The Black Underbelly of Windows 8.1 'Blue'

snydeq writes "Changes in Microsoft's forthcoming upgrade to Windows 8 reveal the dark underbelly of Microsoft's evolving agenda, one that finds pieces of Windows 8 inexplicably disappearing and a new feature that allows Microsoft to track your local searches cropping up, InfoWorld's Woody Leonhard reports. 'As Windows 8.1 Milestone Preview testers push and prod their way into the dark corners of Windows 8.1 "Blue," they're finding a bunch of things that go bump in the night. From new and likely unwelcome features, to nudges into the Microsoft data tracking sphere, to entire lopped-off pieces of Windows 8, it looks like Microsoft is changing Windows to further its own agenda.'" A lot of the stuff the article gripes about are what Google has been doing for ages with Android: requiring a Microsoft account, funneling users to their services first, tracking your system usage, etc.

Comments

Expect more of this.

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft has every incentive to do this, and no disincentive.

Seriously, how many people are going to switch to Linux over this? Nobody.

Get used to it.

Re:Expect more of this.

[binarylarry]

Most people use Windows because they've been using Windows.

Windows 8 isn't really "Windows" as they knew it, it requires change. People hate change and if they're going to change, maybe they'll look at alternatives. If they have the cash, they might go for Macs (look at the sales figures lately).

If they don't... what's cheaper than Windows 8?

Re:Expect more of this.

[Lendrick]

Seriously, how many people are going to switch to Linux over this? Nobody.

Even if that's the case, it will hurt them if people decide never to upgrade.

I run Windows 7 right now. I see absolutely zero compelling reasons to upgrade to Windows 8, and plenty of compelling reasons not to. I don't have to switch to Linux for Microsoft to lose out on my money. I just have to not buy any more of their products.

P.S. Lest I lose all of my Slashdot cred, I should point out that I dual-boot.

Re:Expect more of this.

[sg_oneill]

Switching isn't the problem (From a market perspective Frankly they have more to fear from OSX then they do from desktop linux, no disrespect intended to linux intended) , its people staying put and not upgrading.

Consider how much trauma microsoft have had getting people of the decrepid Win XP. Now consider the problems getting them off the still very relevant Win7.

Unless your on a tablet or touchscreen machine, theres literally no reason to upgrade right now, particularly with the general dislike most people have for metro and metro apps.

Re:Expect more of this.

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is Desktop Linux is a bigger change for many of them.

If the Desktop Linux bunch had spent time making Desktop Linux a closer replacement for Windows XP, very many organizations and people would have moved over when Vista came out. More so with Windows 8.

Instead they do weird stuff to make Desktop Linux even less unattractive to people who don't want change.

ReactOS is still in alpha or Microsoft would have sued it to death.

Re:Expect more of this.

[Fluffeh]

Seriously, how many people are going to switch to Linux over this? Nobody.

Actually, I think that this is finally starting to change. Ever-so-goddam-slowly, but in recent times, I have moved two non tech savvy friends over to Linux partly because it was free, partly because it did everything they wanted. Okay, these folks didn't go out, do the research themselves, pick their 'nix flavour and get into a terminal window - but after seeing how easy most things are, I have managed to encourage two more users to switch. A few and a good few months into their little linux saga respectively, neither would consider switching back. Disclaimer: one of these machines is merely a media server and transcoder (Ubuntu, MediaTomb and MakeMKV) but even that is a good win in my books.

I think the biggest issue with these changes for Microsoft will be when businesses, typically their biggest proponents are going to start frowning about these changes. I dare say that for every company that switches off Windows, half their employees will change OS at home. Perhaps not straight away, but in time.

Re:Expect more of this.

[Charliemopps]

Uh... Android IS Linux and people have been switching in droves. Not because of privacy issues, or stability or anything else geeks have been raving about for years... It's cheap, and it's easier to use. The fact that this is exactly what the mainstreams been screaming at the Linux community for over a decade while they didn't listen, while at the same time they screamed at Microsoft for the very things that are bringing them down now and they never listened is the height of irony.

Re:Expect more of this.

[Anonymous Coward]

For who? For you maybe. For the average, not particularly tech savvy consumer who just wants something easy to pick up, not at all.

Re:Expect more of this.

[ozmanjusri]

Seriously, how many people are going to switch to Linux over this? Nobody.

Except a whole bunch of OEMs who used to be staunch Microsoft partners.

"HP shows off 21-inch all-in-one Android desktop
PC makers are experimenting with Android given that Microsoft's Windows 8 devices have struggled to attract consumers"

http://www.infoworld.com/d/computer-hardware/update-hp-shows-21-inch-all-in-one-android-desktop-221316

CoolShip,an android desktop computer that looks like a keyboard
CoolShip has a 1.5Ghz dualcore ARM processor inside.It is a low cost home PC,PC for elderly and children,also a solution of hotel PC for guests,educational PC.

http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/coolship-an-android-desktop-computer-that-looks-like-a-keyboard

Acer shows 21-inch Android desktop
Taiwan's Acer is breaking Android out of its comfort zone and has installed the operating system on a 21.5-inch all-in-one desktop PC that is expected on sale in the U.S. later this year.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2040886/acer-shows-21inch-android-desktop.html

Get used to it.

Not a chance. I'm really enjoying the innovation and competition that's coming our way now the Windows monopoly's tumbling. Can't wait until Office is usurped as well!

Re:Expect more of this.

[djdanlib]

Well, not every direction away from Windows is productive.

For example... Unity. Departing from Windows in that direction was harmful. It's really hard to get used to it, and it isn't exactly self-explanatory. You have to become a power user to have more than half a clue of what you're doing and get it to stop being in your way. That's no good for office workers. It might work just fine for people who just want to surf the Web though.

Having something that works for a majority of people - both the home user world AND the office drone world - is what we need. Not something to scratch the itch of the UNIX guru 1%, because that part of the beast lives under the hood anyway. It has to be compatible with a huge variety of ways of thinking, and Windows has entrenched itself so deeply within the psyche of computer users that anything new absolutely needs to be similar and Just Work without loads of configuration.

Apple did the Just Work thing right. As much as I don't enjoy using their products, which seem to be designed to prevent you from doing anything that wasn't in their somewhat specific list of use cases, they got that right - it just works for their use cases. That, and they got the marketing right. Everyone was used to things being one way and they made something different look sexy to the general public. A particular Linux distribution could possibly be marketed well and succeed, but that would require dreadful amounts of money that FOSS just doesn't produce.

What's it gonna be? Something that only we enlightened Slashdot readers can really learn how to use? That's where we're at. Or will it be something that the common user will be able to be productive with?

Just watch, Android will emerge as a desktop OS someday, and it'll make waves...

Re:Expect more of this.

[0123456]

The problem is Desktop Linux is a bigger change for many of them.

MATE is much closer to XP/Windows 7 than Windows 8 will ever be. Just because Gnome and Canonical have gone full metal retard, that doesn't mean everyone has.

Re:Expect more of this.

[Opportunist]

Bluntly, the average Linux distri is, from a surface point of view, more Windows than Windows 8.

Re:Expect more of this.

[Grishnakh]

If the Desktop Linux bunch had spent time making Desktop Linux a closer replacement for Windows XP, very many organizations and people would have moved over when Vista came out. More so with Windows 8.

Instead they do weird stuff to make Desktop Linux even less unattractive to people who don't want change.

The sad fact is that the newest version of KDE is a the perfect DE for anyone wanting to switch from Windows (XP, Vista, 7) to Linux: it's fast, full-featured, and looks and works much like the regular Windows desktop interface. Moreover, it's highly customizable and configurable, so a distro could easily make a theme for it that looks even more like Windows, and sets even more options to work by default just like Windows (but let users change from those defaults if they desire). The software is already here, minus that last bit to make the transition even easier for Windows refugees.

But instead of adopting KDE and pushing it as a Windows replacements, the mainstream distros are all dead-set on sticking with Gnome3 or Unity, interfaces which don't look or work remotely like Windows. Anyone who complains about this is met with comments like "Linux needs to be a pioneer, not copy someone else", and so Linux remains stuck in obscurity. And why Linux users so strongly want a DE that discourages configurability and modification, I have no idea; I thought Linux was supposed to be more attractive to tinkerers, but Gnome3's developers hate people who try to modify their holy UI.

Re:Expect more of this.

[Grishnakh]

Apple only got the marketing right with their mobile devices, the iPod, then iPhone, then iPad. MacOS X still has very low marketshare; not many people have switched to it. People were OK with adopting Apple's UI on small mobile limited-use-case devices (mainly because the existing offerings at the time totally sucked, especially MS's horrible offerings that tried to shove a Win95-style UI onto a tiny touchscreen), but they never did so for their desktop and laptop PCs.

Re:Expect more of this.

[datavirtue]

Agreed. Google will stop hiring conformist Ivy League'rs with 4.0s and will eventually win. They have a much better reach than Microsoft. Bing has already failed and is being sheepishly ignored until its final demise 15 years from now.

Re:Expect more of this.

[Xicor]

most people use windows because every program works on windows. if every program worked on linux, a lot more ppl would use linux.

Re:Expect more of this.

[Entropius]

I find KDE to be wonderful (and, in fact, used it as a replacement for the Win8 that my new laptop came with). It's pretty easy to use, pretty flexible if you care, and in general just gets the hell out of the way. It doesn't try to be everything -- it's a window manager, and a thing that provides basic services like network management. (The exception is the annoying "notifications" mechanism...)

Re:Expect more of this.

[Entropius]

Linux has never had marketing behind it. Marketing is what sells to low-knowledge consumers. Linux has only seen success among high-knowledge folks (power users, server admins, scientists) and in scenarios where someone else does the marketing (Android).

Re:Expect more of this.

[techno-vampire]

Gnome3's developers hate people who try to modify their holy UI.

Their attitude has always been "my way or the highway." They've never been open to suggestions from anybody who isn't actively working as a Gnome dev or understood that Gnome isn't just something for them to tinker with as the mood strikes them but something that other people should want to use. (That's why they're called "users," you know.) Personally, I was so horrified by what Gnome 3 was going to be that I migrated to Xfce before Gnome 3 was released and never looked back. It does what I want, the way I want and is very configurable, none of which is true about Gnome 3. The big problem, as I see it, is that, as you say, most of the mainstream distros are Gnome-centric and most of the newer users aren't even aware that they have a choice.

Re:Expect more of this.

[smash]

I'm probably going to get flamed here, but I've only recently tried unity and don't see what the fuss is about? Sure, network integrated search is a big turn off, but in terms of the UI I don't see any major problems with it? It can open multiple xterms, do drag/drop file management, and has a dock/application launcher. Is it the minor, fairly irrelevant UI semantics? I certainly find Unity less annoying than recent versions of KDE. And I'm sure KDE can do a lot of funky stuff I'm not attempting to use. Fact is, it is not intuitive in the slightest.

I understand performance did suck previously, but I've had no problems running it as a VM under OS X in Fusion, and i wasnt exactly liberal with resources.

Re:Expect more of this.

[Telvin_3d]

They've never... understood that Gnome isn't just something for them to tinker with as the mood strikes them but something that other people should want to use.

Except that 'Something to tinker with as the mood strikes them" is exactly what it is. It's open source and it's their project. It is whatever they want it to be, with whatever goals they want it to have. Now, those goals might be very different from what you, or me, or anyone with larger ambitions for the Open Source community might want them to be, but that's tough luck.

It's the big stumbling block of the Open Source movement. When the goals of the developers just happen to align perfectly with what users and the general community envision (i.e. the development of Firefox) the results are stupendous. When the developers are really just scratching their own itch with a public project (GIMP) you get years of frustration as features and design decisions completely baffle observers.

If you want it done differently, you can fork it yourself. And if you think there should be a middle ground between "meekly accepting whatever is tossed your way" and "full fledged OS developer", well, the OS community doesn't have a lot to offer.

Of course, you could provide monetary incentives to get people to provide the features you want. However, given the cost of funding an entire OS development team to do what you want you'll probably have to find some way to recoup the expense. Next thing you know, you're charging people money in exchange for software that does the things they want in the way that they want. What a ridiculous idea.

Re:Expect more of this.

[tftp]

No, the UI of XP and of 7 is similar enough, and I never heard any complaints about that transition. People stick with XP because of compatibility with older - and very expensive - software and hardware that they invested into a decade ago and cannot just rebuy on a lark. Those upgrades are not free in the industry - they often require huge yearly payments for "maintenance."

Again, this has nothing to do with user's personal choice. A great deal of industrial software does not work well under Win7. One might say that it shouldn't, because it breaks the new security model. Perhaps. But the fact remains.

A few items cannot even be bought today, because the company either closed the doors, or moved on, abandoning an older product. Sometimes you have your technological chain dependent on very specific data path (.txt - .dxf - .dwg - custom reader - custom processor...) An upgrade, even if you can afford it, may wreck your business just because it is not compatible with a million other pieces of software that you must use. Xilinx's transition from XST to PlanAhead to Vivado is a great illustration of that disaster. Those tools don't even produce compatible files to exchange the pin data with CAD tools!

Re:Expect more of this.

[0123456]

Getting lots of conflicting advice and no actual solution.

The solution is easy. If you want something that works almost like Windows XP or Windows 7, download Mint MATE edition and install it.

And since Mint is supposedly now the most popular Linux distro, they should be getting that advice from most people they ask.

Re:Expect more of this.

[Aranykai]

My only problem with unity boiled down to the title/task bar arrangement. Permanent bar at top of screen that was not a task bar, but becomes title bar when window is maximized. Additionally, if you happened to like right hand close and mini/maxi buttons, now they have moved to the left. Also, you cant close a background window that is maximized without switching to it first, because the close buttons wont appear until you mouse over the title bar.

Just little nagging things that really frustrated me. Eventually I suppose there will be tweaks or options for these behaviors, but its jarring when your workflow is interrupted by being unable to close a background window without switching to it or having buttons move around on their own.

Re:Expect more of this.

[SerenelyHotPest]

Almost everything in the parent post is correct. But I also feel I've heard this post far, far too many times. I don't often have the "How Could Linux Gain Real Traction?" conversation any more. I already know all the lines. Anyone who's cared for long enough learned the lines in 2003--or possibly earlier: "The reason Apple succeeded where Linux...", "Linux just needs a critical mass to be accepted...", "People don't choose Windows; they are used to it because...", et al. Unfortunately, in all that time, little has changed. The reality is that even as all the different, fragmented little Linux distros and spins and flavors that were meant to be usable asymptotically approach the "It Just Works" point before most grow beyond their means and recede into bloatedness and metaphorical pretense, none has managed to offer something--anything--that Mac OS and Windows don't that ordinary people care enough about to incentivize the switch--and all the pains associated with switching. Believe me when I say I'm on the F(L)OSS side here as an idealist, but until/unless someone with some actual leverage comes along who sees how to seriously disrupt the desktop OS duopoly with some killer feature that everyone needs as they work to avoid twisting users' wrists, prove they can play that game better than Microsoft and Apple, somehow monetize it without becoming Microsoft or Apple, and are in it for the haul, things aren't likely to change. The closest Linux has come is Mark Shuttleworth. I'm not sold on his being that. My coworkers still complain about real problems with the Ubuntu boxen that have been forced on them. (Most) people don't want community gurus; they want support, familiarity (which includes not having peers staring cowishly at their desktops because they're running KDE) and a promise to go from A to B--repeatably. To the point about Android: I don't want a smartphone OS on my desktop. If Android changes enough to become Windows 7 with a Linux kernel, that will be nice. I don't exactly see it revolutionizing the desktop computing world, though. If Android Desktop came with some analogue to Adobe's Creative Suite and approachable full-fledged office and development environments that blew competition out of the water, we might be in business. But realistically, what I should really be doing right now is putting down the pipe and taking a cold shower to wake me from that dream.

Re:Expect more of this.

[jcupitt65]

Go around a university library and see what the students are using. Here at Cambridge it's about 50% mac, 25% win, 25% pen and paper.

MS have lost the next generation of consumers.

Same as Google

[Anonymous Coward]

Only that nobody want to use Bing or Hotmail. They both suck.

Then windows is well and truly dead...

[the_skywise]

The only reason Windows gained market share in the 90s was because it went out of its way to not be a closed system. It's always sucked, it's just a matter of how little but that we still had control over our PCs than IBM and later Apple wanted us to have.

If Microsoft goes this route and enforces controls and advertising ala Google/Android styl Android will gain the lead as a desktop OS.

In short, the more Ballmer tightens his fist, the more users will slip through his fingers.

Re:Then windows is well and truly dead...

[couchslug]

"The only reason Windows gained market share in the 90s was because it went out of its way to not be a closed system."

Sheeit. The reason it gained market share was you could effortlessly copy the OS and Office and whatever apps you wanted then install them on any PC as many times as you liked. I expect many older Slashdotters can still recite Windows keys from memory.

"They'll get addicted, and then we'll collect"

http://articles.latimes.com/2006/apr/09/business/fi-micropiracy9

Re:Then windows is well and truly dead...

[fermion]

So MS did not purposefully create a closed application front end in which many major websites only worked with IE. Compare this to Google in which Chrome may provide an 'optimized' experience, but their stuff pretty much works on any standards compliant browser. I can't believe I am defending google, but they could have made Chrome incompatible, even if it was based on an Apple product.

MS prospered because so much of the stuff you did would not work if you did not continue to have MS stuff. The MS Word format was always ill defined and it was impossible to know what would happen if a version was skipped. Certainly in the mid to late 90's we were shooting MS Word files around and there was always an even chance they would bork on different versions, even if filters were installed.

Now that people are getting used to open standards, like HTML 5, MS is having a harder time locking in users. They tried to hook the desktop and the phone, thus creating a locked ecosystem, but they failed. Now they are trying to reassert control by locking the laptop and tablet to MS Windows 8. At least now they are trying to do so by adding value, like Apple and Google, but what value is being added to the user may be much less than we expect.

Re:Then windows is well and truly dead...

[binarylarry]

Classic Shell is better and doesn't cost anything: http://www.classicshell.net/

Re:Not surprising is it?

[msauve]

MS is the new IBM.
Apple is the new MS.
Google is the new Apple.
IBM is the new Google.

What goes around, comes around. Except for Dell and HP(/Compaq/DEC). They're just dead. (Agilent is the new HP)

"google does it too"

[Anonymous Coward]

Ya, but at least you aren't paying extra for the privilege of being tracked like you do with a microsoft product. Its a trade off for 'free' services in google-land.. In the microsoft world you pay thru the nose AND get tracked.

Google is more upfront about it too.

( that said, neither is right.. but one is less bad about it )

Re:what??

[Elbereth]

Well, yeah. But Google has an enviable image and works in emerging markets, where they can set consumer expectations. Microsoft has a crap image and works in entrenched markets, where customers have strong opinions and entrenched ways doing things. This is a bit of a simplification, of course, but I think it helps to explain why people complain so much about everything that Microsoft does, while they give Google a free pass.

Re:as noted, android does this

[Namarrgon]

Your're doing it wrong? Switching to Bing or Yahoo on my Nexus 10 works as expected for me.

Also, Android doesn't require a Google account - you're asked for one on initial startup, but there's a Skip button that bypasses it. If you go further, change a few key settings (such as search provider) and perhaps sideload one of the many non-Google app stores, your Android device can be used without Google ever seeing it.

Wall-E was a documentary

[Voyager529]

Even so, I've found Windows local search to be more trouble than it's worth anyway. the "perpetual green bar" kept getting in my way, so I just disabled Windows Search entirely. On the sad side, I can't use instant search in Outlook anymore. On the bright side, I replaced it with Everything. It legitimately searches everything, and does so instantly. I'd prefer doing that in Windows 8.1. If for no other reason, I haven't the foggiest idea why someone would want to simultaneously search the internet and a local drive for the same search string. They're foundationally different - internet search is for "stuff you don't have", and local search is for "stuff you have, but don't know where". I can't ever once think of a time I've wanted to search both at a time.

Serato really, REALLY needs to port itself to Linux.

Big difference

[stox]

I don't pay $$ for Google. If Microsoft wants to make its products free, then OK, but until then this is abusive. They are trying to eat their cake and have it, too.

Free Windows 8.1?

[Antony T Curtis]

Since they say that they will be showing advertisements on the desktop, does that mean that they will get rid of the Windows Home/Pro/Expert editions and just have a single Windows 8.1 which is free to download and install?

windows 8.1 only for the USA

[aepervius]

"funneling users to their services first, "

Yeah that'll work well with anti trust issue in EU.

"tracking your system usage"

Yeah that'll work well with data protection issues in EU.

Re:as noted, android does this

[5um0F1]

no you dont, I have a htc sensation running happily *without* a google (gmail) account

Windows 8.1 also broke the Windows RT jailbreak

[Myria]

In addition to a lot of other misfeatures like shoving Microsoft Accounts down your throat, Microsoft actually went out of their way with Windows RT 8.1 to lock out the jailbreak that allows you to run non-Metro applications on Windows RT 8.0. Windows RT is basically just Windows 8 ported to ARM, desktop and all, but Microsoft made Windows RT unable to run any non-Microsoft program in the desktop -- all third-party applications *must* be Metro applications on the Windows Store. I really think that Windows RT is Microsoft's testbed for what they envision as the future of all of Windows, both desktop and tablet.

The jailbreak made Windows RT able to run unsigned applications on the desktop. Some open-source applications have now been ported to the jailbroken Windows RT environment. That's pretty much all the jailbreak allowed you to do -- run some desktop-mode open-source programs on Windows RT. The jailbreak doesn't seem to facilitate Windows Store application piracy at all -- at least, I haven't heard of such hacks.

And yet, Microsoft went well out of their way to block it. They revoked the certificate used to sign all RT 8.0 applications. They changed the debugger policy on RT to not allow WriteProcessMemory. They rewrote considerable portions of the Windows RT-specific lockdown DLL, wldp.dll. They marked csrss.exe as a DRM-related "protected process", even though it has nothing to do with DRM. This latter change applies to x86 as well, even though the change was clearly designed to target the method by which the Windows RT 8.0 jailbreak worked.

I'm working on a new jailbreak for RT 8.1. I already have code executing in kernel mode in RT 8.1, so it's just a matter of putting everything together. I'm going to wait until the 8.1 final release before releasing the jailbreak, though, to make things more complicated for Microsoft to fix.

Not a representative sample

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course an ivy league school full of the offspring of the rich/upper middle class is going to be chock full of Macs. Try going to average university where the students aren't loaded with money. Much fewer macintoshs there.