Continuing the Windows 8 vision with Windows 8.1

http://blogs.windows.com/windows/b/bloggingwindows/archive/2013/05/30/continuing-the-windows-8-vision-with-windows-8-1.aspx

by daigoba66 • 13 years ago

61 78 13 years ago

blogs.windows.com

daigoba66• 13 years ago

This may be a bit facetious but it seems like Windows 8 might have been the biggest beta testing project ever.

But on a serious note I'm glad they're focusing on improving usability.

mscrivo• 13 years ago

I don't understand why people keeping getting up in arms about Windows releases, it's like they keep forgetting their M.O.

Microsoft's releases have always been like this, release something that changes things drastically (either under the hood or visually), and often breaks things or makes people mad because they don't like change. Then spend an enormous amount of time refining it in a subsequent release until everyone wonders how they ever used the old version. Frankly, I like their release style and wish more companies would follow suit. It allows them innovate on a predictable schedule, while giving those people who hate change, plenty of time for it to sink in and come around.

I must say that I am not a fan of metro on the desktop either after using Windows 8 since release, but I knew the refinements would come and these changes are making it look great and finally are starting to show where they set their sights from the start.

Looking forward to using windows 8.1 on a haswell based ultrabook with touch.

lucian1900• 13 years ago

It's because it costs money. Few things people pay for are so utterly broken every other year.

ricw• 13 years ago

Just because Microsoft releases have been like this, doesn't mean they should! Having users up in arms is a bad sign. It means you have managed change badly. Others do this much better, incrementally and in bits that are manageable by users. Its something Microsoft fundamentally doesn't understand. Completely unlike Amazon, Google or Apple. When is the last time they released something where people were up in arms?! Even with drastic changes such as in Android 4!

Microsoft just doesn't care about its users. But it should!

revscat• 13 years ago

It has nothing to do with hating change -- which is a pretty condescending thing to say -- but rather with disagreeing with the UI decisions made. By and large the reaction to Metro has been negative for numerous reasons, the important part being that these objections are reasonable.

Such grandiose shifts also smack of hubris: "Users be damned, we know what's best for them! Apple did it! So can we!" The problem with this is that Microsoft has always suffered a lack of holding design up to primary importance, and this is again the case here.

Enjoying OS X Snow Leopard on my rMBP where I have zero issues with the OS getting in the way of my daily activities. Had to deal with Win7 and then -- briefly -- Win8 for the first few months of this year, and I was positively floored by how much the OS got in the way of doing things. I am skeptical that simply making refinements will fix what appears to be a fundamental problem.

smrtinsert• 13 years ago

Seriously. One of my first lessons from Microsoft was don't adopt within the first year.

Samuel_Michon3• 13 years ago

“seems like Windows 8 might have been the biggest beta testing project ever”

Gmail, Facebook, iCloud and Siri have way more users than Windows 8 does. The last two are in their entirety beta products. The first two have introduced major changes that didn’t turn out great. Even when Google rolls out a new version of Gmail in phases, it easily covers more users than Windows 8 (which has about 60 million users).

orf• 13 years ago

Largest doesn't always mean largest user base. I'm sure a lot more money, people and other resources went into Windows 8 than the re-skinning of Gmail.

kimagure• 13 years ago

under the section "PC Settings" seems to a description for being able to actually use the settings screen in your start menu that will reflect between your start menu and desktop? i've been waiting for this... my start menu will be in japanese even though i set my default keyboard to english and try to set all the language settings to english, so that i'm stuck with a stupid half english/japanese environment. even now, sometimes it's a toss-up whether or not i get english or japanese labels for start menu apps like Skype and my weather and mail apps seem to be permanently named 天気　and メール. i can't even search those using hiragana or romanized phonetics, ugh. maybe this wouldn't be a problem if i weren't practically illiterate.

also, if i ever log in to windows 8 without waiting something like a minute, i always get boxes from something not working right when in some of the start menu screens and when trying to type things in with any IME. see: http://i.imgur.com/78SNnpB.png

sorry that my post turned into one big complaint. hopefully someone will show me some very simple fixes to my problems!

drdaeman2• 13 years ago

Why use something you hate? Are you forced to stick with Windows for some particular reason?

alan_cx4• 13 years ago

In my, and many cases, yes.

When an alternate OS runs all my tools and games, with 100% compatibility with my hardware, I'll give it a go.

duiker101• 13 years ago

Did I read it right? Animated backgrounds? That is the feature I am more excited about!

workbench2• 13 years ago

Windows 95 Plus! has this

bluedino• 13 years ago

Family photos as the lock screen!

workbench2• 13 years ago

In what world could scrambling and backtracking backwards on decisions be described as "Continuing the vision"

freehunter2• 13 years ago

How are they scrambling and backtracking decisions? How is that what you took from this?

Sure, they added a start button, why not? But they also made all the PC settings available from within the Metro environment. If the start button is a step backwards in direction, pushing further away from requiring the desktop is ten huge steps forward toward that vision.

jpreiland2• 13 years ago

Search: "It is the modern version of the command line!"

While the search feature they're describing sounds cool, I'm curious as to what they mean by a "modern command line".

wmeredith• 13 years ago

This sounds like a "faster-horse" feature to me.

http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/15297-if-i-had-asked-people-...

Samuel_Michon3• 13 years ago

When he came up with the Model T, people already had trains, trams, electric cars, and bicycles at their disposal. One has to wonder whether the world wouldn’t have been better off without Henry Ford’s gasoline automobiles.

xentronium• 13 years ago

Pedantic nitpick: Ford most probably never said or written that.

tezmc• 13 years ago

They might mean for launching apps by typing and using auto-completion.

Here's my personal story with Windows 8. I built a PC about a month ago after using macs for several years. I'd heard all the horror stories about Win8 and was going to get Windows 7, but someone recommended that I get 8 instead, saying that it wasn't anywhere near as bad as people were saying.

They were right, it's not, though it does have more of a learning curve than it should.

I missed having a start menu at first, but that went away when I discovered I could easily launch apps or control panels in a similar way to how I did it on the mac. On the mac I used Quicksilver - I'd hit ctrl-space type a few letters of the name and hit enter to launch the app. On windows 8 you can do the same by hitting the windows key, typing a few letters and hitting enter. In addition, I have the applications I use most pinned to the taskbar.

I'd originally planned to install one of the 3rd party start menus, but ended up not needing to.

arrrg• 13 years ago

It's a text-based interface for browsing files and launching programs. You know, what many people used to do with a CLI when they had it.

I assume they mean nothing more than that.

jpreiland2• 13 years ago

Okay. That's what I sorta assumed, but I wasn't really sure. I was just wondering how their "modern CLI" handled tasks other than searching for and launching stuff (which it probably doesn't). I don't think the "modern command line" description was optimal from the perspective of someone who uses the current command prompt (Windows 7, I haven't touched 8 yet but I might soon) to do development stuff.

The search bar on the Windows 7 start menu does what they're talking about to some extent (though I'm betting not nearly as nicely, and it certainly doesn't return web results). I know I just hit Windows Key > first few letters of an application > Enter to launch several things on my Windows 7 machine already. Sounds like they're making a supercharged version of this for 8.1 that includes web results/Skydrive stuff and the like.

xpose2000• 13 years ago

I've been using Windows 8 for months now and just about every update mentioned I am completely uninterested in. The only exception is IE11.

fitzpasd• 13 years ago

What are you interested in? I've been using Win8 since launch and I'm looking forward to:

- View all apps by swiping up

- No longer auto-put app tiles on my Start screen

- Improved windows store search

- Different size app multi-screening

- Boot to a different screen

- Change which screen 'Start' gets you to

- Edit functionality of corners

Tomdarkness• 13 years ago

For me, personally, none of these changes interest me, perhaps with the exception of IE11.

I've had Windows 8 installed on my desktop PC since it came out as I took advantage of their cheap upgrade offer from Windows 7 (I'd not of paid full price for it). So here are my thoughts on the improvements in Windows 8.1 as someone who uses it on a desktop, with a keyboard and mouse.

Personalization: The only time I ever see the new start menu is when I quickly press Start and begin typing the name of some application I want to launch. I've never rearranged any of the tiles and my screen is always off when I'm at the lock screen so a slideshow on the lock screen is totally useless for me.

Search: "It is the modern version of the command line" What? How is a integrated desktop and web search a modern version of the command line. That makes no sense. I'd never use this new functionality anyway since I don't use Bing and I can easily access google from my always open web browser.

Apps and Windows Store: Never used any metro apps or installed anything from the Windows Store. I don't really feel that any of the metro apps have taken any thought for those who are not using a touch interface.

Cloud Connectivity: "In Windows 8.1 your files can be saved directly to SkyDrive, so you can always have your files with you." Wait, you could not do this before Windows 8.1? I've never used SkyDrive but it seems silly to me that you can now only just save your files directly to SkyDrive.

PC Settings: I can use the control panel just fine.

Internet Explorer: More frequent versions of IE seems like a good thing, although I'd be more interested in the details of what is new generally rather than just the new features for what seems to be the metro version.

Better Mouse and Keyboard Options: I see two minor tweaks, there is now a windows logo and I can now configure what happens when I place my cursor in different corners. How are these better options for keyboards and mouses?

I don't get it, they seem to be ignoring their whole previous customer base; those who used Windows on their non-touch desktops and laptops. Sure, I understand that these improvements will most likely be useful for those who use Windows on their touch based device but these people are surely in the minority so why focus the content of your "new features" announcement for the minority?

potatolicious• 13 years ago

> "I don't get it, they seem to be ignoring their whole previous customer base; those who used Windows on their non-touch desktops and laptops."

This is what frustrates me also.

I've had Windows 8 installed since (almost) day one on my desktop. I also have a Surface (that hasn't been touched in months, oops).

MS was accused for years of advertising Windows' touch capabilities without actually putting any real thought into them. Windows 7 had some vaunted touch-compatibility changes which really just amounted to increasing the spacing between some buttons. This made them very hard to touch accurately, instead of impossible to touch accurately. Needless to say, people who were hoping for a touch-capable Windows were sorely disappointed.

And now it looks like the pendulum has swung fully the other way. We have an OS that works great on a touch device, and basically doesn't work on a traditional mouse + keyboard device.

No, seriously. I've met people who used Win8 regularly who didn't know that each app had a bottom bar - and how could they, there's zero discoverability around it, even though critical app functionality is often contained in that bar. (It's Windows+Z btw, that or a magical incantation of mouse movements).

On a touch device it's a simple swipe up from the bottom. Beautiful.

It still befuddles me every day that MS was willing to ship something that was so fundamentally unfriendly to mouse and keyboard users. How anyone at MS could look at the mouse gestures to trigger critical UI elements and call them acceptable... I just don't know.

It seems to me that MS has bought fully into the doom and gloom re: the future of computing. The zeitgeist is that in the long run laptops and desktops will stop existing entirely and almost everyone will be using tablets instead. The sales numbers for both iOS and Android tablets support this, but it's hard to say where the equilibrium point will fall.

It makes sense that, strategically, MS wants to transition Windows from a mouse-first to a touch-first UX, but this transition is awful.

BruceIV2• 13 years ago

I believe that "magical incantation of mouse movements" is a right click. (Not claiming it's discoverable, just that it's not complicated.)

kvb2• 13 years ago

Well, it seems like Microsoft is betting that touch is an inevitable feature of most computing devices in the near future (which seems like a good bet to me, even if it might be a year or so early). The desktop market is disappearing in favor of laptops and tablets, and touch really is a nice option on laptops even if it's not going to be the primary modality.

But regardless, as someone who uses the keyboard a lot Windows 8 is slightly better than Windows 7 for me (e.g. Win+X for quick access to administrator tools).

bcbrown• 13 years ago

I was a test developer on the UI for Win8 for the first half of development, and tried a couple times to get the PMs to think about mouse/keyboard navigation in Metro, but never got anywhere. The bar was accessibility for blind people, not usability for people who preferred mouse/keyboard.

russellsprouts• 13 years ago

> No, seriously. I've met people who used Win8 regularly who didn't know that each app had a bottom bar - and how could they, there's zero discoverability around it, even though critical app functionality is often contained in that bar. (It's Windows+Z btw, that or a magical incantation of mouse movements).

If by magical incantation of mouse movements, you mean a right click?

MatthewPhillips• 13 years ago

You're definitely able to save to SkyDrive already.

gjulianm• 13 years ago

What would've you added to improve Windows on non-touch? Windows on touch is the new thing, and it'd be bad if they didn't improve it.

Also, take into account that this isn't "All Windows 8.1 changes". They probably have more to show for non-touch users, but this is what users were complaning about (Start button, Metro multitask...), and as Paul Thurrott unveiled most of these features [1] yesterday I imagine they decided to confirm them and get a bit of good press.

[1] http://winsupersite.com/windows-8/blue-start-experience-chan...

acqq• 13 years ago

I would have kept Metro only for small screen touch devices.

mattmaroon• 13 years ago

I'll probably still be using Start8 to turn it into a slightly better Windows 7.

bluedevil2k• 13 years ago

I had to get a new laptop for my wife, and I had no interest in educating her how to use Windows 8 (or figuring it out myself). The only way it's been usable for her was to install Start8. (http://www.stardock.com/products/start8/). It's what MSFT should be adding into 8.1

I have no financial interest in StarDock.

leviathant2• 13 years ago

The absence of a start menu was confusing to me for about three minutes, and then I figured out that the Metro screen is the start menu, just full size. Ever since you've been able to pin programs to the taskbar at the bottom (or side if you prefer) of the screen, my usage of the start menu fell to pressing start, and typing the name of the program I hadn't pinned to the taskbar.

The start screen's the same for me, mostly, except I also click on "Weather" and occasionally use the Trackage app.

While I don't think the Metro interface is the solution for everything or even a primary direction to go in (I'm in desktop mode 98% of the time) I also think putting a start menu back in is a step in the wrong direction.

talmand4• 13 years ago

I agree, restoring a small feature (that doesn't prevent you from using the product the way you like) that has been requested by a large number of customers and may get them to like the product better is a definite step in the wrong direction.

darklajid• 13 years ago

I fully agree: The start menu was never a good idea, we just used it. As soon as you start installing and removing things, it quickly became cumbersome. Windows XP (iirc?) introduced weird ideas of how to cope with the chaos in that evergrowing, 3-4 level deep list of things you might or might not want to start: The 'personalization' feature that kind of randomly hid most of your menu. The hacks to order the menu (which never really worked reliably).

So the options today are fine, for my usecase, and I'm hard pressed to accept that the old solution was better in general.

- Pin programs to the taskbar - Use shortcuts for common/important stuff (Win+i, Win+x, Win+w, Win+f are the ones I need) - Use the type to complete thing otherwise

Most users I know moved to that workflow anyway, before Windows 8 (the start menu entry on previous Windows versions. Spotlight or maybe QuickSilver before that on OS X. Unity / Gnome Shell on Linux).

In my opinion the start menu needed constant micro-management and was a hassle.

(Disclaimer: I'm not happy with the ui formerly known as Metro, but I do like the 'type to launch' approach a lot)

drdaeman2• 13 years ago

There's also http://www.classicshell.net/, which is free in both senses.

andyjohnson0• 13 years ago

I use StartIsBack [1] which I've found to be very good. $3 for a two pc licence.

[1] http://www.startisback.com/

itsbits• 13 years ago

Personalisation may be useful for WP8 as well..when are they planning to update WP8?

hipponax3• 13 years ago

8.1 is free, so it's the update for 8.0

JonoW• 13 years ago

One welcome change is the "PC settings" one - sounds like all settings are "metrofied", which will help the reduce the jarring flip to desktop mode when you're not expecting it.

edtechdev• 13 years ago

"the Search charm will provide global search results powered by Bing"

This is similar to what Ubuntu users complained about when they included Amazon results in any searches.

Hopefully there will be an option to disable it and/or switch to another search provider.

pdubs• 13 years ago

>aggregated view of many content sources

I hope this means that the main Start Screen search will now search across programs and settings. Makes it much easier for things that may or may not be settings or apps (Control Panel, Device Manager, Event Viewer, Disk Administration). That's been my #1 gripe with Win8 from day 1; they got rid of universal start menu searching.

alan_cx4• 13 years ago

For what its worth....

Its my No3 son's 14th birthday and he has gathered enough money for a new PC. He wants a new one for school and games. He is not some geek programming whiz kid. He "uses" a computer, he "consumes" the internet. He is, in short, a mere kid user. He already owns a laptop with Windows 8.

The discussion on spec and costs comes round to the operating system. Exact quote: "I don't want windows 8, its a load of complete sh... crap. I'd rather have Windows 7".

Kinda took me by surprise. I assumed being a kid he'd like and want the newest, latest, whizzy thing. But no. Even a 14yo lad who is not a geek doesn't want Windows 8, even after using for many months.

I reckon that is pretty damning.

BCM43• 13 years ago

How much of that is him actually having tried it out and deciding that he does not like it, and how much is him having heard about windows 8, and deciding through that?

alan_cx4• 13 years ago

Yeah fair point, and I wonder how much influence I might have had too.

On the me front, I have never discussed or commented on it to or with him. Frankly, such discussion would bore him senseless. The discussion about the PC spec, which was me trying to match budget with expectation, was hard work!!! But, the one thing he jumped on was not AMD v Intel, not RAM or disk size, not graphics card chip set, its was no Windows 8.

As for usage v PR, all I can say is that, as I tried to point out with my not geek comment, he is not in circles where things like OS's and PC specs are important. He not a computer person. As I said, he is a consumer, not a creator or hacker. The tech details are as important to him as the tech details of a TV or stereo. Basically, does it do what I want? See what I mean?

Also, he has used Windows 8 for months on his laptop. Plenty of time to get over initial shock and simply get used to it. Well, clearly, he hasn't.

So, in his case, I would say his rejection of Win8 is experienced based and genuinely his own.

prawks• 13 years ago

He stated he owns a Windows 8 laptop already, which is very revealing. I'd also say his interest in Windows over OSX makes him much less of a bandwagon-rider (though it could be the pricetag as well).

Shorel2• 13 years ago

What I truly don't understand is why when it comes to Windows8 lots of people like you try to defend it, but when it comes to Ubuntu and Unity almost nobody does.

talmand4• 13 years ago

Actually, people who desire the newest, latest, whizzy thing is a niche market. Most people simply want something that works.

alan_cx4• 13 years ago

Not with kids, no way. "People", maybe.

Think fashion.

wslh• 13 years ago

It reminds me when I installed OpenOffice for my wife many years ago ;-)

Livven• 13 years ago

These type of arguments are like No true Scotsman, just applied to the object instead of the subject.

Totally useless counter-anecdote to illustrate: I'm not much older than your son, I do program and tinker around with stuff and use command lines etc. but prefer Windows 8 over Windows 7. According to your logic that should not be possible, since if even your son doesn't like Windows 8, how can someone more technical than him like it?

BTW I don't care much for the Metro interface. It's barely usable on tablets but totally worthless on a desktop. However that doesn't make the desktop any worse – only the Start menu is missing, which I haven't used in Windows 7 either. Otherwise the desktop environment is another solid Vista-to-7 like improvement, though this fact usually gets lost in all the "OMG what is this Start screen" noise.

BruceIV2• 13 years ago

I've been using Windows 8 on my (multi-monitor) desktop for a few months now, and the feature I'm most excited about is the ability to launch Metro apps on both screens. There still aren't many good ones, but it's annoying when I want to play backgammon while watching Netflix. Hopefully they also make the Start screen dragable from screen to screen like all the Metro apps - it's an odd incongruity in their design.

k3n• 13 years ago

Oh look, MS is again proselytizing what a huge success Win8 has been.

kabdib2• 13 years ago

There's a lot of nice work under the hood in Win8. It's too bad the internal politics completely submerged it.

A simple "Sorry, we screwed up" would be nice to hear, rather than the "Advancing forward into the bright future, we added a Start Button^H^H^H^H^H^H Tip"

Let's put it another way: The moment that I hear the next version of Visual Studio /requires/ Win8 or its ilk to run, I'm looking hard at moving everything I do to Linux.

bornhuetter3• 13 years ago

I don't think they particularly have screwed up. Sure, removing the start button was a bad idea, but it's been blown way out of proportion. It was pretty obvious that the media and a lot of users were going to hate Windows 8 regardless of how good or bad it was, so Microsoft have to just keep pushing with the marketingspeak/bullshit. To "admit failure" would be to play into the hands of those trying to paint Windows 8 (completely unfairly) as New Coke.

That being said, why not move to Linux now? Ubuntu and many other distributions are already excellent desktop environments and are great for programming. What sort of work are you doing? You're probably either stuck in Windows, or you may as well move now.

kabdib2• 13 years ago

I don't want to move to Linux yet because (A) the development environments for C++ are still way better on Windows, and (B) it's a pain in the ass to move everything else.

Once (A) is gone, it's a powerful incentive to look seriously at Windows as a going concern.

mikecane2• 13 years ago

This might help but I think everyone is missing one of the reasons why desktop sales have tanked: Their screens.

People who are using tablets don't want to look at grainy big screens. These screens look blurry. Stop in any store and check out the all-in-one Win 8 touch desktops. Their screens are awful.

And yes blah blah blah higher-res NON-touchscreen with mouse -- but going back to a mouse after touch? That's another step back.

bornhuetter3• 13 years ago

Of course that's one of the big reasons, but Microsoft don't want to say it because they don't want to be too critical of OEMs in public - and the media don't want to say it because many of them want to paint Windows 8 as a failure.

Haswell reportedly has enough power in the GPU to support high res screens using just the integrated graphics - so we should see better screens in 2013 H2. Samsung and others have already announced some incredible laptop screens for upcoming devices.

NZ_Matt• 13 years ago

Does the average person buying a laptop from Bestbuy really care that much about screen resolution?

The longer lifespans of PCs and laptops combined with the popularity of smartphones and iPads is a more likely reason for the drop off in sales.

astrodust• 13 years ago

So long as a person's existing computer can still view Facebook, check email, and watch YouTube videos, there's no real impetus for them to upgrade. That tablets and phones are quite capable of doing this means there's even less need for a new PC.

Microsoft doesn't add anything new. Windows 95 was appreciably better at doing what people already did, there was reason to upgrade, and Windows XP took that even further. Ever since then they've been pretty rudderless. Windows 7 doesn't offer anything that Windows XP can't already do, apart from the new theming. At least it's inoffensive, though, and lets you do whatever you want to do without putting up a fuss.

Windows 8 is something nobody wants or needs, it's a very hard sell, and it's even more bizarre that Microsoft would be pushing so hard on touch into the market that least wants it: Corporate IT.

mikecane2• 13 years ago

>>>Does the average person buying a laptop from Bestbuy really care that much about screen resolution?

I said desktop. People sit further away from laptop screens and at a totally different angle. Win 8 emphasizes touch, and all the AIO touchscreen desktop screens I've seen are too grainy to look at compared to tablet screens. Even if the pixel count is the same as a laptop, the pixels, obviously, are a hell of a lot larger.

crb• 13 years ago

Worth noting: the release of Windows 8 brings IE11, which means that Google's "n-1" policy for browsers will now deprecate IE9.

IE9 is the last version that runs on Windows Vista (as IE8 was the latest version to run on Windows XP.)

craigching• 13 years ago

The quote I found most interesting was this:

"The response to Windows 8 has been substantial"

substantial not positive, funny that!

Continuing the Windows 8 vision with Windows 8.1

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