Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Windows 8.1 RTM Trickling Out, With Start Menu and Boot-to-Desktop

Posted by timothy on from the year-of-the-windows-desktop dept.

poofmeisterp writes "It's about time. Windows 8.1 will be released to end users in October, and RTM is being released now: 'Windows 8.1, codenamed "Blue," is introducing a number of changes designed to make the new operating system more palatable to current Windows users. Windows 8.1 is adding a Start Button, a boot-straight-to-desktop option; the ability to unpin all Metro apps; built-in tutorials; an improved Windows Store and a host of other consumer- and business-focused features. Microsoft launched its one and only Windows 8.1 consumer preview test build in late June.'"

4 of 496 comments (clear)

  1. Re:A step in the right direction! by roc97007 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    > It appears that Microsoft are responding to the needs of their customers.

    ...and that's exactly what they were after -- an appearance of responding to the needs of the customers, without actually doing so.

    --
    Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
  2. Re:Too little too late by J.+J.+Ramsey · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I'd say that the point is more that Microsoft took an interface that worked fine, namely the Start Menu, and replaced it with something that, for the most part, did not work as well. Third-party tools to customize an interface should be niceties, not a cure for someone else's screw-up.

  3. I'll take what I can get by rsilvergun · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I do a lot of remote IT support, and it's a nightmare getting that damn thing to pop up in an RDP or logmein session.

    --
    Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
  4. Stickers by tepples · · Score: 4, Interesting

    When you're not a computer geek or Microsoft employee, you don't necessarily touch computers every day, and trying to remember which hot corner to touch or where your application is, or how to get out of a full screen Metro app, is not something they're going to remember or even want to try to figure out.

    Then put stickers on the four corners of the monitor: "<- Start Screen" at the bottom left, "<- Switch App" at the top left, and "-> Charms" at the top right. It'd be like the cardboard overlays on the F keys back in the DOS days.