Windows 8.1 Update Released, With Improvements For Non-Touch Hardware

DroidJason1 (3589319) writes "Microsoft has released the highly anticipated Windows 8.1 Update, adding numerous improvements for non-touch consumers based on feedback. It is also a required update for Windows 8.1, otherwise consumers will no get any future security updates after May 2014. Most of the changes in the update are designed to appease non-touch users, with options to show apps on the desktop taskbar, the ability to see show the taskbar above apps, and a new title bar at the top of apps with options to minimize, close, or snap apps."

Comments

It's a start

[lgw]

Well, it's a start. I doubt I'm unique in that I won't be happy until I get a proper, Win 7 Start menu back, at least as an option. Live tiles on my desktop would be nice too.

Basically, give me back the Win 7 UI with the ability to put live tiles on the desktop, and run apps in a windows. Remember "windows"? Call be weird, but I'd like a version of Windows with, you know, windows.

Re:It's a start

[roc97007]

There used to be this thing called Windows Gadgets. But I guess that wasn't cool and trendy enough.

Re:It's a start

[BLToday]

"There used to be this thing called Windows Gadgets. But I guess that wasn't cool and trendy enough."

Or useful enough. Remember there was Konfabulator (Yahoo bought them), Google Desktop (widgets, discontinued). Only one left and barely alive is Apple's Dashboard.

Re:It's a start

[Joce640k]

"Most of the changes in the update are designed to appease non-touch users"

Do they exist? Really????

How out of touch can a company be?

Re:It's a start

[gstoddart]

There used to be this thing called Windows Gadgets. But I guess that wasn't cool and trendy enough.

Well, they were memory hogs, and completely insecure.

In other words, they might have been a good idea at the time, but I stopped using them after a few days because they used up so much damned memory. Seriously guys, a clock widget doesn't take 200+ MB of RAM. Or, at least, it shouldn't in any sane world.

And, from the sounds of it, Microsoft didn't make a framework which was secure or safe.

A little single-purpose widget should be a small, lightweight thing that does one thing. But even the ones Microsoft shipped were overly bloated things which shouldn't have existed.

I don't think "cool and trendy" were what defined the failure of those. Bloated and insecure, but not cool and trendy.

Re:It's a start

[TheRealMindChild]

Windows gadgets were essentially borderless IE windows that ran in the local zone. This means they could CreateObject(...) ActiveX libraries via scripting that could do, well, anything to your system. The sandbox didn't matter at that point.

Re:It's a start

[sproketboy]

Live tiles have new and improved security holes.

A patch closer to usability, few more to go

[sinij]

You can pry Start Button from my cold blue-screen hands.

Re:A patch closer to usability, few more to go

[MightyYar]

The amazing thing (to me, anyway) is that I always hated the start menu. Never liked having such redundancy... rather than giving me some flexibility in how applications are organized you make this ghetto of delicate "shortcuts", requiring installers for even the most simple binaries.

And yet, what they replaced it with is so much worse that I find myself wishing for it back.

I would not have thought this was possible.

Re:What version are they changing?

[WilliamGeorge]

Windows 8.1 Update 1 - then next they will do Windows 8.1 Update 1 Service Pack 1 ;)

Re:Fascinating release date timing

[MightyMartian]

A long long time ago,
I can still remember how that NT kernel made me smile.
And I knew that if I had my chance,
I'd write a helluva lot cool VB 6 apps.
And maybe my manager would be happy for a while.

But April made me shiver,
With each Win 8 PC I'd deliver.
Bad news in the staffroom steps.
And I couldn't take one more step.

I can't remember if I cried,
When I read about some XP user heaved a sigh.
But something touched me deep inside.
The day Windows XP died.

So bye bye Windows XP has died.
Rode my Segway to the to the levy,
But the levy was dry.
And good ol' sysadmins were drinking coffee and Sprite,
Singing "This is the day Windows XP has died,
This is the day Windows XP has died."

The Post-PC era

[TomClowers]

So, we're just gonna start calling it "non-touch" hardware now?

Re:Win 8.1 is just fine

[Lendrick]

I like Win 8.1. It's fast and reliable. I don't think it has ever crashed.

I can do everything I want pretty easily: edit videos, produce music, play games, run Steam, run overclocked hardware.

Yes, I'm sure you can do all that stuff that the cool kids are doing. I don't see anyone here questioning Windows 8's capabilities; people are complaining about the fact that it's a tablet interface that's been shoehorned into a desktop, and everything about it is designed to push you back to the tablet interface (which, conveniently for Microsoft, is a walled garden that they control).

At any rate, Windows 7 does all that cool kid stuff too, and the interface is sensible for desktop users.

Re:hoping that Windows 8 is like Vista,....

[ArhcAngel]

Windows 1.0;2.0;2.1: forgettable
Windows 3.0: not bad but definitely not good
Windows 3.1: good
Windows NT 3.1: really bad but has potential
Windows3.11 Windows For Workgroups (WFW): very good
Windows NT 3.5;3.51: really good
Windows 95: meh
Windows NT 4.0: bad
Windows 98;98SE: good
Windows 2000: good
Windows ME: evil
Windows XP: good
Windows Vista: bad
Windows 7:good
Windows 8.x: bad
Windows 9: ???

I always figured it was a marketing strategy on a good day. On a bad day I figure it's a cycle of Lazy -> Oh shit! -> motivated -> relief -> lazy

Re:The new start screen is great

[EvanED]

My take is that the start menu required a "lot" of work to maintain if you actually wanted it to be a useful hierarchy. If you just let stuff install by default and never changed things, then I think it turned into more of an almost-not-hierarchical view of a bunch of crap, personally. It'd be one thing if programs installed an icon or two (or even a submenu) under categories like Games/Productivity/Development/etc. like you get with Linux distros, but that would require cross-vendor cooperation (perhaps enforced by MS); instead you just got programs would install to Start Menu/Programs/My Crappy Company/My Crappy Software/* or, even worse, Start Menu/Programs/My Crappy Software and Start Menu/Programs/Help For My Crappy Software and Start Menu/Programs/Visit My Crappy Website etc.

I hesitate to call that "useful" personally, and it's the main reason that once Vista introduced the search functionality I very rarely actually navigated the start menu itself. On Vista/7 navigating it was actually a lot worse than it was in previous versions IMO because everything got squashed into a very small space as opposed to getting expanded out a bit more; but I was one of those weirdos who used Vista by choice and a lot of that was due to the search feature, because that made up for everything else I saw wrong with it. (I discovered Launchy a bit too late.)

I don't know what to think of 8. Vista/7 got me spoiled with the search feature so that's what I use on 8 (I also use that by choice...), and as a result my day-to-day use is basically identical between 7 and 8, and I basically never use the start screen except via search. I feel like the default program launcher on 8 (what you get when you hit the Windows key/button) requires the same sort of manual maintenance as the start menu "needed", and I haven't bothered to do that. The all programs menu I think works better than the start menu if you left the latter alone. People complain about how the start screen takes over your whole display, but I view that as a virtue -- it means a lot more can be displayed at once and, I think, it's easier to scan. I've also never wanted to see something I had open when I was figuring out what to launch. The down side is that it basically collapses the heirarchy -- but I think that unless you groom the start menu yourself, there's usually very little meaningful hierarchy for it to collapse.

That's my opinion anyway. (And no, I do not and never have had a relationship with MS.)

Re:Why are you using the touch interface with a mo

[Dynedain]

How do you shut down Windows 8 with a mouse?

Let me walk you through the steps as I do them on my test VM (default Win 8.1 install, no added software)

Get the the top level of the Metro UI (I still have not figured out how to do this without hitting the windows key on my keyboard. If you're buried multiple levels deep in something, or running something in desktop mode, there's no intuitive way to do this without a touchscreen)

Move your mouse to the bottom right corner of the screen. A tiny transparent icon will appear in the very bottom corner that only displays while the mouse is in motion. This icon is the traditional "minimize" icon. Pretty intuitive that I should go interact with it to do something not present on the home screen.

Hover over this icon, but don't click or right-click! Even though every other interactive icon that appears in Metro requires clicking to engage. If you click it, it minimizes. If you right-click, some other weird bar pops up from the bottom of the screen. Hover, but don't click.

A row of icons will slide in. Most seem relatively intuitive. Other than the convoluted way to get them onscreen, I have little complaint about their appearance or overall functions (other than the one with the Windows logo which does ABSOLUTELY NOTHING because I'm already in the Metro home screen). Click on the one for settings. Really.... settings?

A new menu comes in, with some pretty useless options for Start, Tiles and Help a ton of empty space, and a row of buttons at the bottom. Oh, and another option under that, which looks like a label but is actually where all the "real" settings are hidden. Ignore that for now and click on the button labeled power.

A popup menu appears, select "shut down". I've gone through 5 distinctly different interface methods just to do a shutdown.

Meanwhile, Metro is trying to give me helpful hints to swipe in from the edge of the screen. These "hints" overlay the actual menus I'm trying to use, and have no way to dismiss. Metro really wants me to try swiping and won't dismiss these unless I follow the instructions, even though I have no touchscreen.

Why is it so difficult to just shutdown? Everyone has been taught for years that you must do safe shutdowns on Windows, so let's undo that all in swoop by making a safe shutdown exceedingly difficult to get to?

Here's another example. On my default install, I have news, stocks, etc on the main screen of Metro. OK, I don't care for it, but I can live with it. But the only application (outside of IE) that gets a tile for launching is Silverlight? Why in the world would Silverlight ever need a launcher? And why would that launcher ever need to be on the default start screen?