Microsoft Confirms Windows 8.1 Launch on October 18
By - Source: Tom's Hardware US
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17 comments
Windows 8.1 to bring Start button back... sort of.
It's official; Microsoft has confirmed that Windows 8.1 will be released no later than October 18 in all parts of the world. With international time zone differences, 12:00 a.m. in New Zealand means that North Americans will see the release at 4:00 a.m. pacific and 7:00 a.m. eastern on October 17.
Microsoft also confirmed that Windows 8.1 will also be appearing at retail and on new devices on that very same day.
Want to know more on what to expect from this next version of Windows? Check out our Windows 8.1 preview in pictures here.
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You also have no search box in the desktop interface which is incredibly useful for finding programs or files.
Most of the benefits seem to be in making the Metro interface somewhat more usable for desktop users (ie being able to run more than 2 apps in a 75/25 split) and fooling those who do prefer using the desktop interface on the desktop into thinking the update makes the desktop more like Windows 7.
I do have to tell people that Windows 8 will drive them nuts until they organize it perfectly for them and get rid of the stuff they don't use a lot from the main screen. Once that's done, then everything jives nicely... otherwise it'll drive anybody into the loony bin. Windows 8.1 is MUCH better... at least the preview that I've been running is.
Everything else has been wonderful.
A taskbar that works with multiple monitors, and storage spaces. The tiles and the app behind them are actually ok to use on desktop as well. Hyper-v is important for some corporates I hear. That's not much over w7, but like I have said before, w8(.1) might not be much of an upgrade, but is certainly not worse than w7.
Since when did Microsoft ever charge for service packs? For new users going to 8, if i understand how it works now they can just buy 8.1 instead of buying 8 and having to go through all the updates. Otherwise 8.1 is still technically a service pack, just that MS doesn't call it that because i think they wanted it to be easier.