Windows 8.1 Update Hammers Out the Little Things

[FritzEiv]

Windows 8.1 will get an OTA update packed with several UX goodies.

Windows 8.1 Update Hammers Out the Little Things : Read more

 

[canadianvice]

Great, but he's not even looking at the bloody camera...

 

[jerrspud]

Great, but he's not even looking at the bloody camera...

Yeah... little too long on that second camera

 

[Christopher Shaffer]

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.

 

[jalek]

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.

 

[Christopher Shaffer]

[quotemsg=13016587,0,106933]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.[/quotemsg]

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.

 

[holyprof]

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

 

[nukemaster]

This is an about time thing.At least this should help some of the new Windows 8.1 users.

 

[Azn Cracker]

Yay. This is what windows 8.0 should have been like.

 

[darasen]

So, when are they going to fix safe mode?

 

[11796pcs]

All things that should have existed from the start.

 

[coolitic]

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.

 

[canadianvice]

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?

 

[rad666]

Like how I waited until Win7 came along after they fixed everything wrong with Vista, I'll wait until Win9 rolls out.

 

[knowom]

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.

 

[JD88]

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.

 

[atomez]

WOW! Just call it Windows 7.1 and that's it

 

[vaughn2k]

It's called "Programs" not "Apps"....

 

[nukemaster]

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

 

[vaughn2k]

What I really wanna see is how Ballmer reacts on his face, if this is successful.... You see Ballmer, you never listen!

 

[jpishgar]

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

 

[back_by_demand]

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.

Why wait till XP fails to move to Linux, if you were going to do it you would have already

 

[monsta]

About time , even if it did take a long time for them to get it , good to see these changes

 

[AndrewJacksonZA]

[quotemsg=13016587,0,106933]Too bad about all the incompatibilities of old games and utilities[/quotemsg]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.

I agree with Christopher Shaffer. The only - **ONLY** - issue I has was some discolouration that happened on Fallout 2's main menu, but in-game it's fine and that's a game from 1998!What utilities are you using that aren't working? I've had some issues with old disassembly tools not working, but I think that's a result of moving from 32bit Windows to x64.Thanks,Andrew

 

[MidnightDistort]

[quotemsg=13018967,0,182051]What I really wanna see is how Ballmer reacts on his face, if this is successful.... You see Ballmer, you never listen![/quotemsg]

W8x has been out for a year and half already, it might win a few people over (at least those who are in tech) but i highly doubt it will be much of a hit and there's still no start menu, Vista was fixed but was abandoned due to that very reason. This update certainly hasn't won me over, even though the update is an improvement over 8x, it still needs work.