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Hands-On With Windows 8.1 Preview

Posted by Soulskill on from the solid-color-rectangles-redux dept.

adeelarshad82 writes "Microsoft launched the preview version of Windows 8.1 at the company's Build conference in San Francisco and early signs show that Microsoft heard the criticisms, and has responded with improvements. The new OS includes a number of changes starting with the return of the Start button and the ability to boot directly to the desktop. However, Microsoft hasn't given up on making the new-style tile and full-screen more usable for all users. If anything, the tile-based Start screen has gotten more flexible, with new smaller and larger tile options. Windows 8.1 also drastically improves built-in search, SkyDrive cloud syncing, mail and Microsoft Music." Microsoft also released a preview of Visual Studio 2013 and .NET 4.5.1, and there's a program that will give developers early access to the PC version of the Kinect sensor. Other tidbits: Windows 8.1 will use a standard driver model for 3-D printers, and it's getting better support for both high-res displays and using multiple displays with different resolutions.

19 of 505 comments (clear)

  1. the return of the Start button by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    That's the phrase everyone has wanted to hear, including myself. Microsoft may have backpedaled, but that was the right thing to do.

    1. Re:the return of the Start button by Entropy98 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      That's the phrase everyone has wanted to hear, including myself. Microsoft may have backpedaled, but that was the right thing to do.

      What good is a start button without a start menu?

    2. Re:the return of the Start button by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      What good is a start button without a start menu?

      Works great in my car.

      So by analogy, it'll work great in a computer.

    3. Re:the return of the Start button by SoCalChris · · Score: 5, Informative

      Except that they totally missed the point of what everyone wanted.

      Yes, there is a start button there now. But all it does is bring up the start screen, the same as pressing the Windows key. The start menu, which is what most people really want back, is still missing from the OS.

    4. Re:the return of the Start button by Vanderhoth · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I was going to say, the start button isn't what people wanted, they wanted the start menu. METRO sucks on the desktop, I don't want it and I don't want to see it. Tablet or phone sure it makes sense.

      Now we're probably going to have to sit through hundreds of posts for "I've been using windows 8.1 for 10 years and it's just so awesome with the new start button, just what everyone wanted. MS is such a great company that listens to their customers."

    5. Re:the return of the Start button by rot26 · · Score: 5, Funny

      This is not the start button you were looking for.

      --



      To ensure perfect aim, shoot first and call whatever you hit the target
    6. Re:the return of the Start button by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Start -> All Programs was a complete disaster -- lets put a hierarchy of everything installed on your computer in a small non-resizable popup menu.

      To be fair, though, a LOT of that problem stems from companies making installers that seem to "helpfully" assume that you FIRST want to sort your applications by company name rather than, say, "Games", "Internet", "Graphics", "System", etc, and then the application or a company name under THAT. Did you just install four games, three graphics programs, and two system tools, each by different companies? Guess what? You've now got nine brand new top-level folders, each containing one program icon, one to three readmes, and maybe an uninstaller! Because that makes sense, right? Now keep going until you've got sixty or seventy top-level programs.

      It wasn't so much that All Programs was a disaster, it was companies using it as secondary advertising space on your desktop.

    7. Re:the return of the Start button by lgw · · Score: 5, Funny

      I just love this from TFA:

      The tile-based Start screen (which is actually where that new Start button leads to), has gotten more flexible, with new smaller and larger tile options. And more than two modern apps can now share the new interface's screen. No longer are you restricted to a large window and one slender side panel, but two apps can each take of half the screen, or, depending on what the app's developer has allowed, any portion you choose

      Exciting times we live in, when I can have 2 apps running at the same time, side by side on my desktop, and even resize them! C'mon, this is ground-breaking. Though I guess it's not entirely novel, since I could do this with EMACS (and presumably VI), but it's pretty cool to see in a GUI.

      --
      Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
    8. Re:the return of the Start button by Hal_Porter · · Score: 5, Funny

      He's jiggling it back and forth, muttering 'work you fucking stupid bastard' under his breath.

      --
      echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
    9. Re:the return of the Start button by Hal_Porter · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Here's a novel idea. How about have tablets default to Start Screen and Metro mode and desktops and notebooks defaulting to looking just like Windows 7 - i.e. Start Menu and desktop mode? And having a user option to override that default.

      Then the 0.001% of users who exclusively use Metro apps on their tablet would be happy and the rest of us could just ignore it completely. The only reason they're pushing Metro down everyone's throat is so that people write and use Metro apps and the Microsoft store has something to do.

      As it is they've got the boat anchor that is Metro dragging down Windows 8 because people who like Windows 7 hate it. It's dragging down Windows RT too because no compelling Metro apps means that Windows RT is screwed. It's dragging down the Windows Store because no one actually wants Metro.

      They've got one very unpopular product - Metro and a number of very popular ones - most notably Windows itself. They've tried to force the people that like and use Windows to use Metro. And probably the reason for that is because if Metro apps take off then so will Windows Phone. Which right now is tanking too.

      However instead of this strategy making Metro and Windows Phone more popular they've actually managed to make desktop Windows less popular. PC sales are down and they've made Windows run much less well on non touchscreen machines but the tablets people are buying instead are running Android and iOS, not Windows.

      --
      echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
    10. Re:the return of the Start button by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      The file copying is much better now

      I'm intrigued - how can anyone screw up something as fundamental as copying a file so badly that some 28 years later it can still be made "much better?"

  2. Windows Sucks! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    I bought a Windows Vista 5 years ago. The first one exploded to blew my hand off. The next one killed my dog. It wouldn't support my joystick from 1986. The wifi screwed up and sterilized my nuts.

    Overall I was left with a really bad feeling about all Microsoft products, which obviously must all have similar defects. Anecdotes by unverifiable semi-anonymous internet posters prove that to be true.

  3. Don't be fooled by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    This release is actually just a re-branding of Windows 98 SE. If you previously purchased Windows 98 SE I strongly suggest you use that.

  4. Speaking as someone... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    ...who views Microsoft as a corporation with disgust due to all the immoral, illegal and downright reprehensible acts they have committed over the years to maintain their monopoly position, I'd just like to thank them for Windows 8.x, which will probably do more to damage them than the toothless DoJ ever could.

  5. Re:Good Changes All Around by g0bshiTe · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I have all that too it's called Windows 7.

    --
    I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
  6. Re:Why would anyone want Windows 8.1? by atlasdropperofworlds · · Score: 5, Insightful

    They want it because they can use things like office or the creative suite. They want it because it allows for far cheaper systems than their one main competitor (the other greedy, immoral company), they want it because games are written for it and it runs without issue on their gaming rigs.

  7. Still no Start Menu - Pass! by Chas · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Sorry, but until I'm able to completely deactivate the context-destroying, time and scren real-estate wasting Start Screen altogether, Windows 8 (sans 3rd party Start Menu add-ons), is nothing more than a toy.

    Yes, I understand that menus are an creeping problem when adding functionality.
    Yes, I understand that they're limited when implementing touch interfaces.

    I DON'T GIVE A SHIT!

    I don't use touch interfaces on anything larger than my phone, and even then, my current phone has a fallback to a physical keyboard. I have no use for them on a desktop or even a laptop. NONE.
    I'm concerned about productivity FULL STOP. A menu system enables me to do more, faster. Especially with keyboard shortcuts (many of which were completely annihilated when they removed menus altogether in 8).
    Managing systems remotely with the Win8/Server2012 interface is a complete pain in the balls, as the "hot corner" functionality for pulling up the various charms bars and other crap have a strong tendency to just not work, or work extremely sporadically in remote management situations. Yes yes. I could learn all the goofy new keyboard shortcuts. A menu system would still be more straightforward and functional.

    Microsoft is acting like a kid who's been told to clean his room.
    They've basically put it off as long as they can.
    Now they're just going to kick some stuff under the bed and other general half-assery and hope it's sufficient.

    It isn't. Period.

    --


    Chas - The one, the only.
    THANK GOD!!!
  8. Good, bad, and ugly by JDG1980 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The good:

    • The Start button is available again.
    • Hot corners can be turned off.
    • You can now boot straight to the desktop.
    • The context menu for the Start button now has shutdown options.
    • High-DPI support is supposed to be better now (though third-party developers will still figure out ways to break this).

    The bad:

    • The real start menu still isn't back, and the Metro start screen is nowhere near as good – it's more obtrusive and less functional.
    • The window titlebar text is still centered, with no supported way to put it back to left-justified. For those of us who have been using Windows for years, this is a very annoying change since it breaks the muscle memory of our eyes. When I've tried Windows 8, I always find myself looking at the wrong place to see a window title.
    • There's still no supported way to get back the Aero theme. I understand why people with tablets or low-powered laptops might want an interface that doesn't stress the GPU as much, but why should desktop users have to suffer through something that looks like it's straight out of 1995? The Windows 8 theme is the UI equivalent of brutalism – those ugly bare concrete buildings that architects were putting up in the 1970s.

    The ugly:

    • Metro. Or, as I call it, the Knots Landing user interface. Seriously, you shouldn't be looking to the theme songs of 1980s soap operas as your inspiration for UI design...
  9. I'll wait for 8.11 by WillgasM · · Score: 5, Funny

    I need my workgroups.