Windows 8.1 Rolls Out Today

The newest iteration of Windows has begun rolling out, and is winning positive reviews. (Here's an in-depth review from Ars, and a more concise one from Wired — both give 8.1 a thumbs-up). Kelerei wrote with the above-linked TechDirt article on the release, noting that it is a staged rollout rather than global. Starting this morning, though, 8.1 is available to some customers. Kelerei writes: "The upgrade is optional (and free) for existing Windows 8 users, though if one looks at the changes, it's hard to imagine why those already on it wouldn't upgrade." Also at Slash BI.

Comments

You'll pry Windows 95 from my cold dead hands!

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll never upgrade, never!

Re:You'll pry Windows 95 from my cold dead hands!

[Anonymous Coward]

You'll pry Windows 95 from my cold dead hands!

Cool. I'll be right over.

Re:You'll pry Windows 95 from my cold dead hands!

[Anonymous Coward]

I read the first line as " The newest irritation from windows". wow

Re:You'll pry Windows 95 from my cold dead hands!

[operagost]

When Windows 8 came out, I thought about all the effort they put in since Windows 95 to have as few items on the desktop as possible. So, yes, it's like they went back to Windows 3.x Program Manager, having icons scattered all over.

Re:You'll pry Windows 95 from my cold dead hands!

[omnichad]

Personally I'd wait for Windows 8.11 for Workgroups.

Re:You'll pry Windows 95 from my cold dead hands!

[Joce640k]

"it's hard to imagine why those already on it wouldn't upgrade"

Question is: Is it hard to imagine people who aren't on it upgrading? eg. From Windows 7?

Re:You'll pry Windows 95 from my cold dead hands!

[fast turtle]

That's the nice thing about Virtual PC 2007 - I can actually run Dos/WFW3.11 on it and yes, there are a few apps that still need it and the updates (if any) don't offer the stability or features of the 3.11 version. Another thing is, I still have the TCP/IP stack for WFW3.11 so it's capable of connecting to the net if ever allowed along with a copy of Netscape for WFW (Yep I'm a pack rat) that came on CD. Guess I'll have to see how badly things have changed from then (I do like my right click though).

Re:You'll pry Windows 95 from my cold dead hands!

[hairyfeet]

Well lets see...both are single task designed OSes, both have a look like something from the early 90s and oh yeah...both suck.

So I'd say its a pretty apt mistake to make. BTW I have a question to all those Win 8 apologists...why do you not praise the "innovation" of sticking teeny tiny desktops on cellphones? Because all MSFT did was flip the same tired old shit they did for a decade, instead of stuffing a desktop GUI on a cellphone they jammed a cellphone GUI, complete with appstore crapstore and swipe gestures, onto a desktop where it makes NO fucking sense. Hell for that matter why aren't you replacing the steering wheel in your car with bike handlebars? After all by MSFT logic since bikes are growing and are the most popular UI worldwide for transportation that MUST make them superior and therefor perfect to use anywhere for anything.

I think I'll just leave this here and note how many times he says things like "stop" and "I don't want that" as the OS actively fights against the user who isn't doing the "tweeting twits and social shit" MSFT clearly designed the OS for. A GOOD UI should HELP the user and get out of the way, a BAD UI is a hindrance...which would you say Win 8.x is?

Re:You'll pry Windows 95 from my cold dead hands!

[omnichad]

I thought we were talking about marketing names. Version numbers in Windows are more or less meaningless.

Re:You'll pry Windows 95 from my cold dead hands!

[linebackn]

Say what you will, but the Windows 95/NT 4 Windows Explorer is the lightest weight, least cluttered, most consistent, and most sensible version of their user interface of all of them.

It pre-dates all the web "integration" madness so it is not tied to IE under the hood. It provides all the file management and desktop functionality anybody would really need, even in a modern computer.

Re:You'll pry Windows 95 from my cold dead hands!

[smash]

They've gone back to program manager, except it is less flexible and customizable.

Re:You'll pry Windows 95 from my cold dead hands!

[darkain]

4.1: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_98

5.1: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_NT_5.1

6.1: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_NT_6.1

Re:You'll pry Windows 95 from my cold dead hands!

[21mhz]

This comment, and its moderation, show why I read Slashdot comments with slightly nostalgic condescension these days.

Sure, old buddy, but... we have moved on.

Re:You'll pry Windows 95 from my cold dead hands!

[JohnnyMindcrime]

With all respect, I agree with him. I am both Linux and Windows person with no requirement to spend valuable CPU cycles on unnecessary eye-candy simply to impress someone who happens to look over my shoulder.

GUI interfaces need to be slick, clean and uncluttered, they need to get you to where you need to be in as few mouse-clicks and key presses as possible, whilst at the same time allowing usage of both of them for navigation.

Rotating cubes, melting windows and icons that animate other than to tell you your mouse pointer is over them have no place on any computer outside of a kindergarten classroom - Windows, OS X, or Linux, I don't care, I'm not biased.

Meh

[fermat1313]

Windows 8 was a huge disaster, and windows 8.1 only applies a different color of frosting to the same stale cupcake. As both a personal user and IT decision maker, there's no way I'd put Windows 8.x on anything around here.

Re:Meh

[Sponge Bath]

The millions of consumers buying cupcake pans this fall will need to fill them with something. Toast and bagels won't fit.

Re:Meh

[SpoonStomper]

That's quite silly. Considering this brings back the missing features that everyone was missing like a start button and boot to desktop. This puts it on par and better in many ways than Windows 7.

Re:Meh

[Anonymous Coward]

The start button doesn't actually do anything. It just brings up the modern UI.

Re:Meh

[Anonymous Coward]

Except the start button does the same thing as the Windows button in Windows 8.0 - show up the Metro UI. In effect, it's only taking up additional space on the task bar for those who ignore the Metro stuff.

Re:Meh

[Charliemopps]

Cupcake pans are quickly going out of style. Thanks in part to all the shitty Microsoft cupcakes getting baked recently.

Re:Meh

[Anonymous Coward]

Not really.

Boot to desktop is nice.

The missing Start button that they "gave back" however now takes you to a "Start Screen" that takes over your entire screen (what if I wanted to navigate based on a graphic that was previously on the screen or based on instructions that I wanted to keep up) and relies on hot-corners and swiping for navigation (which are a waste based on the simplicity of the previous interface.

The "returned" start button is equivalent to someone buying a car and stating that they wanted a manual transmission. Then when the car was delivered it turned out that it had an automatic transmission. Then when this draws a complaint, the seller installs a stick and clutch pedal, but leaves the automatic transmission.

What's scary is that 3rd party companies had no problem doing this almost on day one. This is more just MS not wanting to bend. Not surprisingly, nobody I've spoken to is happy with this.

Re:Meh

[somersault]

Here is the free (as in beer) software you are looking for.

Shame it doesn't completely eradicate Metro, but at least it means you can avoid it most of the time.

Re:Meh

[MrDoh!]

I've found it great. To launch VirtualBox and XP machines on. Apart from that, it's still... just terrible. I hear screams of frustration from the main office far too often still.

Re:Meh

[Anrego]

I've normally considered myself fairly pragmatic, and while I've run Linux happily for well over a decade, I totally get why it's not a practical solution for most. Interesting thing is, for the first time since.. forever, I actually feel like I can recommend Linux to my non-technical friends. The situation that's coming up a lot:

"I run windows XP, I tried windows 8 and hated it, what the heck am I supposed to do when they stop supporting XP".

Gaming is still the big sticking point (though even that's improving a lot), but for my "facebook and email" friends, throwing mint on there (or whatever the current user-friendly distro of choice is) is becoming a realistic thought. One in particular has a computer that's barely capable of running XP right now, so I might recommend it to her as a trial.

The other big unresolved sticking point has been attachment to specific software. In the case above, she has used some ancient version of "print master gold" for a while and would very much like to continue doing so. It's this kind of thing that we tend to shrug off that keeps people from switching, but at this point it probably won't work on windows 8 anyway, so nothing to lose, and might be able to make it work through wine..

Re:Meh

[zixxt]

That's quite silly. Considering this brings back the missing features that everyone was missing like a start button and boot to desktop. This puts it on par and better in many ways than Windows 7.

The start button does not doing anything useful. And its still missing the Start Menu, and I very much prefer Aero over the ugly flatness of Windows 8 metro interface.

Re:Meh

[slaker]

Honestly, it's fine. I rolled out 8 (plus Classic Shell) to about 150 systems and they've been trouble free. My power users like to whine about having to go look for that's now split between Control Panel and the Settings modern app, but power users always whine about things and I don't care. For every person who moans about something that moved, I have at least one compliment about how fast their computer seems now. My less-experienced users actually do pretty well with the start screen that puts the three or four applications they're supposed to be using in a nice, huge tile right in front of their face.

Re:Meh

[jones_supa]

My power users like to whine about having to go look for that's now split between Control Panel and the Settings modern app, but power users always whine about things and I don't care.

It's still a rather unelegant split. If Microsoft wanted to go with the Modern UI, they could (and should) have implemented the classic Control Panel in its fullest, inside the Modern UI. Also some of the Windows Accessories are still missing a Modern UI counterpart, including Notepad! These things don't make sense. They didn't do the proper integration work and that's why the new UI still sometimes looks like a taped-on quick tech demo.

Re:Meh

[dunezone]

Free or not its still ridiculous that I need to download third party software to have a feature that was standard to Windows for 17 years.

Re:Meh

[operagost]

"I run windows XP, I tried windows 8 and hated it, what the heck am I supposed to do when they stop supporting XP".

Run Windows 7 until that leaves support in 2020?

Re:Meh

[CreatureComfort]

That's what all the fan boys say, but when I checked it out, all he was handing out were poorly documented recipes and a lump of ingredients that I had to bake myself, and when I asked where to go to get the rest of the ingredients I needed, all the other cooks called me noob, and said that I didn't really need those raisins, or I should be using walnuts instead of the pecans I really wanted...

Re:Meh

[X0563511]

Imagine this. That is Windows 8. Now, imagine this. That is Windows 8.1.

Sure, it's a pretty ball and all, but it's broken and changing the paint job isn't going to fix it.

Re:Meh

[Chas]

No.l Actually 8.1 WON'T fix that.

All it does is add a teasing layer of "fuck you" to the interface with the useless "Start button".

What the people asking for a start button back are REALLY asking for is a start MENU. Not a start SCREEN.

Re:Meh

[X0563511]

Do you really think that's OK? It is not acceptable that such a thing is required to get basic functionality from your OS.

Imagine the uproar if Canonical removed everything except Unity from their repositories. Would you think that was OK? Sure, you could easily add a third-party repository (eg, getdeb) and get your goodies back, but you should not have to do that and that is the problem.

Re:Meh

[slashmydots]

I agree with that. I build A LOT of computer at my repair and custom builds shop and now that my ad campaign is basically "I still build new PCs with Windows 7" I've had even more. I refuse to sell it. The problem is, most of my virus removal and diagnostic tools don't work on 8 but I can't simply refuse to service it either. But besides that temporary annoyance, I'm doing fine refusing to sell it. I didn't build one single Vista computer the entire time it was out since XP licenses were still available and I kept getting decent used XP machines in to refurb and that's how I intend to handle 8 as well. I REALLY hope Windows 9 doesn't put me out of business though because 7 will stop being available past then.

Re:Meh

[Anonymous Coward]

That's quite silly. Considering this brings back the missing features that everyone was missing like a start button and boot to desktop. This puts it on par and better in many ways than Windows 7.

The start button does not doing anything useful. And its still missing the Start Menu, and I very much prefer Aero over the ugly flatness of Windows 8 metro interface.

I have a Windows 8 laptop, and spend close to no time in metro, almost all in normal windows desktop mode, and then it is a better Windows 7 than Windows 7. The best thing about 8.1 isn't the start button, but boot to desktop. Now I will spend even less time in metro. Pin all your most used programs to the taskbar (gives additional right click functionality as well). And use Win-X (or right-mouse-click corner if you don't like keyboard shortcuts) for a power user menu with direct access to control panel, settings, search, command prompt, run, etc. etc.).

Re:Meh

[JohnnyMindcrime]

Speaking as an IT person with 30+ years experience who is mainly a Linux guy but likes XP and Windows 7, I only ditched my last copy of XP (excluding virtualised ones) about 6 months ago and moved to Windows 7.

Ultimately, I like Windows 7, it's as reliable as XP (mainly because I never found XP to be unreliable) and a lot slicker on newer hardware, but then XP was starting to get clunky with newer machines.

But I hated Windows 7 when I first started with it, it seemed that stuff (especially in Control Panel) had been moved around for no readily apparent reason and a couple of months to comfortably find everything I wanted to as quickly as I could in XP.

My point is that it took even an IT geek a couple of months to get used to a new OS, so why is this any different for "Joe Sixpack" ditching XP and moving to, say, Linux Mint with it's Cinnamon interface that is very similar to the XP layout.

It's all just about familiarity and I am sure every Microsoft-focused person out there suffered some initial infuriation when they fired up Windows 7 for the first time and saw how different a lot of it is from XP. Yes, we all got used to it and like it now, but that time to familiarise was still there, even if you choose not to acknowledge it.

Re:Meh

[Windowser]

Problem is, most people - and that includes this embedded systems engineer - just want the damn thing to *work* without having to mess with it for some update or other every damn day.

Install Debian stable and you will be pleased. Even a major version upgrade just works (ex.: from 6 to 7)

Re:Meh

[Joce640k]

So why doesn't someone make an XP replacement machine? Conform to the XP interface specs at the bottom end, with much faster hardware loafing along doing half-work, just to keep old XP applications alive? It should be trivial; other than the part about Microsoft's lawyers carpet-bombing you into the late Neolithic.

Trivial? LOL! Those 'specs' are humungously huge.

PS: There's a bunch of guys trying to do it ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ReactOS ). They've been trying since 2004, and they already had a codebase when they started.

Re:Meh

[asmkm22]

8.1 actually makes the experience pretty decent on a desktop. Just get used to right-clicking the start menu instead of left-clicking gives you quick access to most t hings you need. The real "start menu" is still there, but once you unpin the crap it starts with (weather apps and such) and pin your actual programs, it functions well enough. It's also nice, now that I'm used to it, to be able to just hit the windows key and start typing to get the program i want. The search is fast, and you really just type and hit enter.

There are a few tweaks to make, though, but nothing real difficult. For example, I set the default picture viewer to the actual Windows Picture Viewer (or whatever it's called). By default it loads up an app, which makes you go through the weird transition away from the desktop with no real clear way on how to get back (mouse the top left for a list of open apps, including the desktop).

For the record, I couldn't stand version 8. I only recently gave 8.1 a try, via Technet, and it's been pretty decent. Certainly not the horrific beast that win 8's reputation implies.

Oh, and I work in IT.

Re:Meh

[smash]

I'm in a similar position (hardware and software platform selection is mostly my call) and i see essentially zero reason to go to either 8 or 8.1 at this time. Though i suspect we'll end up getting forced that way sooner or later due to the desire for tablets and new hardware - win7 non-SP1 slipstreamed already runs into issues with the installer fucking up on 4k sector drives.

Re:Meh

[dragon-file]

The other big unresolved sticking point has been attachment to specific software. In the case above, she has used some ancient version of "print master gold" for a while and would very much like to continue doing so. It's this kind of thing that we tend to shrug off that keeps people from switching

Couldn't agree more. I had a friend who brought me his laptop... The OS drive was shot and the XP CD key was gone. So I replaced the drive and installed mint. His first complaint was not having office so i recommended wine. He came back 3 months later saying it was running slow. His solution to the Office problem was to install a cracked copy of XP in Virtual Box.

Moral of the story: Software makes the average user HATE change.

Re:Meh

[MrNemesis]

Obligatory Penny Arcade.

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2013/06/28

Re:Meh

[Joce640k]

I've been recommending OS X instead. The hardware is nice and it just works.

Sure, so long as you don't mind paying Apple prices for hardware plus Apple prices for every last little cable/connector/widget that isn't included with it. Standard connectors, peripherals which will work on the next generation of computer...? Hah!

And ... only if you only want to run software that Apple is 100% happy with. No hacking, please.

Re:Meh

[ISoldat53]

I liked the comment in the ARS article asking "How do I remove the Start Button from windows 8.1."

Re:Meh

[JohnnyMindcrime]

I don't think gaming is anywhere near the big sticking point that it used to be when it comes to choosing Linux over Windows.

Microsoft essentially killed big commercial PC gaming on Windows when they took the decision to split DirectX 9 and 10 across XP and Vista respectively. Making that decision when they did hurt the Windows games development community considerably because it fragmented game development when most people were still on XP, and was precisely the scenario DirectX was designed to avoid. It wouldn't surprise me if it was a deliberate tactic by Microsoft to drive people to X-Box for their gaming needs, but it undoubtedly had a huge negative impact on commercial PC gaming releases.

In the longer term, it's actually an extremely good thing to have happened because it's killed the stranglehold big PC games companies had on Windows games and opened the floodgates for indie developers to start making games again - not to mention the impact of Kickstarter in getting games released that, under big corporate control, would never have seen the light of day.

Steam is going to be an interesting turning point for gaming on Linux, but as some analysts are already saying, the actual turning point will likely only be if and when there's a killer game on Steam for Linux (or SteamBox or whatever it's name is) that gets people buying it in their droves.

I would argue that big applications like MS Office and Photoshop are bigger obstacles to the adoption of Linux. In reality, most MS Office and Photoshop users (who are, let's face it, probably using pirated copies anyway) would find that LibreOffice and The GIMP do everything that they need to do anyway but are just too lazy and/or scared to try something new. Sure, there are a minority of "professional" users who need the specific features in MS Office, Photoshop and other big commercial Windows applications, but they really are a tiny proportion compared to the overall userbases of them.

Re:Meh

[citizenr]

This is a METRO button, there is no start menu.

Re:Meh

[chuckugly]

But I hated Windows 7 when I first started with it, it seemed that stuff (especially in Control Panel) had been moved around for no readily apparent reason and a couple of months to comfortably find everything I wanted to as quickly as I could in XP.

About 4 years from now people will be complaining about Windows and saying this about Windows 8.1. People complained about Win2k, WinXP, Win7, and now Win8.1 - and eventually they discover the new is actually fine. I have been using Windows 8 on my dev VMs from within a few weeks after it was out; it's fine, even though stuff has been moved around for no readily apparent reason.

Re:Meh

[danfromsb]

I'm not a super big fan of Apple's policies, but honestly, how does this shit get modded insightful? Don't like thunderbolt, use USB, those cables cost $2. Don't like the apps in the Appstore? Then install from the developer's website. Like hacking? Then install homebrew and have at it. I mean seriously, vim comes standard on OS X, and you can easily install clang or gcc to build whatever you want. XCode is free!!!! You need to pay absolutely nothing, beyond the cost of hardware, to build and distribute software for OS X.

Re:Meh

[ultrasawblade]

>Try to run W7 on 1GB -- it is a swap/page fest that will burn up the hard-drive before drawing the desktop.

It's not that bad. Windows 7 is actually efficient and decently responsive.

I had Windows 7 running for a long time on a 1GB 900Mhz Celeron netbook. Aero didn't work, and of course things were slow, but not unusably slow.

Now, I didn't run any real applications on it, like Photoshop, etc. but for basic browsing, etc. and even basic Office use it was OK.

Except for Flash. Flash videos would always stutter, even with plenty of free RAM.

Fortunately, there's Minitube, though I never used the Windows version (Linux is on that system now).

Re:Meh

[DarthVain]

Windows 7 support will be around a very long time.

A) No corporate or government enterprise shops will be moving to 8 or even 8.1 as they all moved to 7 (or in the process of).
B) It will be a huge install base that will likely pressure MS to extend whatever support deadline they decide to have.
C) IT shops are not going to want to run multiple version of Windows, so new Windows 7 systems will still have to keep being deployed.

I just built a personal Windows 7 system last month, and it was not a decision I worried much about.

Just when you thought it was safe....

[gestalt_n_pepper]

Windows 8.x is back, and this time, it's personal.

Or it feels that way. I've been working with the Windows 8.1 RTM. Many more things seem to break on the Windows 8.1 RTM that did on Windows 8. Mayhem ensued. Kiss your SQLE 2005 goodbye if you haven't already. Change your Setup.exe's to Vista compatibility if you don't want them to take an hour to install. Other than that, no worries.

Re:Just when you thought it was safe....

[SJHillman]

If it's like most major software products, I'd expect it to take a month or two for them to patch the major headaches. I'm looking forward to 8.1 as an excuse to reinstall Windows 8. When I first got 8 about a year ago, it gave me a lot of stability issues and software incompatibility issues (especially with Chrome and Notepad++ for some reason) that were mostly patched within the first month. By the second month, it was running pretty smoothly. I only went back to 7 because of a few remaining driver issues, which I would be surprised if they haven't solved by now.

Re:Just when you thought it was safe....

[jones_supa]

I have also been running 8.1 RTM for a couple of weeks and my experience is similar. Little glitches here and there. Microsoft has released quite stable stuff lately so I didn't expect this level of bugginess.

Some examples:
- On various laptops, the screen brightness indicator displays wrong dynamic range after coming out from suspend or hibernation
- When a device is connected to the computer, a "Device Setup" dialog appears and it can hang there forever
- The automatic installer for .NET Framework 3.5 gets stuck and the manual DISM utility has to be used instead
- Windows Explorer displays Korean characters correctly, but Japanese characters are displayed as squares
- When I have two monitors connected (8.1 can show a taskbar on both screens) and set the taskbar setting to "Never combine" (a Vista-style look), the taskbar button labels are shown only on the primary display
- When I turn Bluetooth off, the settings application freezes for a long time
- The verification code to authorize my Windows Live account is often not successfully sent via e-mail

Win8 as a UI vs. an OS

[xianzombie]

Before everyone starts bashing on Win8 (even though it does, to some extent, deserve it), I feel obligated to state:

The OS:
1. Performs better than Win7 (for me)
2. Has been perhaps the most stable iteration of windows (for me).

The UI:

Is horrible in terms of the default layout. Adding back in a 'normal' start menu (via Classic Shell, etc) and turning off the charm bars are key to making it a usable GUI, IMO.

With the above 'tweaks' the biggest thing I miss comparing 7 to 8 is the loss of being able to search files directly from the search bar. Perhaps that' some option/tweak I missed somewhere along the lines.

Will I try 8.1? If I can do it for free, yes. Will I give them money for it? NO!

Re:Win8 as a UI vs. an OS

[xianzombie]

Well, in true Slashdot fashion, I didn't read the article or full summary thereby missing:

"The upgrade is optional (and free) for existing Windows 8 users, though if one looks at the changes, it's hard to imagine why those already on it wouldn't upgrade."

Re:Win8 as a UI vs. an OS

[Twinbee]

For searching you should be using Locate32 which is light years ahead of the search on Windows.

Re:Win8 as a UI vs. an OS

[biobogonics]

The OS:
1. Performs better than Win7 (for me)
2. Has been perhaps the most stable iteration of windows (for me).

Classic Shell solved my problems with the UI.

So far Win 8 does one thing better than Win 7 (or Vista). It handles printers well.

1. I attached an older LJ 1020 to a new Win 8 laptop and installed the latest driver. PDF files would not print, so I rolled back to the latest *recommended* driver. Removing the printer and installing the new driver worked quickly and cleanly.

2. I have two networked HP printers on my LAN. Rather than install a full software suite, I chose universal printer drivers for PCL 6. Most of the time, when my network or router goes down, the printer assignments get lost. Printing sent to my B&W printer goes to my color laser, or just does not work at all. I finally gave up and installed printer specific drivers on all of my Vista and Win7 machines. Ick.
Win 8 auto detected both printers. It required *no* drivers to be loaded. I've had several power outages. Since then, my networked printers do not get lost on my Win 8 machines.

I want to search just my pc

[Anonymous Coward]

What is the use case for me typing something in the windows search charm thing and me wanting to get results from my PC and web pages, music, and photos from the Internet? Searching for files or file content on my PC already got harder with vista. Now this? If I want to search the web I can use google or bing or whatever I want. When I search my PC it is because I need to find a file on my PC. Also I do not want my data on sky drive.

Re:I want to search just my pc

[jones_supa]

I don't even need to search my PC. There's these things called directories. In those I put my stuff nicely where it belongs.

I'm not sure if it serves anyone to have this colorful jumble of icons mixed with local files (with no idea of their location), application shortcuts and web results. At least me it only makes nauseous and disorganized.

"Hurray!" said no one.

[TWiTfan]

[crickets chirping]

Now with new exciting NSA backdoors!

[magic maverick]

I don't trust MS at all. Why, I reckon that MS Windows 8.1 will come with new and exciting backdoors for the NSA (and any other security agency or criminal gang (but I repeat myself)). OK, I might be exaggerating slightly, it won't come with deliberate backdoors as such, simply holes that haven't been fixed yet, guaranteed to be around for at least a few months.

I'll stick with my Ubuntu thanks (until I try Debian again later this or next month, and see if it works). Now, you might say that Ubuntu has its flaws, and well, it does. But, if you don't use Unity or the Software Centre, you can get a perfectly good system with minimal issues, and no obvious privacy concerns. (I use 12.04 with Gnome 3.something. I have issues with this version of Gnome, but I still prefer it to KDE (which kept crashing on me) and Xfce (which doesn't have enough fancyness, I do have a fancy powerful laptop, I like a bit of eye candy).)

Remember: if you are worried about security or privacy, don't use a closed source OS connected to the Internet.

Re:DO NOT WANT

[xianzombie]

Somewhat sadly, after a HD failure, we loaded up Ubuntu on the wife's laptop. While it did everything she needed, she really just didn't like it, and things like Skype just didn't play nice. (Which was sad, as I was working out of town for about a month and wanted to see her and the kid).

That said, once it gave up the ghost, we picked her up a replacement laptop with Win8. She wouldn't let me tweak it, but somehow she can handle the default Win8 with Metro better than Linux with KDE, Gnome, or XFCE. *shrug*

This is sort of what Windows 8 should have been

[onyxruby]

This is sort of what Windows 8 should have been to begin with. What this doesn't do is fix the issue with the missing Start MENU. The result is that every time you need to load an application through the menu you are forced back into the abomination that is the Metro interface. This is a deal breaker for the enterprise and shows Microsoft's continued contempt for their customers and what their customers need.

A tablet interface has no business on a desktop and Microsoft should have made it completely optional. Fixing boot to desktop was a half hearted start to be able to say they were listening to feedback - sort of. However the stunt with the Start Button instead of the Start Menu was a slap in the face to the enterprise and large OEM's that have been begging Microsoft to restore the Start Menu.

Sales will continue their worst downturn in history since the advent of the personal computer. OEM's will continue to lose money hand over fist. Enterprise customers held with contempt are evaluating third party vendors they never would have considered before. If you force people to use a new interface regardless, than it's an opportunity for your customers to pick what that interface is going to be. Sales of Mac's to the Enterprise have hit record highs, Linux is breaking through where it never did before. People are even toying with Chromebooks.

Re:This is sort of what Windows 8 should have been

[Theophany]

Enterprise customers held with contempt are evaluating third party vendors they never would have considered before. If you force people to use a new interface regardless, than it's an opportunity for your customers to pick what that interface is going to be. Sales of Mac's to the Enterprise have hit record highs, Linux is breaking through where it never did before. People are even toying with Chromebooks.

This seems a tad hysterical. Enterprise users will continue to use W7 for a while yet. It still works, is still supported and is less of a headache to maintain for the tech guys than upgrading everything to work with W8. Businesses aren't clamouring to upgrade all their machinery just because MS has a newer OS.

Re:This is sort of what Windows 8 should have been

[onyxruby]

Which is great for a single user on their own personal computer. However the idea of doing that for the enterprise with tens of thousands or a 100,000+ systems is something that I should never have to do. Star Dock, Classic Shell and like kind programs shouldn't be needed to begin with and there are questions of scalability, stability, support and so on (all the more so since it would be a core app). It's simply too big of a kludge and not worth the risk unless you are financially invested in Microsoft stock.

It's a bit like Firefox. I used it personally at home for years while simultaneously refusing to even consider deploying it within the enterprise. What works great for the user doesn't necessarily scale for the enterprise and the product has to be both mature and predictable. The programmers behind a product might be the best on earth, but the needs of the enterprise go beyond simply filling the check box of does the program do 'x'.

Not much improvement; drawbacks continue

[jkrise]

1. No improvement in user interface. Touch sucks on the desktop and Microsoft knows it. A Start button without a Start Menu is useless.

2. Metro style apps are very painful to deploy in the Enterprise; even for those with Subscription (Dis)Advantage.

3. Still not immune from viruses and worms - needs continuous stream of patches; customer remains at the mercy of Microsoft; like the forced ditching of XP which works perfectly fine.

4. Many existing licensed software such as SQLE are not supported in 8 series; so all that money is wasted expenditure.

5. Still no native support in the OS for cameras; SIM cards, etc. even Android is better in that respect despite being minuscule in size compared to 8.1.

The list of drawbacks continue; nothing to write home about; despite these paid shill reviews.

Re:Not much improvement; drawbacks continue

[Joining Yet Again]

3. Still not immune from viruses and worms - needs continuous stream of patches;

Yeah, that utopia really is proving hard to reach.

customer remains at the mercy of Microsoft; like the forced ditching of XP which works perfectly fine.

Yeah, fuck Microsoft with its 12 year support cycle. Versions of OS X and Linux from 2001 are still in mainstream support.

5. Still no native support in the OS for cameras; SIM cards, etc. even Android is better in that respect despite being minuscule in size compared to 8.1.

Eh, my webcam works fine in Windows 8 without extra support. I assume Android has SIM card drivers because of u no it's used for 'phones a lot.

Re:Not much improvement; drawbacks continue

[Joining Yet Again]

What are you talking about? Linux isn't immune to viruses and worms.

And your vigorous handwaving didn't actually address the main point: nobody gives 13 year consumer support cycles except Microsoft. Trying to get stuff working on non-contemporaneous versions of Linux is way harder than on Windows - it may be possible in principle if you have the source, but that's an open vs closed source software argument which rarely applies in practice except among cadres of geeks.

MS isn't stopping you from supporting SIM cards or GPRS, and it's only imposing hardware restrictions if you want to re-sell discounted licences, which is sorta what Apple does except that Apple says, "You can't sell it at all because fuck you."

Re:Not much improvement; drawbacks continue

[jones_supa]

Still not immune from viruses and worms - needs continuous stream of patches

Actually these days MS has pretty good toolkit against malware: the standard NX protection, signed binaries, Windows Defender, Windows Resource Protection, and User Account Control. All of those are quite well implemented tools with minimal degradation to system performance. And it's really not a continuous stream of patches -- usually you are disturbed only once per month with a handful of patches.

Meanwhile in the forest...

[PeterHammer]

...another tree fell without a sound

Re:Ubuntu 13.10

[DoofusOfDeath]

Meh, given my feelings about the direction Ubuntu's desktop environment has taken over the past few years, I was already not paying attention.

I'll be somewhat more interested when the Linux Mint derivative of Ubuntu 13.10 comes out.

no no no!

[slashmydots]

"and is winning positive reviews"
This is the biggest lie I have ever heard. Now you search your computer for vacation photos and get bombarded by bullshit Bing links. The start menu still doesn't exist. I'm pretty sure it still takes a computer engineer to find the shut down button. It's absolute garbage.

Re:no no no!

[wonkey_monkey]

Any review which doesn't declare 8.1 to be worse than 8.0 counts as a positive review. Don't you know anything about marketing?

Re:"winning positive reviews"

[gstoddart]

Who is making those reviews?

Dude, it's in the summary -- Ars Technica and Wired.

You can choose for yourself if you trust them. You could even read them if you cared since they're linked in the summary.

Re:"winning positive reviews"

[justthinkit]

No, it's people who earn their living writing articles about MS systems. From their perspective, any new operating system is a great chance to sell page views. So of course MS can do no wrong.

Re: DO NOT WANT

[ColdWetDog]

You missed it. God is now using Linux.

Screw the desktop. This is really big.

Windows 8.1 BUYING positive reviews.

[linebackn]

The newest iteration of Windows has begun rolling out, and is buying positive reviews.

There, fixed that for you.

Does anybody besides the shills really think anybody not paid or threatened with leg breaking would give this a positive review?

For those not selected for the rollout

[Provocateur]

Here is the MAD Magazine fold-out version

Windows 8 |-------| .1 ---(fold until the two bars meet)

Result

Windows 3.1

Start Screen colors

[reikae]

I just finished applying the update, and the first thing I noticed is that now the icons on my start screen have different background colors. In Win8 they were all blue. Now in 8.1 some are blue, some are green, many are gray, and a couple are even bright orange.

If this is how it looked for others in Win8 then I fully understand what they meant about "garbled mess of icons". I wonder if there's a way to get it back to the calm blue. I have no problem with the "menu" being full screen, but this is a bit too much.

Oh btw, these are desktop application icons, I'm still looking for a useful Metro app...

Why people hate the Start Screen

[MobyDisk]

The reason people hate the Windows 8 start screen is because it displays politics. Seriously, take a look:

http://www.bleepstatic.com/tutorials/windows-8/introduction-start-screen/windows-8-start-screen.jpg
Peace envoy to visit Syria to broker ceasefire...

People do not want to see politics appear in their start menu. This is the stupidest idea in computing. This distracts people, it intrinsically makes them angry.

Re:The other big unresolved sticking point

[Karzz1]

....then continue to have XP running under Wine for those specific programs...

I think you are a bit confused about what Wine is and how it is used. You can run many XP applications under Wine, but not all of them. You certainly do not run XP under Wine.

Having said that, there are many virtualization options that will let you run XP in all its glory. For the desktop, I prefer VirtualBox, but YMMV. For Linux there are several others as well (qemu, kvm, xen etc...) though none are as well suited to desktop use as VirtualBox, again IMHO.

Win 8.1 "Rolls Out"

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

Yeah. Like a fat, greasy turd...

Re:I was at an MS developers event last year...

[ljw1004]

My wife has a macbook pro, while I have a Surface. She now often reaches her hand to the screen to try to swipe/scroll her screen, instinctively thinking it would work, then is a little disappointed when it doesn't.

Windows 8.1

[hackus]

.1 reasons to upgrade.

Seriously though, what a huge yawn. Within a year or two I won't even need a windows machine to play games, the primary purpose of windows in the world right now.

The only people who will need to still use windows on a daily basis will be legacy corporations like Microsoft.

I already have my Linux servers, desktops and web/android apps. BONUS: I have all the source code for the security infrastructure that powers them.

Now, all we need is a Linux game machine for our Linux desktops. It is going to happen within a year or two now that the graphics plumbing is worked out and ATI GPU's are now fully documented, including the latest generation GPUs. (i.e. 3.12 kernel/X 1.15 and possibly Wayland far far far into the future.)

-Hack

I work mostly from shells on a modern OS

[raymorris]

You can, if you wish, have a simple uncluttered interface and be able to do everything from the command line, only launching GUI programs when there's a benefit to a GUI (web and email).
That's the way I work. It's ten times faster than click-click-click-click-click through five levels of menus for everything, and whether I'm working on on the local machine or remote makes no difference. Any time I need to do the same thing several times, I can loop: "foreach thing; do something $thing; done".

At home, that clean, uncluttered interface runs on top of Linux. At work, it's Mac underneath. My interface is the same either way - a simple terminal in a POSIX environment.

Re:Ubuntu 13.10

[TangoMargarine]

Well, I wouldn't be switching away from Ubuntu if they hadn't pulled the exact same Windows 8 "I shit all over your standard desktop workflow! Ha ha!"

XFCE forever. It Just Works (tm).