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Windows 8.1 Update Hammers Out the Little Things

By - Source: Tom's Hardware US | B 42 comments
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Windows 8.1 will get an OTA update packed with several UX goodies.

Windows 8.1 Update Demo

Today Microsoft made some changes to Windows 8.1 at Build, its annual developer conference, most of them minor user experience modifications aimed at responding to user feedback and bringing touch and mouse experiences into greater harmony. These changes, dubbed simply Windows 8.1 Update, will be available April 8 as automatic, OTA updates just like a normal security update, but only for those already running Windows 8.1.

While Microsoft still did not put the beloved traditional Start Menu back in this update, Microsoft did announce that it would be coming in a future Windows 8.1 update. In that future update, you'll also be able to run Windows Store apps in their own windows. The demonstration of the new Start Menu also came with tiles for Windows Store apps.

First up, Windows 8.1 default settings will now boot to desktop mode, rather than the Start screen, on any computer that uses a keyboard and mouse as the primary input. You can still manually change those settings.

The Windows 8.1 taskbar gets some new functionality, like the ability to pin any app (Modern, or Windows Store apps or desktop apps) or web site. Microsoft has pinned the Windows Store icon to the taskbar, which is removable by the user.
Microsoft wants all input capability to work consistently across any device, touch or otherwise. You can now minimize and close Windows Store applications with your mouse, just like you would any normal Windows application. You get to those buttons by hovering at the top of the application window. The taskbar appears upon hovering at the bottom of any screen.

Microsoft has added power and search button onto the Windows 8.1 Start screen to make those functions dead-easy to find. Universal search now includes Windows Store as a destination for suggestions.
The Start screen points you to all of your recently installed Windows Store apps, and when you go to your All Apps menu, you can see all of the new apps highlighted in the list.

Microsoft has now modified file association defaults. Before, an image file would open the Modern UI viewer by default, but now it will open the desktop viewer. Same with music and the media players. If you have already changed this manually, the updates won't alter it.

In the current version of Windows 8.1, when you hover in the corners you get the running apps or charms bars, but sometimes maybe you were hovering in the corner to close a window, or accomplish another task. Microsoft has added a slight delay to the appearance of those menus, which promises to eliminate some of this annoyance.

You can right-click live tiles with your mouse and get context menus right by the tile, rather than on the app bar, so you don't have to scroll down. With touch, it's still in the app bar, but it's obviously easier to navigate that way with touch, not so much with a mouse.

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  • -5 Hide
    canadianvice , April 2, 2014 2:22 PM
    Great, but he's not even looking at the bloody camera...
  • 0 Hide
    jerrspud , April 2, 2014 2:30 PM
    Quote:
    Great, but he's not even looking at the bloody camera...
    Yeah... little too long on that second camera :-)
  • 5 Hide
    Christopher Shaffer , April 2, 2014 2:43 PM
    Quote:
    First up, Windows 8.1 default settings will now boot to desktop mode, rather than the Start screen, on any computer that uses a keyboard and mouse as the primary input. You can still manually change those settings.
    I love that they added the ability to do this in Win 8.1, but didn't tell anyone. People still bitch that you can't boot to desktop but you actually can, and it's easy to change.

    Frankly, I'm totally fine w/out the "beloved" Start menu - you can right click on Start and access the most important stuff like Control Panel. It even links directly to Event Viewer, which is convenient for trouble shooting, among other things.

    Admittedly, the ability to close "apps" being limited to manually killing them in the Task Manager has never made any sense to me, but then I don't use apps, because they're mostly crap. The only one I've found of any use is a free comic reader, but it's mediocre in comparison to the free open-source CC reader which is still XP compatible.

    I'm curious if they've finally fixed the permissions issue that causes about 3-4 DCOM errors a day in Event Viewer. It's caused by incorrect [default] Group Policy settings and if you want to monkey with it for an hour you can get rid of them, but it doesn't hurt anything. In a nutshell, one of the default Win8 apps requests internet access and gets repeatedly denied.

    *EDIT* TOM'S - FOR THE LOVE OF THE DAMN INTERNET FIX THE ISSUE WITH CHROME MASHING COMMENT FORMATTING TOGETHER. It's an issue w/how you're handling WebKit. If you don't have a dev that can handle it, let me know. I've got a whole team that can get it done. I have to go back in an space everything out in the forums after posting because all the formatting is lost after a comment is submitted.
  • Display all 42 comments.
  • 2 Hide
    jalek , April 2, 2014 2:45 PM
    So now they're making UI adjustments they should have during beta testing and letting people use screen corners again. Too bad about all the incompatibilities of old games and utilities, buy new ones.I guess they got their phone interface, which was all Ballmer wanted and now they're finally making concessions to standard PC users.
  • 6 Hide
    Christopher Shaffer , April 2, 2014 2:50 PM
    Quote:
    So now they're making UI adjustments they should have during beta testing and letting people use screen corners again. Too bad about all the incompatibilities of old games and utilities, buy new ones.I guess they got their phone interface, which was all Ballmer wanted and now they're finally making concessions to standard PC users.


    Please post the incompatible programs you can't run in compatibility mode. I've even run dos-based games in Win 8.1, so I'd love to see proof.
  • 0 Hide
    holyprof , April 2, 2014 2:56 PM
    Now if they get their product serial number validation working i could finally enjoy 8.1 on my brand new laptop. 8.1 makes my perfectly working new Toshiba laptop a total mess plus it says my original Toshiba win 8.0 is invalid. Malied and talked to Toshiba, they sent to to M$ which in turn sent me back to Toshiba. In the meantime, the serial validates and works OK in win 8.0 - had to restore it to factory defaults using recovery disks :( 
  • 3 Hide
    nukemaster , April 2, 2014 3:17 PM
    This is an about time thing.At least this should help some of the new Windows 8.1 users.
  • 5 Hide
    Azn Cracker , April 2, 2014 3:20 PM
    Yay. This is what windows 8.0 should have been like.
  • 2 Hide
    darasen , April 2, 2014 3:30 PM
    So, when are they going to fix safe mode?
  • 3 Hide
    11796pcs , April 2, 2014 3:41 PM
    All things that should have existed from the start.
  • 3 Hide
    coolitic , April 2, 2014 3:45 PM
    They gonna keep giving us w7 features back little by little.Unfortunately for them, it's gonna be a while till people change from w7 if they keep doing this.
  • 6 Hide
    canadianvice , April 2, 2014 3:54 PM
    Although, you know, I really, really think that the next update will win me over to Windows 8. It'll be like Titanic or something as I fall into its arms.
    That start menu addition looks quite compelling, and I'm thinking that it'll finally be what I'm looking for before I update.

    I will restate my chosen hope that they would make the start screen a Windows modular feature, but I'm sure I could forget about it easily enough.

    MS has potential still. If I was confident in Linux's gaming potential, I'd have jumped ship a long time ago, but Windows is a very good tieover until then. I just really like that start menu. Best of both worlds - though I do fear MS is doing a pretty shoddy job of not making the OS schizo.

    Hopefully this is somewhat incremental and they'll get it all into a finalized, non-repetitive form for Windows 9. It's like on my Surface - it's easy enough, but extemely arbitrary on my part whether I use the right click-->shutdown or charms-->shutdown. I wish that wouldn't be there, as it only causes confusion. Make up your mind. Better yet... add power options straight to the charms bar. Wouldn't that be nice?
  • 4 Hide
    rad666 , April 2, 2014 3:58 PM
    Like how I waited until Win7 came along after they fixed everything wrong with Vista, I'll wait until Win9 rolls out.
  • -4 Hide
    knowom , April 2, 2014 4:16 PM
    Cool this update should coincide with the Xpocalypse I'll be waiting for XP to fail on the 8th so I can switch to Crunchbang Linux.
  • 5 Hide
    JD88 , April 2, 2014 6:26 PM
    This actually looks a lot better. Exactly what it should have been to begin with. Perhaps this is a sign that Microsoft might be a bit more humble under Nadella and will actually listen to consumer feedback.
  • 0 Hide
    atomez , April 2, 2014 8:42 PM
    WOW! Just call it Windows 7.1 and that's it
  • 6 Hide
    vaughn2k , April 2, 2014 8:50 PM
    It's called "Programs" not "Apps"....
  • 1 Hide
    nukemaster , April 2, 2014 8:52 PM
    Before "apps"(applications) people called programs progs :) 

    All the way back in Windows 2000, They had an appdata folder. It is not as new as people think. Even cell phones and tablets did not invent "apps" they just used it as a catch phrase.

    This is not any different than saying 1920 x 1080(damn you 16:9 bring back 16:10 as mainstream) is my screen resolution and now it would be my screen is "full hd" or 1080p
  • 0 Hide
    vaughn2k , April 2, 2014 10:36 PM
    What I really wanna see is how Ballmer reacts on his face, if this is successful.... You see Ballmer, you never listen!
  • 0 Hide
    jpishgar , April 2, 2014 10:54 PM
    Christopher - what do you mean by comment mashing? Could you be more specific? Happy to forward along your suggestions to the dev team or help diagnose any issues you are bumping into.-JP
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