Long-Awaited Windows RT 8.1 Update Lands, Nobody Cares

by Seth Colaner September 19, 2015 at 12:00 PM

If a tree falls in a forest, but there's no one around to hear it, does it make a sound?

If Microsoft gets around to updating Windows RT 8.1, but there's no one still using a Windows RT device, does anyone notice?

Let's find out (about the Windows RT thing, we mean; the tree thing is an unanswerable question on purpose): Microsoft finally updated its Windows RT 8.1 operating system. The company has been promising to do so for months -- really, virtually all of 2015 -- although company reps have been cagey about what exactly it would entail.

Not that anyone thought it particularly likely, but there was a thread of a thought that perhaps Microsoft would do something dramatic to save the deeply unpopular OS, such as perhaps retrofit it with some version of Windows 10 and all of those Universal Apps. Perhaps, the theory went, that's why no one in the company would spill the beans.

The timing of the update also made sense; Windows 10 launched this summer, and other versions (such as Windows 10 Mobile) are slated to land thereafter, so it stood to reason that maybe, just maybe, Windows RT would be in line for some of that delicious soup.

Nope. Microsoft just added a Windows 10-esque Start Menu and some minute UI tweaks. That's it. That's the whole update.

New WinRT desktop with Start MenuThanks For The Start Menu, And The Memories

A Microsoft spokesperson fed us this official statement:

Microsoft has issued an update for Windows RT devices which bring several UI improvements including the popular Windows Start Menu and changes to the lock screen. The update can be pushed to any Windows RT devices already running Windows 8.1 RT via Windows Update.

We're reading between the lines here, but the above was the response we got to some specific questions about any future plans for Windows RT support, so we interpret this to mean something along the lines of, "No, we're done with this albatross of an OS."

Thus, we expect that this is probably the last significant update we'll see for Windows RT.

And it's not much of an update, anyway. It's really just the Start Menu, which is new to the OS and can be found on the Desktop environment. It's a very nice adjustment, but it's fundamentally just a UI change, and nothing more.

Start MenuAs one would expect, the new Start Menu has a header on the top with your name (and the power button), a pinned list of apps to which you want easy access directly beneath that, a list of Most Frequently Used (MFU) apps that are otherwise unpinned, a button to show all apps, a search box below that, and an app grid to the right of those that show "both immersive and Win32 apps" that "can be pinned, unpinned and resized in this area."

If you have too many apps pinned to the viewing area, you'll get a scroll bar, which will work with a mouse or touch input.

You have to enable the Start Menu by right-clicking the Taskbar, selecting Properties, and selecting the Start Menu tab. Check the box that says, "Use the Start menu instead of the Start screen." Click OK. You'll be prompted to sign out, and when you sign back in, poof, there it will be.

To bring up the Start Menu, you can either click or tap the onscreen Windows button on the lower left side of the screen or press the physical Windows button on your device or keyboard.

Old WinRT desktop $The old \$ The old "immersive" Windows RT environment

Does This Change Windows RT?

Yes, the addition of the Start Menu does change Windows RT, quite a bit. Primarily, it has effectively erased the old Metro-style UI environment. Now, you just get the desktop environment by default, plus the Start Menu -- which will typically launch "immersive" apps (meaning the ones that were formerly in the Metro-style UI environment). Remember, you can't run any apps on a Windows RT device that you didn't acquire directly from Microsoft's proprietary, and mostly empty, dedicated Store.

Probably no one would argue with you if you were happy to see that "we have two different environments in this OS" business go. It's definitely better this way.

But here's a bit of instruction about Internet Explorer (nope, no Edge browser) that captures the confusing mess that is Windows RT in a nutshell so perfectly that it's almost poetry:

How to use both desktop and immersive Internet Explorer
After you install this update, Internet Explorer will start in the following ways:
When you select the Internet Explorer icon on the Taskbar, MFU, or Pinned List, the desktop version of Internet Explorer will open.
When you select the Internet Explorer icon in App grid, the immersive version of Internet Explorer will open.
Additionally, when an immersive app opens a URL, it will use the immersive version of Internet Explorer. Similarly, the desktop version of Internet Explorer will be used when URLs are opened from desktop apps.

Other Changes

Other changes brought by the latest Windows RT 8.1 update include rounded frames for User Account images on the login screens, Start screen, Start menu, and account dialog box.

That concludes the list of other changes.

The new Start Menu is certainly a welcome change to Windows RT 8.1, and it will likely please that sliver of the market that still has a Windows RT device not collecting dust on a shelf. For the vast majority of mobile users, though, a tree may or may not have just crashed to the ground in the forest.

Seth Colaner is the News Director at Tom's Hardware. Follow him on Twitter @SethColaner. Follow us @tomshardware, on Facebook and on Google+.

About the author

Seth Colaner @SethColaner

Seth Colaner is the Executive News Editor of Tom's Hardware US. He oversees news, event coverage and peripheral reviews.

Systems

This thread is closed for comments

36 comments

Comment from the forums

Your comment

giantbucket

if a tree falls in the forest, it does make a sound. just because nobody is there to hear it doesn't change the fact that it does in fact exist and that it did actually happen.

now, if a man says something and a woman doesn't say "you're wrong", is he still wrong?
kawininjazx

I had a surface RT, it was well made and I really liked it, but it wasn't marketed as a mobile OS clearly, and it fell apart. I sold it the second microsoft said it was basically toast.
tical2399

How can it be long awaited if nobody cares?
TechyInAZ

Quote:

How can it be long awaited if nobody cares?

I think a while back when Microsoft said they were going to do a remake of RT, it was anticipated. But now that RT is so rare these days, nobody cares.
captaincharisma

MS put the update out in time to compete with the new ipad pro i guess lol
alextheblue

Still have a couple family members with RT-based tablets they use for email and web browsing. I suspect they'll continue to do basic tasks like that adequately with or without this update. I would even imagine that you can still enable full-screen start if you so choose, right? After all in Win10 you can fire up a full-screen Start for tablets, or in the case of hybrids you can even (optionally) have it switch automatically between the two as you change modes.

The only thing I wish they would do for RT tablets is backport Edge. It's a lot faster.
alextheblue

Quote:

MS put the update out in time to compete with the new ipad pro i guess lol

I want what you're smoking. On a related note, I cannot believe that Apple wants so much money for the Pro and its accessories. I mean I know it's Apple but even so! For the cost of an iPad Pro with the stylus and keyboard cover, you can get an i5 Surface Pro 3 with 128GB, keyboard cover, and included stylus. Yikes! Plus the Pro 4 and various other new-gen x86 SP clones are just around the corner.
eklipz330

why why why did i pick a surface over an ipad for my mother. with microsoft's record of poor support for some of their prodcuts, i should have known better. too bad i was such a hater against apple. an ipad 2 is STILL an excellent product, and she wouldn't have to jump through hoops to get youtube to work.
uglyduckling81

Quote:

why why why did i pick a surface over an ipad for my mother. with microsoft's record of poor support for some of their prodcuts, i should have known better. too bad i was such a hater against apple. an ipad 2 is STILL an excellent product, and she wouldn't have to jump through hoops to get youtube to work.

She would have to jump through hoops just to interface with the thing though.
Want to put some music on your device? Place ticks next to the music you want rather than just dragging and dropping.
Want to carry a file to a mates place using it's internal storage..... Nope.
Apple products are fine if your just going to click on the browser and nothing further, otherwise look elsewhere.
MarkW

For something that doesn't matter, you sure blew a whole pile of words into the crap pile over it.
de5_Roy

Quote:

Long-Awaited Windows RT 8.1 Update Lands, Nobody Cares

well, you're right. i am a nobody and i care. by that, i mean that i care just enough to post here that you are right, nobody cares about win"wat-the-heck-did-i-just-hit,a-bird?an-insect?watever..."dows RT.
ftw2

Honestly my iPad 2 is collecting dust. An unusable slow device that is both storage and ram limited that even my children shun.
It didn't start out so useless but it got steadily worse.

I'm sure the surface rt is similarly slow and lousy at this point but the iPad 2 isn't awesome. Plus I remember when Google/apple pulled the youtube app and to be honest it's been years and youtube has never been as good on the iPad as it was originally.
jigawatt

Quote:

How can it be long awaited if nobody cares?

Depends on how you read the title. Such as my interpretation: Seth Colaner is nobody... and nobody cares (which is why there is such a lengthy article on it).
3ogdy

Windows 8(.1), Phone 8(.1), RT are all in the same category. Sh!t.
Pyree

What really killed Windows RT, I think, is Windows 8 and Bay Trail Atoms. Once Windows 8 (first without Bing, then with Bing) is installed on Bay Trail Atoms tablet, which is fully x86 and selling on the market for $200-300, there is not point on getting a Windows RT tablet. Now, if you look hard enough on eBay, you can even find those tablets, the lower end ones with 1GB RAM, selling for about $150 brand new.
cheesemanx

I am probably one of the few that has a Surface RT and love it. The majority of what I do at a computer for work is the web, office documents, and email. The device is extremely portable and has held up to operating at several construction sites (I work in construction so finding a device that doesn't choke on dust like 95% of the laptops on the market is nice).
pasow

Quote:

What really killed Windows RT, I think, is Windows 8 and Bay Trail Atoms. Once Windows 8 (first without Bing, then with Bing) is installed on Bay Trail Atoms tablet, which is fully x86 and selling on the market for $200-300, there is not point on getting a Windows RT tablet. Now, if you look hard enough on eBay, you can even find those tablets, the lower end ones with 1GB RAM, selling for about $150 brand new.

for $100 Micro Center sells brand new Winbooks outfitted with 32GB's of storage, Bay Trail Atoms, and 2GB's of RAM.
scolaner

Quote:

I am probably one of the few that has a Surface RT and love it. The majority of what I do at a computer for work is the web, office documents, and email. The device is extremely portable and has held up to operating at several construction sites (I work in construction so finding a device that doesn't choke on dust like 95% of the laptops on the market is nice).

Interesting. Have you applied the update yet? Will the Start Menu make you more or less happy, as a user?
cheesemanx

1725261 said:

Quote:

I am probably one of the few that has a Surface RT and love it. The majority of what I do at a computer for work is the web, office documents, and email. The device is extremely portable and has held up to operating at several construction sites (I work in construction so finding a device that doesn't choke on dust like 95% of the laptops on the market is nice).

Interesting. Have you applied the update yet? Will the Start Menu make you more or less happy, as a user?

I will be applying the update this afternoon, I am not sure if I will like the 10 style Start menu as much with the touch screen but when using a mouse it should be better. (The touch screen works awesome for the Window 8 start menu).
littleleo

That is one of the dumbest questions ever asked. Of course it makes a sound whether people are there or not. If some one plants a bomb in a building and no one is there to hear it does it go boom when it blows up? Does it make a sound, duh! Whats next? The "what came 1st the chicken or the egg" questions? It's the egg by the way laid by the ancestor of the chicken.

The real question is are the 10 people left in the USA still using windows 8.1 that haven't upgraded to Windows 10 interested in this change?
littleleo

Quote:

if a tree falls in the forest, it does make a sound. just because nobody is there to hear it doesn't change the fact that it does in fact exist and that it did actually happen. now, if a man says something and a woman doesn't say "you're wrong", is he still wrong?

I think the way this is usually phrased is "If a man says something and a woman isn't there to hear it is he still wrong?"
everygamer

The upside to this story is that Microsoft is support devices that it has sold, even if very few people have them.
house70

RT was DOA the moment Microsoft decided some of their own stuff could not be made compatible with it. In our case, we had a couple RT tablets that were sent back because Microsoft would not make Silverlight (needed for a web application we need) plugin compatible with IE running on RT. All the above made by Microsoft. When a manufacturer decides not to support their own software, what else can one expect? This was way before MS decided to kill RT. Wrote it off and moved on.
bimbam360

Quote:

That is one of the dumbest questions ever asked.....

It's just a simplified Schrödinger clone thought experiment. Unfortunately whoever thought it up didn't consider 'The Internetz!'..... Or that sound (depending on who defines it), does in fact require observation to be classified as sound depending on how anal about definitions you want to be. Otherwise it is just vibrations in the air until observed, but the question is more whether even those vibrations occur without observation...

A much simpler analogy would simply be "Does what is behind you currently exist". You cannot prove something does or doesn't exist without observing it and disturbingly, the act of observing something may even change the state it was originally in.

To use computer games as a frame of reference, who is to say that all assets of the universe are cached at once. You only need the observable assets loaded in memory at any one time for the illusion to be maintained.

"If real is what you can feel, smell, taste and see, then 'real' is simply electrical signals interpreted by your brain."