Ars Technica Reviews Leaked Windows 8.1 Update

SternisheFan writes to note that ArsTechnica's Peter Bright has reviewed the leaked Windows 8.1 update that was temporarily available from Microsoft's own servers. Here's how the article starts: "Leaks of upcoming versions of Microsoft's software are nothing new, but it's a little surprising when the source is Microsoft itself. The Spring update to Windows 8.1, known as Update 1, was briefly available from Windows Update earlier this week. The update wasn't a free-for-all. To get Windows Update to install it, you had to create a special (undocumented, secret) registry key to indicate that you were in a particular testing group; only then were the updates displayed and downloadable. After news of this spread, Microsoft removed the hefty—700MB—update from its servers, but not before it had spread across all manner of file-sharing sites... Just because it was distributed by Windows Update doesn't mean that this is, necessarily, the final build, but it does present a good opportunity to see what Microsoft is actually planning to deliver."

Comments

Nobody cares

[JoeyRox]

Microsoft could give Windows 8 away for free and tie a $100 bill to every DVD and people would use the DVD as a beer coaster and the $100 to buy an Android tablet.

Re:Nobody cares

[Calydor]

Seems to me it's more hate for Windows 8 than it's hate for Microsoft.

Re:Nobody cares

[roc97007]

That's the real point. I use Windows 7 and it's actually ok. I had Win8 on one of several machines, and after struggling with it for months, finally installed Windows 7 Pro and called it good. They can call it Microsoft Hate if they want (which is really the geek equivalent of hollering "racism") but it's really Windows 8 that sucks.

Re:Nobody cares

[Billly Gates]

I have extended family members. One daughter got a new Windows 8 tablet/ultrabook Lenovo hybrids for Christmas and loves it. She brings it out in the island in the kitchen to browse facebook, do homework with MS Word, etc. Her mom grabbed it for recipes, they used it for skype more relatives, her brother kept fighting to use it for things.

I mentioned how HORRIBLE ITS UI was and offered to put Windows 7 on. They looked at me like EWW that GUI is for old people that doesn't run applets.

Like the EEE it is super portable.

The issue us geeks need to use muscle memory to relearn something and we used to laugh at those who could not adopt to change. Now the joke is on us.

The millennials like their apps, tiny sizes, portability, long battery life, etc.

Windows 9 will be a refined balanced UI. Tile applets on a Windows 7 desktop if you plug in the keyboard and mouse (mouse-first UI) if rumors are true. MS nees an answer to iOS and Android with battery life, smooth graphics acceleration, and applets. It is NOT GOING AWAY.

Re:Nobody cares

[thegarbz]

Bill Gates? Is that really you?

Only a few weeks ago you were having no end of problems with Windows 8.

Re:Nobody cares

[Penguinisto]

Most of what you wrote is typical shill-chow, but I want to stomp this one tidbit in the bud:

The issue us geeks need to use muscle memory to relearn something and we used to laugh at those who could not adopt to change. Now the joke is on us.

Now this is funny, because I find myself learning new GUIs on a very regular basis (the latest? This month is all about learning VMWare vCloud Automation Center. A few months ago, it was all about Cisco UCS Manager.)

I also know the Metro GUI very well - and I've discovered something: I really, really detest computing-by-easter-egg.

Mind you, it's 500x worse with having to use that stupid wasteful GUI on a server. (Yes, I know all about the mantra of "OMG use PowerShell and Core!!!111!!" but we both know that's bullshit, nobody does it on any serious scale, and it completely guts the Microsoftie argument of "OMG you have to use a command prompt in Leenux!!111!!" - but I digress.)

Point is, many of us who detest that abortion of a UI have already had to work with it, we know it, and we think it still sucks in spite of knowing it.

If some of the ordinary user crowd loves it, hey - well and good. Thing is, the majority does not, and for good reason.

Re:Nobody cares

[Idimmu Xul]

my very non technical mate got a sony vaio flip thing 10 days or so ago with windows 8 installed. he LOVES it, despite complaining non stop, it also auto updated itself this week, i think to 8.1, he certainly didnt do any registry hacks but had a text rendering issue with chrome that is apparently an issue caused by 8.1?

ive had a play and i dont really see the problem, sure its a bit different but its not a world ending calamity, i do prefer my mac tho

Re:Nobody cares

[Technician]

As an older guy who has received an Unltrabook recently, and trying do do production work instead of consuming media, I had some issues. Installing older paralell port printers attached to my LAN via Trendnet or other devices proved to be very difficult. Visiting the manufacture of the printers for updated drivers was a total failure. As mentioned, there is a learning curve. To get the drivers, you have to use Windows Update instead. Trying to sort a list of files proved difficut too. A long list has the traditional scroll bars on the right just where you expect them. Dragging the bar does scroll the list, but at the top and bottom are the two buttons which also used to scroll the list without dragging, usefull if you only want to scroll small distances in a long list. Unfortunately in Windows 8 they are only decorations with no function. You either need a touch screen to scroll the list, or highlight a file and arrow up/down through the list, which defeats picking multiple files for copy by Control Click. A small wiggle on a extended list can scroll it by several hundred items making picking files difficult.

Maybe there is a trick to this I haven't learned other than drag drop each by itself..

The touch screen is not the preferred method of picking files from a list. My fingers are about 5 lines tall. A mouse is a much better and precise way to do fine motor skills. Photo editing suffers the interface issue too.

I tried to burn some CD's from a band I recorded. Windows 8 had a serious issue with my external USB DVD drive. Using Windows Media Player had no problem burning ONE disk. The media player on the left side properly identified if the drive contained a music CD, Data CD, or Blank CD. The information IS NOT passed to the right side which stubbornly recommended I insert a Blank CD before I could burn another. I went back to a Windows 7 machine which did properly recognise blank disks in the right side. Too bad they didn't keep Windows 7 functionality in the Window 8 Media Player.

In a nutshell, don't ditch your other machines when you get a Windows 8 machine. You may need the older machines to do older tech stuff like burning CD's, sorting photos, editing audio tracks, editing photos, etc. The Windows 8 machine is a great Facebook, Skype, social media and connected machine, but for production, keep your other hardware.

Re:Power button.

[cbhacking]

Windows Control Panel - Power Options (reachable directly by Start search since Vista, of course) - "Choose what the power buttons do" - "When I press the power button:" [Do Nothing | Sleep | Turn Off]. This is on my desktop which boots from an SSD, so I disabled Hibernate, but normally that would be there too. The default option is Turn Off.

This has been there since *at least* Windows 2000. Congratulations, you're almost 1.5 decades behind the times...

Harps on about power button

[Anonymous Coward]

Does anyone with a desktop machine actually _want_ to use the power button to turn off the machine? Personally, mine is tucked away under my desk well out of convenient reach.

Keypress turns the damn thing on, start-> shutdown turns the damn thing off.

Only time the power button gets used is if the machine freezes and need a kick.

Oh my god

[Undead Waffle]

A Peter Bright article that is actually critical of a Microsoft product without trying to downplay all of its flaws? What is this world coming to?

Re:Power button.

[viperidaenz]

press windows+r for the run prompt
type "shutdown -s -t 0" and it will magically shutdown. Works for all version of Windows since 2000. Maybe earlier NT versions too.
You can use -r to reboot instead of -s
It's pretty much the same as linux, except "-t 0" is equivalent to "now" and -s for shutdown instead of -h for halt

Still crap

[mysidia]

Wake me up, when they concede to bring the Windows 7 start MENU back.