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

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

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

Posted by timothy on Sunday August 25, 2013 @02:32AM 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.'"

36 of 496 comments (clear)

Min score:

Reason:

Sort:

Too little too late by Teresita · 2013-08-25 02:37 · Score: 5, Informative

The start button takes you from the Desktop right back to the Metro screen, which is what pisses everyone off in the first place.
1. Re:Too little too late by J.+J.+Ramsey · 2013-08-25 03:05 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  You can fix it yourself if you administer the machine. However, at work, people often can't do that because they are--rightfully--not given the access rights to do so.
2. Re:Too little too late by roc97007 · 2013-08-25 03:21 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  > If you know, I don't sit on my ass and whine like a spoiled brat who can't take any initiative.
  You don't get it. (1) Yes I can fix it. But why should I buy something that I need to beat into submission, when what I have works fine? (2) Yes I can fix it, but the 10,000+ users in my company, most of whom have other jobs than being a computer geek, would struggle with it, and I'd lose my job if I foisted that off on them.
  
  --
  Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
3. Re:Too little too late by bryanbrunton · 2013-08-25 03:31 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  The old menu allows quick access to the majority of system functions. It did this with a minimum of clicks, mouse movement and extraneous information.
  If I am working, I don't want to see weather information, stock quotes and baseball scores. Sure, you can remove those tiles from the start screen, but then that defeats the purpose of having that information available when I am not working.
  I actually might enjoy the start screen when I am not working, but that goes back to the core malfunction of the start screen: it is mixing core functional areas:
  (1) Program/System/Settings Launcher
  (2) Information Provider
  Why is so freaking difficult for the so-called User Interface experts at Microsoft to understand that this is a colossal fuck up to jam these two key functional areas onto the Start Screen?
4. Re:Too little too late by roc97007 · 2013-08-25 03:37 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  Thanks to Penny Arcade I thought the same thing - however its not true. I did download the community release and you can indeed have an old school start menu again.
  Only for certain rather bizarre values of "old school start menu". The icon takes you back to the start screen, which is precisely, absolutely, not the point of having a start button. You cannot change this without third party software, which, given that choice, makes Win8 a corporate non-player. Win7 will have to last us until Microsoft gets a clue.
  
  --
  Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
5. Re:Too little too late by roc97007 · 2013-08-25 03:46 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Whatever products Microsoft craps out, there are always a handful of people somewhere who against all reason like it. There were a handful of people who liked Microsoft Bob. A company I used to work for actually started rolling out Windows ME, based on user trials, although they realized their mistake and pulled it back a month later. I have a friend who still has a laptop running Vista, and she's fine with it, although whenever something goes wrong or needs to change, (which is annoyingly often) she always brings it to me.
  So yes, I'm sure there are one or two people out there who like the retro-8bit-arcade look-and-feel that is the Metro interface. Maybe it reminds them of when they were playing Space Invaders on the cocktail table machine while sipping their wine spritzers and listening to a bad cover of "Shadow Dancing". People like a lot of things, for a lot of reasons. But to have a successful business, you need a large enough number of people liking the product to meet investor expectations. Doesn't seem likely.
  
  --
  Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
6. Re:Too little too late by J.+J.+Ramsey · 2013-08-25 04:12 · 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.
7. Re:Too little too late by GrumpySteen · 2013-08-25 04:22 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  I'd like you to replace your computer with this laptop. The case is an ugly mix of blocky colors and they keyboard is a 5x4 array of keys the size of business cards, but there's a pair of left right buttons that lets you scroll through the list of keys you're used to having. Trust me... it's a much better way of accessing the keys on the keyboard than the previous way which put them all in front of you at once.
  If you aren't happy with it not working quite the way your old one worked, you can always go find a new keyboard and install it to make it work the way you want it to.
  And if you're complain about paying for product that doesn't do what you want it to do and is demonstrably worse than the one it replaced until you spend the time and effort to fix the problems we designed into it, it's purely because you're sitting on your ass and whining about it like a spoiled brat who can't take any initiative, RIGHT?
8. Re:Too little too late by roc97007 · 2013-08-25 04:23 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Name one OS that is just right out of the box and needs no tweaks. Linux always needs fiddling with (that's why you love it) and MacOS's two-finger scroll scrolls the wrong way by default.
  At least with Windows 8 you can use AD to roll out suitable settings for everyone in one hit. I'm sure you can do the same thing with Linux/MacOS somehow too.
  This is more than tweaks. You don't understand what "lack of control, conveyance, continuity, and context" means to people who are not computer geeks, don't have a job even remotely close to the computer industry, and only need computers to do certain business related tasks. 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. This can't be fixed by using A/D to roll out settings.
  However, there is a solution. And that is, to stick with Windows 7 until Microsoft abandons this crap. (Actually, we're still largely on XP, but are starting to roll out 7 on new hardware.)
  
  --
  Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
9. Re:Too little too late by Lumpy · 2013-08-25 04:28 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  Hi Steve!
  I see you are having problems getting used to not working for Microsoft anymore...
  
  --
  Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
10. Re:Too little too late by roc97007 · 2013-08-25 04:36 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  > Vista wasn't particularly bad. It mostly had serious bugs on launch and poor driver support. But, the system itself mainly suffered from the way the UAC worked.
  Like they say, you don't get a second chance to make a first impression. By the time the initial problems were fixed, we had already decided not to deploy it. I suspect the same thing will be true of Windows 8 -- even if they fix it now, the damage has already been done.
  
  --
  Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
11. Re:Too little too late by mcgrew · 2013-08-25 05:13 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  Win 7 was pretty mediocre
  Well, yes, when you compare it to Linux and probably Apple as well (I don't have an Apple, but I have W7 and kubuntu and XP). Compared to Microsoft's other OSes it's the best they've done.
  
  --
  Free Martian Whores!
12. Re:Too little too late by 0123456 · 2013-08-25 05:41 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  The Start Menu is not back. All they've done is added a Start button which takes you back to the crappy Metro screen where you can't find any of the apps you want to run.
  Putting the Start Menu back would have been trivial, it's what users wanted, but Microsoft crapped in their face by making the Start button go to the Metro screen that users hate.
13. Re:Too little too late by jones_supa · 2013-08-25 05:52 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  It is a big deal if you have to replace a core component of an OS with a third party solution to make it usable.
14. Re:Too little too late by roc97007 · 2013-08-25 05:54 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Windows 7 was mediocre? Sure, its not as good as Linux, but its by far the best OS Microsoft has ever made
  I think what he means is that 7 was only an incremental improvement over XP. I upgraded to 7 for the superior memory management (and went to 64 bit at the same time so I could install more than 4 gigs) but in day to day usage, it's not much different from XP, and some of the differences (like going full screen if your pointer gets near the top, and the pointless rearrangement of the control panel) are annoying.
  
  --
  Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
15. Re:Too little too late by J.+J.+Ramsey · 2013-08-25 05:55 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Why are you so adamantly frenetic over something you could fix easily yourself, when that's torn down, the response is about an administratively locked down machine ...
  Guess where I use Windows? At work, on an administratively locked down machine.
16. Re:Too little too late by icebike · 2013-08-25 06:20 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Compared to Microsoft's other OSes it's the best they've done.
  Agreed, Win7 is pretty darned good, in fact its probably the first version that is better than Windows 2000.
  I suspect it will be hard for Windows 8 to dislodge win 7 from the work place, even with the 8.1 changes. Microsoft has this habit of one horrible version followed by one reasonably good version.
  Unfortunately, unlike the Linux world where you can totally step away from a botched UI, windows pretty much locks you into the struggle till a totally new version comes out, or you get so fed up you nuke it and install Linux, (which gets you fired from most companies).
  
  --
  Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
17. Re: Too little too late by David+Gould · 2013-08-25 06:47 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  "Win7 is mediocre."
  "Win7 is by far the best OS Microsoft has ever made."
  A prime example of how two different statements can be true simultaneously.
  
  --
  David Gould
  main(i){putchar(340056100>>(i-1)*5&31|!!(i<6)<< 6)&&main(++i);}
18. Re:Too little too late by 0123456 · 2013-08-25 07:27 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  You do know about RIGHT-CLICKING in the lower-left corner (or on the new start button in 8.1), right? Windows-X brings up the same power-users menu.
  How the fsck is my grandmother supposed to figure that out?
  I had the misfortune to use a Windows 8 machine a few days ago and it's a completely uninuititive piece of crap. I didn't realise just how badly the lack of a start menu hurt the OS until I had to try to run a program from the desktop. If I didn't know I could press the Windows key I'd have been completely stumped, and, even then, I had to give up on scrolling through a crazy number of worthless Metro apps to try to find the desktop app I was looking for.
  How did this POS actually get shipped?
19. Re:Too little too late by simonbp · 2013-08-25 15:33 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  It's *meant* to hold whatever I damn well want it to hold. Nothing more, nothing less. Anyone who says otherwise is a fascist pig.
  Come the revolution, "User Interface Designers" will first against the wall, I tell you...
Its dead Jim! by sinij · 2013-08-25 02:37 · Score: 5, Insightful

Start working on Windows 9, you won't redeem this one so late in the game.
1. Re:Its dead Jim! by Anonymous Coward · 2013-08-25 02:51 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  When you're done GNU/Linux is here for you to upgrade to.
Propaganda by tuppe666 · 2013-08-25 02:47 · Score: 4, Informative

That is not a start menu. That is a start screen. Who do they think is falling for this nonsense. The reality is, it was never about the start button. It was about taking a usable productive and powerful desktop environment using precision pointing and fast text input, and swapping it out for the weakest of the tablet OS's. In the hope in creating what they call an ecosystem, and moving the computer into an locked down electronic device running Micro$oft Store (The $ stands for money grabbing Monopolist), Rather than compete on price that 70% gross margins still too thin.
The real question is is it iOS, Android, Chrome or GNU/Linux
Start BUTTON minus Start MENU = FAIL (again) by gestalt_n_pepper · 2013-08-25 02:51 · Score: 5, Insightful

Bottom line? Don't make me learn new interface stuff. I hate it. If it takes a non-zero amount of time for me to think about it, it's not a value, add; it's a value-subtract.
FYI, this goes for ALL software AND programming languages. Adding a few things incrementally to use new features is fine. Changing interfaces or behaviors wholesale isn't.
This should fall into the "common sense" category - something the software industry isn't exactly famous for being able to perceive or implement.
Disclaimer: I write software for a living. Please don't hate me.

--
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
Misleading headline by onyxruby · 2013-08-25 02:53 · Score: 5, Insightful

Please rewrite headline, it is misleading. There is a world of difference between the Start "Menu" and the Start "Button". 8.1 forces you back into metro through the Start Button and doesn't resolve people issues in the slightest. Metro is still forced on you and it is still wholly unsuitable to the enterprise. While Microsoft at least listened to people about boot to desktop, they showed continued contempt for their customer base by refusing to replace the Start Menu.
Fix the headline and stop propagating Microsoft's spin, this is a band-aid on sucking chest wound and nothing more.
Start button != Start menu! by roc97007 · 2013-08-25 03:05 · Score: 4, Informative

Let's not confuse the two -- an icon in the lower left corner that takes one to the "start screen" was not what was asked for. What was asked for was an actual start menu, not a button that takes you to a page full of icons. It's extremely annoying that Microsoft would deliberately choose to misunderstand this. (They couldn't be stupid enough to think that's what we really wanted.)

--
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Re:A step in the right direction! by roc97007 · 2013-08-25 03:18 · 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.
New Start menu is not so bad - Metro apps are by hsa · 2013-08-25 03:19 · Score: 5, Insightful

Once you get used to it, the new Start menu is ok. You don't spend much time in there anyway.
The real pain in the ass are the stupid full screen Metro apps. Yeah, they just pop up with brightly colored interface that is optimized for touch. They completely disrupt your workflow, there is no visible Exit-button, and they do that for one screen only (if you have multimonitor system, you will totally hate this).
This happens more every now and then and I have to go through some trouble to replace them with better OSS alternatives. If you are watching a video, default app might pop up, and maybe nag about codec or not being up to date - when you really just want to see the video now, with clear controls. PDF reader pops up with no clear navigation and ofcourse fullscreen, and these ofcourse always go to the same monitor, even if you would like to read the PDF on screen #2, while coding. Shit like this happens also with images and music, and the interface is just .. horrible.
I don't even care anymore, if they fixed this. I've been downloading OSS replacements for just about every program and I am curretly ok with my Windows. But instead of fixing the Start menu, which is only a minor nuisance, they could make WINDOWED and USABLE default apps.
They should also shoot the guy, who designed all their new software (Office, Visual Studio..) USING ONLY CAPS FOR TITLES, patch them back to normal and make my eyes hurt less.
Hey Microsoft, want $30/year from me? by istartedi · 2013-08-25 04:09 · Score: 4, Insightful

Patch XP past its EOL, and charge $30/yr for the patch subscriptions. I'll buy it.
What I will NEVER do is use a locked-down phone platform as my primary device.

--
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Re:Still missing an option.. by GrumpySteen · 2013-08-25 04:27 · Score: 5, Insightful

This actually isn't redundant. Windows 2.0 introduced overlapping windows as a part of the OS and those have been present in every version up until Windows 8 and Metro. Microsoft has quite literally brought back a limitation of Windows 1.0 and is new calling it a feature.
Re:Microsoft Account by TheSkepticalOptimist · 2013-08-25 05:28 · Score: 4, Informative

I'll call out FUD whenever I see it.
You can happily use Windows 8 without being tied to a windows account. But how is having a windows account different from your iTunes or Google or Yahoo or Facebook or Slashdot, or countless other social services, or how about that fact that any phone and tablet these days are tied to a walled garden and your credit card? A Windows account just sets up 5gb of free skydrive services and an outlook email, both which you never have to use.
I don't love Windows 8 for a lot of reasons, but I mean if you are going to say ignorant things then expect to be called out for it.

--
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
Re:Microsoft Account by jones_supa · 2013-08-25 05:44 · Score: 4, Insightful

But how is having a windows account different from your iTunes or Google or Yahoo or Facebook or Slashdot, or countless other social services
Because it's my personal computer that I'm logging into!
Re:GNU/Linux forced on XP users by mcgrew · 2013-08-25 05:46 · Score: 4, Funny

It has been marked flamebait, which is kind of strange considering users are migrating on the Desktop to GNU/Linux(For want of a name) Chrome and Android (seriously!?), the trend is small, but noticeable.
Microsoft fans (or are they all shills? Doubtful...) get mod points, too. More honest moderators have fixed it, he's sitting at 2 as I write this.
Oh, and to keep the MS fans/shills/stockholders/employees with mod points from modding other insightful comments down I'll get them to waste them on me.
Micro$oft SuXXorz!!!"
Shouldn't take long to hit -1.

--
Free Martian Whores!
I'll take what I can get by rsilvergun · 2013-08-25 07:22 · 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/
Stickers by tepples · 2013-08-25 12:22 · 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.
1. Re:Stickers by dbIII · 2013-08-25 13:05 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Mod this up to five guys as actually a pretty good idea and then link it every time somebody complains about a linux, mac, gimp or whatever interface being unintuitive (eg. yes it sucks, but not like win8).
  
  Take note interface designers of the future - if the interface is so broken that putting stickers on the screen to tell people how to use it is a good idea it's time to improve it or put someone else in charge of setting it up.