Microsoft: Windows 8.1 Coming on October 17th Discussion

Promising to fix some of the most egregious annoyances users had with Windows 8, Microsoft has announced that Windows 8.1 will ship in just a few short weeks.

Read the full content of this Article: Microsoft: Windows 8.1 Coming on October 17th

Related Articles:

• Microsoft Sets 'Windows Blue' Release For Later This Year
• Can Microsoft Win Over Windows XP Clingers?
• Windows 8 is Dead in the Water. Or is it?
• Reimage Review: Repairing Windows
• Nero 12 Platinum Review: Multimedia for Less

 

A few short weeks? It's two months away!

 

Meh.

10char.

 

Windows 8.1 might even ship out with the revision surface's.

 

I dunno, 8 out of 52 isn't too bad.

 

I personally associate "few" with "about three." More importantly, indications this summer were that 8.1 was going to be done in and around August, not that we'd have to wait until October.

Windows 8.1 update to be finalized in 'late August,' ready for PC makers | The Verge

"Windows 8.1 update to be finalized in 'late August,' ready for PC makers"--I thought, and I suspect a lot of people did, that when an update was finalized, it'd be available for download almost immediately afterward, not delayed another couple months. For me, Microsoft's reveal of the October 17 releas edate was a punch in the gut, not an "oh boy, we're nearly there" moment.

 

A punch in the gut? Really? It's a fairly minor OS update.

 

Disclaimer: as someone who spent a bit too much time in the past couple decades doing various martial arts, I use "a punch in the gut" to mean "well that's a bummer" and not "OH NOES THE WORLD IS ENDING"...

Regardless of the wording, I think that a mid-October release of 8.1 was a lot later than a lot of people were expecting. And I doubt it's earlier than anyone was expecting.

 

The only reason it's later than a few people were expecting was because of rumors circulating on the tech blogs. It usually takes Microsoft a year or so to get the first service pack for a new OS out the door, so I feel like this is right on schedule.

 

I submitted a suggestion to Merriam-Webster to alter the definition of "slap in the face" to: "Adding a button to a user interface that takes users back an interface they hate, instead of them having to press a button on the keyboard to get to the interface they hate".

 

Love it!!!

Seriously, this is why I'm not even gonna bother to "upgrade" to 8.1 when it officially releases. It doesn't make it any more like Windows 7 for me. You still need to install StartIsBack to really get that kind of UI back.

 

Except if you don't like the live tile interface, you can now use the start button to jump to a user-organizable all-apps screen. Which didn't exist in 8.0 (the all-apps screen was not user-organizable). You personally may still not like the solution any better, and that's fine, but it's simply not accurate to say that it takes you to the same interface of 8.0 (which always dumped you straight into the live tile interface) and the only change is button versus key.

 

So what, Metro is now more customizable, big deal. Still can't hold a candle up to a real Start Menu on the desktop. If I'm using only desktop applications why would I go into Metro to launch them only to to have it kick me back to the desktop again? It's jarring transitions and general UI clumsiness like this that makes no sense.