Windows 8.1 Preview

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-8/preview

by ing33k • 13 years ago

108 102 13 years ago

windows.microsoft.com

moot• 13 years ago

Is this the first time Microsoft has branded an update as a dot X release instead of a Service Pack?

I for one welcome this change and hope it signals a switch to more frequent major OS updates.

jffry• 13 years ago

Depends if you count Windows 2.0/2.1 and 3.0/3.1 as similar-sized increments to this [0]

At least in the past 10 years, Microsoft's language has been all about "Service Packs". The landscape of mobile OSes, their app stores, and the movement of web browsers to an always-up-to-date model is conditioning consumers to expect continuously-updated software. It only seems natural that desktop OSes (which are the most entrenched in point releases) will eventually follow.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_3.1#Improvements_over_...

bmm6o• 13 years ago

There was also Windows NT 3.1/3.5/3.51 (among other lesser known ones: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Microsoft_Windows)

lancewiggs• 13 years ago

The branding did recall to mind Windows 3.1, which was the first usable Windows.

The video was clearly not targeted at me - lots of jumping around the product and distracting. It just seems sad versus the Apple approach of focussing on end users doing things.

jmspring• 13 years ago

I'm waiting for some Windows 8 for Workgroups...

I mean, Win3.1 was quite usable, then OS/2 (joke), 95, then XP (some flavor of NT w/ a service pack wasn't horrible). It takes some iterations, sometimes, to get it right.

There are things I don't particularly care for in Win8, but compared to Win7, it is much snappier on older hardware and that I appreciate (stuffing it in a VM). I also appreciate the faster release iterations.

pedalpete• 13 years ago

I agree it was a tad distracting, but I think your comparison with Apple is slightly flawed.

In the Microsoft ad, you're supposed to be able to project yourself to be the person doing these things. You're supposed to feel that 'you' are opening an e-mail and looking at photos or "you" are searching for Marilyn Monroe, etc. etc.

That is similar to the Apple ads, but the Apple ads do two things differently. 1) they are at a slower pace and with less frantic movement and music, so it is easier to understand 2) apple ads will often have a voice over explaining what is happening.

I don't like the Microsoft ad, but the ad does focus on an end user doing things. Everything in that ad is a user doing things. I think they need to refine their approach though, and make it about things people care about doing.

MattDL• 13 years ago

In one of the articles I read on this (sorry no link) I'm pretty sure it mentioned their new philosophy, for hardware and software, was rapid iteration.

jcampbell1• 13 years ago

A company must live atop a mountain of stupidity to call a free upgrade a "service pack". It is really fun to watch Microsoft walk out of it's own echo chamber and create interesting things. It is an interesting time to be the software business.

shaneofalltrad• 13 years ago

Don't forget this download lasts a year, as it is a trial only. Read the fine print after your two hour set-up to see everything is useless after the set date. I ended up canceling my update.

trimbo2• 13 years ago

Windows 5.1 was "Windows XP"

It only came out a year or so after Windows 2K, which was 5.0 technically.

untog4• 13 years ago

"Windows 5.1" was definitely not branding, though.

tiles• 13 years ago

"SkyDrive is now the default location for saving documents. So you always have your files wherever you go, even when you’re offline. And with the included SkyDrive app, you can manage both local files and SkyDrive files in one place."

This is a massive play for cloud storage. Will this be replacing "My Documents" for the majority of casual Windows users?

spoiler• 13 years ago

As someone who has ~20 kbps upload speed this news is very frustrating. :(

ciniglio• 13 years ago

It should still work like a normal folder, even if you're offline, no?

dangrossman3• 13 years ago

You definitely don't have to let it waste your bandwidth if you don't want to use it. You can:

a) Tell SkyDrive not to start on startup

b) Remove that folder from syncing

c) Tell SkyDrive not to sync on metered networks and set your home connection as a metered network

d) Save documents to a different folder

e) Uninstall SkyDrive

veidr4• 13 years ago

And it looks like it will be a massive annoyance for the user, kind of like how OS X now insists on showing me iCloud first every time I save a document, despite the fact that I have never stored any document in iCloud and have no intention of ever doing so.

nixme• 13 years ago

Annoying, but `defaults write NSGlobalDomain NSDocumentSaveNewDocumentsToCloud -bool false`

kenjackson3• 13 years ago

Why an annoyance? For most users it will look and behave just like a normal folder.

wluu• 13 years ago

For Joe Average Windows user, I think this is a good move.

For everyone else, I think we've probably already got our own system for online doc backups etc. I'm sure, like past Microsoft products, we can probably change the behaviour through a registry "hack"/modification if they don't have something a bit more configurable built in (ie: in Control Panel etc).

cpursley• 13 years ago

This is actually quite an impressive update.

People like to dismiss MS, but they really understand iterative development.

embolism• 13 years ago

Yeah windows phone smoothly iterated from its early beginnings to where it is today.

Oh... wait.

madoublet• 13 years ago

My guess is that WP9 will just be a tweaked version of Windows 9 without the desktop. The WP8 updates have been annoyingly slow, and Microsoft does not seem to be investing at all in apps (e.g. no Bing apps for WP8).

noveltyaccount• 13 years ago

They've been doing a fantastic job of updating the first party "metro" apps such as mail and music on a near-monthly basis. Really looking forward to a more frequent OS refresh as well, and with more customer feedback. Pulling the desktop background into the start screen is brilliant IMO.

Maxious• 13 years ago

For details, please download this 18 megabyte PDF file (don't mention XPS).

drivebyacct23• 13 years ago

Since there are no IE11 threads on the front page, I'm going to hijack to express some amazement with the IE team. DASH and Media Source extensions (among the other, more well known HTML5 stuff added/bolstered)?! Awesome! Any word of CU-RTC/WebRTC though?

signed0• 13 years ago

There was one yesterday about IE11 getting WebGL support: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5942739

suby• 13 years ago

Interesting. I heard rumors about them possibly adding something akin to a start button back in 8.1, but there's no mention of that on this page.

encoderer• 13 years ago

It's there when you watch the video.

It takes you to the Live Tiles screen. (I assume that screen has a real name but I don't know it and you get my drift)

erik14th• 13 years ago

It's called metro I guess. I giggled at how they brought the button back, but not the menu.

MichaelGG• 13 years ago

Microsoft is being intentionally obtuse here. I think their goal is to knowingly introduce what people are not asking for, then when people complain about that, MS can say "see, people complain, start button or no".

No one cares about the start button. They care about the start menu. In 8.1, the button just does the same thing as hitting the winkey or clicking in the corner in 8 -- you get completely launched from the desktop environment, and go full-screen Metro-mode launcher.

While at first I thought it'd be the same (press winkey, type, enter), Windows 8/8.1 makes it far more cumbersome and is quite interrupting. Also, on Win8, you need to select what you're searching for. Unlike 7, it doesn't automatically search everything.

There is no way that MS actually thinks people want the button, not the menu.

dangrossman3• 13 years ago

There is no way that MS actually thinks people want the button, not the menu.

We have decades of "click the start button" training drilled into peoples' heads. They'll find their app whether it's in a menu or a screen, but stranding them on the desktop without any button to get there was a problem. That's who the change was made for, not the tech enthusiasts that have been doing most of the complaining.

joseph_cooney2• 13 years ago

I like the start button, but don't care about the start menu.

renata• 13 years ago

Also, on Win8, you need to select what you're searching for. Unlike 7, it doesn't automatically search everything.

This is fixed on 8.1, it searches everything by default.

drivebyacct23• 13 years ago

No offense but, just no.

People didn't like it because it was UNDISCOVERABLE.

As it turns out, the Start Menu was pure shit and everyone did Winkey+"Application Name"+Enter. And they still use it today.

pca• 13 years ago

If your titlebar has a dark background color, text and the minimize/maximize buttons are still unrecognizable. Is it so uncommon to use a dark color scheme that no one who works on this cares to fix it?

tajddin• 13 years ago

I've been wondering this exact thing. I generally use darker schemes as it's easier on my eyes, but am forced to use a lighter color as a result of not being able to read the window caption.

sergiotapia• 13 years ago

They still refuse to let me purchase a valid Windows 8 licenses here. I'm in Bolivia.

Hell, I can purchase games on Steam, a VPS from a wide array of providers and even make purchases on Amazon, but Microsoft doesn't take my money.

Just give me a cart, a checkout page that lets me pay with Paypal and we're done MS. Just sell me the god damn serial key!

csomar• 13 years ago

I'm in Tunisia, and my experience is that Microsoft products are available in many retailers and you can pay with your local currency.

zmmmmm2• 13 years ago

It's interesting to see Microsoft unashamedly exercising what's left of their monopoly power to force market share of unrelated products up. Defaulting storage to SkyDrive, integrating Bing as a default search every time someone does any kind of search, even tying the windows login itself to a microsoft account, integrating Skype as a default installed app and giving no opt out once you accept linking your Windows login. I notice they've made it extremely difficult to set Google as your default search engine in IE (no default search provider for it, can be quite hard to find in the search provider list).

It's the kind of thing that used to get them in a lot of trouble. I wonder if they are past this or whether they will get rapped on the knuckles for this at some point?

nebula• 13 years ago

They are doing what they are extremely good at :)

joseph_cooney2• 13 years ago

This was always going to be the way with Windows 8....and continues with 8.1. Now that the consent decree imposed by the US gov. has been lifted, since Microsoft's monopoly looks far less threatening these days, and Apple and google are getting away with it in the mobile space I think it is game on for vertically integrated software and services from MS.

TheAnimus• 13 years ago

Some say monopoly, others say horizontal integration.

Most non-tech savvy types want the ability to have their email, cloud document storage, cloud music service, browser history / favourites, all effortless syncronised between devices.

MS have actually been not that bad at doing this in metro. The share charm is extendible, integrating things like DropBox wouldn't be hard.

So long as they make APIs for say extending the images selection thing available to 3rd parties, I don't think its that bad.

kenjackson3• 13 years ago

If you view Metro as a tablet OS, which many do, they are not monopoly.

How easy is it to match the iCloud experience on iPad?

RexRollman• 13 years ago

Is that really any worse than Google? At least with Windows, the Microsoft account is optional; you can't even create a local ChromeOS account without a Google account (which is a little bit more disturbing these days).

zmmmmm2• 13 years ago

The difference with Google is that millions of consumers and businesses are simply forced to buy Windows because that is the only way to run software that they need. There is pretty much nothing you can run on ChromeOS that you can't run outside ChromeOS almost just as easily, including all the related Google services if you want them. Thus people buying it are buying it on its own merits and people using Google services related to it are using those on their own merits.

I think the bigger case against Google on this front is with how they are tying Google+ to Google Search. I am actually kind of surprised they have not gotten more heat for it - if Facebook ever succumbs its market share to Google I suspect an issue will be made of it. But then, even with search you have to work very hard to make the case that people are "locked into it".

zobzu• 13 years ago

Its about the same. When/if Google fully replaces Microsoft everywhere it'll be the same but with google products. In case of doubt, just look at android.

Samuel_Michon• 13 years ago

It's the kind of thing that used to get them in a lot of trouble.

Given how few consequences past infractions have had, I doubt Microsoft worries about that. It has made a lot of money breaking laws but no-one was ever sent to jail and the company got to keep most of the spoils.

adventured3• 13 years ago

You definitely make a valid point, however, many of those laws are only broken when ruled so in hindsight. Most of the foundation of anti-trust, for example, rests on deciding after the fact what qualifies and what does not. It's extraordinarily subjective, and varies frequently depending on who is in power.

What qualifies as an abuse of market power? That's up to the Feds to decide, there is no set objective definition that can be run like an equation, such that you can be 100% sure you're breaking the law. It's extremely difficult to know beforehand, and the only safe way to approach it is to either directly ask a federal oversight committee (which many companies do once they're in such a position), or to shy away from any kind of aggressive competitive behavior.

sliverstorm• 13 years ago

At this stage, Microsoft isn't a whole lot more powerful than Google or Apple, and all three of them are doing the same things. If anything, Microsoft is last to the party.

adventured3• 13 years ago

Not to mention Microsoft's influence in the consumer space looks exceptionally weak, when you're talking 5 to 10 years forward (short of a small miracle in mobile).

They're clearly going to continue to be left out in the cold in search. The PlayStation 4 looks very competitive with the XBox One (and the One is a helluva expensive Netflix or Blu-ray player). Mobile remains a disaster, certainly in terms of market share; ditto tablets for now.

Skype is interesting in consumer and business, but it'll struggle to ever pay for the acquisition (maybe in 30 years).

Their business / server / tools groups are by far and away the future of the company, as of right now.

melling• 13 years ago

Microsoft has a 90% desktop monopoly, which they've maintained for about 2 decades. When 9 out of 10 computers run your software, you're pretty darn powerful.

adventured3• 13 years ago

They'll only get rapped on the knuckles if they succeed in conquering another space using that leverage. Regulators mostly won't care so long as all it accomplishes is Bing having 17% market share (or similar), and Windows Phone having 5% market share. Skype might be an interesting case, but I suspect the Feds appreciate it having a mass installed base (and that already existed before the acquisition).

scholia3• 13 years ago

Since every article you read now says Microsoft is doomed, that its products are irrelevant, that PCs are in decline and being completely replaced by tablets, that Apple is the world's most (or next-most) valuable company and iPads and iPhones rule the universe, et cetera, then it's probably going to get harder to ding Microsoft for being monopolistic.

Also, integration is good for consumers when it ensure things just work, and Microsoft's approach is not fundamentally different from Apple's or Google's. Indeed, Microsoft is arguably less monopolistic than both of those.

Finally, it's extremely easy to set Google as your default search in IE10. It just requires an extra step, which means most people won't bother. However, it's not clear why Microsoft should give Google $1 billion to $5 billion a year's worth of benefits for nothing.

arikrak• 13 years ago

I previously asked on Quora about why Apple could do things that Microsoft couldn't. But it seems Microsoft can now do them too. I think they may no longer be considered a monopoly.

http://www.quora.com/Why-can-Apple-favor-their-own-programs-...

duaneb• 13 years ago

They're really late to the game in terms of all of this—see Mac OS X (which practically begs you to get an apple ID at every chance, which is really enticing until you realize it only works with apple products) and ChromeOS, which actually used the lack of local storage for documents as a way to market the OS.

siamore• 13 years ago

They made it quite hard to find in the search provider list

yeah it's not as easy as in firefox, this was how it looked

http://cdn.howtogeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/image318...

but now google has bubbled up to the top

http://www.iegallery.com/en-us/addons?callback=true&featuret...

I find the term "Microsoft Account" to be disingenuous as it can be any email ID (my friends use their GMail) and that is a really nice touch since you can login to all their services with just your old gmail or whatever ID.

mdmarra2• 13 years ago

SkyDrive | iCloud

MS account | Apple ID

Skype | FaceTime

As for changing the default search, it took me about 90 seconds to figure out. I'm really not seeing a problem here. None of the things you mention are mandatory.

Bosence• 13 years ago

The perspective to take is that of a normal consumer and not someone technically able with technology.

gordondevoe• 13 years ago

".1" aka "SP1"

mtgx• 13 years ago

So no more Service Packs? Now they're just calling them "new versions of Windows" ?

untog4• 13 years ago

Yep, they're following the Apple model.

interpol_p• 13 years ago

Which just follows software versioning in general.

efdee2• 13 years ago

Except for the fact that Microsoft doesn't charge for the updates.

oth3r• 13 years ago

The first thing I looked for on that page was an image showing the Start button they've added back. I guess it's pretty telling that none of those pictures include the desktop and everything is showcasing the tablet interface now.

dragonwriter• 13 years ago

The Windows Modern UI isn't intended as a "tablet interface"; its intended as a form-factor agnostic new interface, the desktop is the legacy interface.

Now, I'm not saying I like the interface -- just that it isn't the "tablet interface".

lubomir• 13 years ago

The enhanced fullscreen browsing is pretty much also almost tablet only. Even on a 15" screen having fullscreen browser feels unusable to me – either the site has more-or-less fixed layout with a wide empty strip on each side, or it fills the entire screen so that lines are so long they are unreadable. I can't really imagine what it is to browse fullscreen on an even bigger screen.

pgsandstrom• 13 years ago

What surprices me the most is that Windows 8 is so darn expensive. The vanilla version costs $120, that is the biggest hurdle for my family to upgrade.

endijs• 13 years ago

I bought upgrade to Win8 Pro for 29EUR. Not that expensive. That was shortly after Win8 was released but anyway - who wanted were able to upgrade cheap.

bobsy• 13 years ago

I have been using Windows 8 since launch day and I have hardly touched the Metro apps. The only thing in this update I see for me is the start button. Something which I do not need.

The only update I want to see is a 'Shut Down' option when you click you name on the start screen.

I think Windows 8 is alright but I am somewhat disappointed at how they haven't even attempted to unify the metro / desktop experience. I thought this was one of the main gripes people had. As someone without a touch screen, I would use Metro apps far more if they opened in a container on the desktop.

shinratdr• 13 years ago

http://www.stardock.com/products/modernmix/

sjmulder• 13 years ago

It looks like Windows 8.1 will be solving many of the issues people have been having with Windows 8.

On the other hand, it’s such a shame that they’ve made Modern UI a walled-off platform. The PC’s biggest strength has always been how democratized the platform was – anyone could build a PC, make software for it.

OS X is sometimes criticized of becoming a closed platform, with GateKeeper and such, but the sad reality is that right now Windows 8 is the more restrictive of the two. At least Apple lets you self-sign and bypass the App Store vetting process (albeit for a fee), and you can easily disable GateKeeper altogether.

It’s also clear that the Modern UI and desktop teams have been working in complete isolation. Microsoft keep pushing out new frameworks, completely ignoring what came before. Will WPF go the way of Windows Forms? What are people who built XNA games supposed to do about Windows 8? What does modern Windows desktop app even look like? Most of them spot ribbons, but there isn’t even a standard component for that.

Windows 8.1 Preview

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