Well those links are interesting, only the first one contains stats. However the information there is clearly hand picked by microsoft, and even then it isn’t conclusive.
For example:
“Figure 4 reveals that 85% of people have three or more items pinned to the taskbar compared to a mere 23% who have the same number pinned to the Start menu.”
Lots of software will automatically install quicklaunch entries by default without user interaction. My computer right out of the box had entries for IE, Show Desktop, and Media Player. More were automatically added for Firefox, Thunderbird, etc. So if *only* 85% of people had three or more items, that’s well short of the 100% that should have had 3 or more to begin with. What gives?
MS gives lip service to this, but they omit any stats that would have clarified it while making an untenable claim (people want *most* of their apps on the taskbar).
“Although the taskbar and Start menu have different pinned defaults, many people do customize both of them when they want to. The message is clear that the majority of people want most of their apps on the taskbar rather than having to dig into Start.”
The entire paragraph under figure 3 claims that users are using the start menu less, but they fail to correlate this with a higher use of quick launch (which is what they’re trying to lead on). It could be that users are doing more web activity and even web apps these days, that could easily account for a 11% drop in start menu launches. Furthermore even if true, it says absolutely nothing about user’s preference for the metro start screen.
In the second link he points out deficiencies with the windows 7 start menu (some that I agree with BTW), but his argument is built on the false premise that portrays the start menu as a static unfixable component of the desktop. It’s clear he’s doing so because he’s already decided that we are to use metro’s start screen instead.
If this is all the data we’re talking about, then it just doesn’t seem to have built a very good case for killing the start menu, but as it was said earlier, everyone can have their own opinion.
I wrote parts of this page: http://bit.ly/1cyKgcZ
The left hand navigation and the right hand navigation besides where it says “placepot” I wrote a basic set of ASP.NET web controls.
Guess which out of the two has more clicks?
It isn’t the left hand side (which common sense and web design trends would dictate to be correct) …
It is that nasty right hand side navigation (which is below the fold) that was demanded by other people in the business and we thought it would be never be used and has a few bugs because the XML feed that drives them has changed.
My manager and I were stunned.
Edited 2013-10-17 19:45 UTC
What, no bitcoin?!?
Nice page, though, and yes I’m stunned as well. Even when we do careful user preference testing, the users in the wild still often grab their pitchforks and charge the towers with screams of rage, demanding less efficient methods of interacting with their computers. Glad I’m not a psychologist.
Modern ATM machines can count money almost instantly after you request it, however you still have to wait about 10 seconds for it to count … this is because people don’t believe that it is counting the cash properly.
While you’re on the subject … Modern car doors can be made very safe & very light. But no one believes that, especially as they’re so thick these days, they just feel cheap.
So the car manufacturers painstakingly arrange a series of weights inside the doors to make them feel heavy when you open or shut them, & spend weeks trying to get the ker-chunk noise really ker-chunky.
Until a company such as Tesla comes in and shows them how it’s done properly…then the show is over, literally!
There are many instances where the command line is faster but we don’t see normal users navigating via a terminal because of it. People like intuitive and familiar at the same time. Gnome shell tried this stunt and it was largely unpopular, Windows tried it with 8 and… same result. I commend Microsoft for taking a leap as much as I detest them in all their aspects taking a bold step could of worked out huge, if only they hit the nail on the head ( Iphone UI )… instead of whatever 8 is/was.
FWIW I still strongly believe that Luna UI theme (or what was that thing called those days) from Windows XP is the ugliest UI theme I’ve ever seen.
And though it isn’t very popular now to do so, in contrast to all other Windows versions I genuinely like
UI of Windows 8. I even acquired a license and installed 8 (now updated to 8.1) as a secondary OS on my laptop. I boot it every dozen of days or so, and I only run Metro apps there, because I genuinely find them much more pleasant and less tasteless then “desktop” counterparts.
Actually one of the first things I used to do on XPs configured to use the Windows 2000 classic view was to set them back to Luna.
Not everyone likes the same things.
Sure. Actually, quite a lot of people really preferred Luna over “Classic” UI. I even remember some people preferring Luna to Vista’s UI back when Vista wasn’t released and it was universally thought to be a major improvement. All these usability and aesthetics things are really not as universal as they are generally believed to be.
ddc_,
“All these usability and aesthetics things are really not as universal as they are generally believed to be.”
I’d figured that most people already knew this. Whether a pitch is any good or not depends not only on the presenter, but also the audience. As it was so aptly stated by moondevil “Not everyone likes the same things”. But then reading some posters here, some act like customer opinions and preferences don’t matter since we’re not smart enough to decide things for ourselves and should just leave everything to microsoft.
The thing is, microsoft either miscalculated a large part of it’s desktop audience, or intentionally went ahead anyways without regards to them. Pick your poison. There would have been very little to complain about had they only made metro optional, windows 8 would have been widely regarded as a winner. Nearly all the bad publicity could have been completely avoided if they only tried to include metro as an elective component for those who want it.
On the other hand, if microsoft’s internal research predicted poor adoption rates for metro so long as traditional desktop configurations were still available, then suddenly microsoft’s motivation to not provide that choice becomes very clear. To microsoft, metro must succeed at any cost because it’s the foundation for their new app store/walled garden business model.
Edited 2013-10-18 03:40 UTC
I believe they actually care more for the ability to quickly turn user’s tablet into PC with classic desktop and MS Office. Microsoft’s RnD has led them to decision to convert Windows desktop into optional element of computing ASAP – and they had to enforce this decision by forcing users into new UI that wasn’t asked for. Actually similar thing happened in Linux a bit earlier: GNOME 3 is clearly a tablet UI, and KDE 4 made its tablet UI first class citizen.
I was an owner of ASUS R2Hv – Vista-powered tablet by ASUS from mid-2000s… If tablets are indeed to overtake desktop PCs’ shares, classic Windows desktop and specifically third-party apps for it won’t survive unless people get used to Windows 8-like switching.
So if I force a UI on your desktop that goes into “rave mode” every 5 minutes where your icons spin around and you have to chase them down to restart your programs, it would still be beneficial since it is “change”?
You know there is actually something called productivity and Sinofsky didn’t once explain how Metro improves productivity over the start menu. In fact he deleted points that showed how certain tasks required more clicks and or longer mouse strokes.
Thom thought that too until he used it enough. It’s fine for new users until they discover why it’s not
This is something I noticed myself too. But watching people using it, I believe the problem lies in the apps, not on the system itself – in other words, they like to use the new paradigm because the apps designed for it are easier to use (for what they want to do) compared to the same app (to do the same thing) designed for the previous paradigm.
And they’re cooler.
OS designers should learn from this and redesign the builtin apps, before redesigning paradigms. There’s a chance for the overlapping windows paradigm to survive, but only if it learns the from the new.
The GUI is everything to the end user. When people buy Microsoft Windows they expect the conditioned look and feel of Windows complete with a Start Menu. The 8.1 Start Button is a hollow compromise.
If Metro had been linked to in the Startup where users decide (or group policy dictates) which to open, the Desktop as has evolved or METRO. The latter would have been the killer ap. instead an unfamiliar Startup look and feel whacked the customer in the face.
METRO isn’t all that bad on a touchscreen. I think it sucks on a traditional mouse & keyboard combination. If its geared for the touchscreen user then I’m sure people with touchscreens would have preferred the METRO option. Tablet and touchscreen desktop user experience would have been happy to stick with this new killer ap, driving the new era for Microsoft.
Instead we got what appears to be this wolf pretending to be a sheep.
Windows 8.0 was correct. Windows 8.1 is more correct.
Putting Sinofsky in charge of Windows was correct.
Firing Sinofsky was more correct.
Putting Ballmer in charge of the company was correct.
Firing Ballmer was more correct.
They’re never wrong. In our minds they’re either correct or more correct.
We are the Microsoft defenders of the internet. Our opinion is the same since it is always the most recent correct move from Microsoft.
s/Microsoft/Apple/g
s/Microsoft/Google/g
There are fanboys everywhere.
This update just won’t install on my system. It downloads, “installs”, then goes through “getting the update ready” before failing, and the “details” say that “something happened” with an error code (most recent attempt was 0x80070002). Have tried all the workarounds except for “refreshing” which means wiping all my apps, which I’m not willing to do.
Microsoft is so full of fail!
The published directions claim that you can continue working while the update runs in the background — but if you click the “Download” button, the system complains that you must be logged in with an admin account… what are these people thinking?
Sadly.. I was really hoping that 8.1 would be better. After using it for a few hours, I’m glad It wasn’t a paid upgrade. Definitely not worth it. It’s still extremely annoying to use. Gets in the way of what I want to do. I hate it. Seriously microsoft.. the Win2000 and Win 2003 interface, you had it right then and there. Simple. Looking forward to finding another O/S .. I’m done with constantly boxing with my spare machine.
Mmh, it was hardly earth-shattering. Oh well, at least I can boot to desktop and disable the charms popping in in the top-right corner – tiny changes, but positive.
If you like windows classic, and are looking at a replacement for windows, your best bet is probably a KDE-based linux desktop.
It can look and behave almost exactly like windows after changing the single/double click setting, and installing a couple of themes.
I like the Windows8 desktop appearance, so I made QtCurve look similar, for example:
http://img545.imageshack.us/img545/7016/7hr1.png
It’s the only fully-featured DE out there with enough configurability to act like every other DE, including MacOS or Windows.
GTK applications are irritating, but so long as you want the menubar in the window and not in the titlebar or in a widget, they look similar enough with the GTK version of the same theme/iconset applied in SystemSettings.
kde is an abomination of its own. I typically put xfce on laptops. people generally seem to get that decently well.
“Abomination”?
It’s the most featureful unified FOSS environment, by far.
XFCE is better than gnome or cinnamon/mate, but its featureset leaves power users wanting.
Kwin is highly powerful, customisable and resource efficient, akonadi and nepomuk integrate well with a large variety of resources for PIM, etc.
KDE 4.0 was bad, but it’s at 4.11 now, and it’s incredible just how far it’s come. Nothing else has everything it does, and it can still run on minimal resources with efficiency. It’s not using much more RAM or HDD on arch than did AwesomeWM for me.
I’m surprised no one has mentioned that there is no obvious way (though there are ways) to install the update without associating a local account with a Microsoft one. I don’t like the feeling. And really bad timing also (in the backsweep of the NSA scandal).
cant you just use a google account for that?