Goodbye Windows 8, hello Windows 8.1

Consider the following: Internet Explorer 11 is available as a preview for Windows 7 or as part of the Windows 8.1 preview, but not for Windows 8. Similarly, PowerShell 4 will run on Windows 7 or Windows 8.1, but not Windows 8 — even though it will be available for Windows Server 2012, which is the same core code as Windows 8.

So does this mean Microsoft giving up on Windows 8? Um, no.
Windows 8.1 is Windows 8, as far as Microsoft is concerned. It's an update to Windows 8 that will be available in the Windows Store, free of charge. It has new APIs that aren't in Windows 8 that Internet Explorer can use.
[h=3]Read this[/h]
Windows 8.1 unveiled: will it change your mind about Windows 8?

The Start button is back. But that's just one of a very long list of changes you'll find in Windows 8.1, which will be available as a preview in a few weeks and will be released before the end of the year. Don't let the name or the price tag (free) fool you: this is a major update. Here's what's inside.

• Read more

Microsoft will port some — but not all — of those back to Windows 7 for IE 11; as we understand it, the HTML5 Media Source Extensions and Encrypted Media Extensions support that lets you stream Netflix in IE 11 without needing a plugin won't make it to Windows 7.

Goodbye Windows 8, hello Windows 8.1 | ZDNet

 

[lehnerus2000]

Not quite what I had in mind. I just spent several days re-installing everything I gave because I got a new SSD. If I had to uninstall everything first. well lets just say it is bad enough re-installing everything! M$ Office has a subscription management program which allows you to manage your installs. Problems with the wife, de-activate her!

Couldn't you have imaged your old setup and/or cloned it to your new SSD?

What about boxed OS discs though?

Dunno... but I bet the volume of those sold is fairly small compared to the other routes, and I guess you still have the option of talking to a human about activation?

Agreed.

 

[LittleJay]

I ran the 8.1 Pro evaluation upgrade on Saturday and so far so good. Everything seems to be working well and I like some of the new features. Will probably do the final update when it comes out in October.

 

[msdos622wasfun]

With all of the work being poured into Windows in the form of Windows 8.1 it makes me really wonder what Windows 9 is going to be like ... unless there's going to be an 8.2, 8.3, 8.4, and so on.

 

[alkaufmann]

Couldn't you have imaged your old setup and/or cloned it to your new SSD?

Yes, I could have cloned the drive but I wanted to try the UEFI stuff as well as get rid of the mistakes I installed previously and cloning would not accomplish that. Not really sure yet what UEFI is all about but an ASUS program now tells me to enjoy my UEFI system! Guess I need to read up on that now.

 

[Shallow]

With all of the work being poured into Windows in the form of Windows 8.1 it makes me really wonder what Windows 9 is going to be like ... unless there's going to be an 8.2, 8.3, 8.4, and so on.

Or both.

 

[SuperTweaker]

I will say goodbye to 8 and 8.1 because lacking the standard Start Button/Start Menu/All Programs means that a "quick click" on the Pearl/Start Button and typing a few characters into the search field for files and folders was fast, very fast. Also the ability to right click any program or file from the Start Menu/search or the All Programs menu to "send shortcut to desktop" is very fast.

People from desktop illustrators to network administrators are use to quickly adding and removing shortcuts from the desktop when working on projects. There is no fast way to access "everything" in 8 or 8.1.

On the otherside of the coin, 8 and 8.1 are okay for for hand-held devices, but not for desktop and laptop personal computers.

 

[h5djr]

I have found a strange thing between Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 and Excel. I use Excel a lot and still use Excel 2000 because I prefer the simple way I can set up macros and add a button to a toolbar to run each of these macros. In Windows 8 my new much extended toolbars work just as they do in Windows 7. So far I have been unable to get Windows 8.1 to remember my revised toolbar and everytime I load Excel or load a spreadsheet all I get is the basic toolbars.

It's possible this may be sorted in the final release, if not it means I will be staying with Windows 7 for that reason alone.

 

[Dave44]

Windows ‏@Windows 16m We're excited to share that #Windows8.1 has been released to manufacturers! #RTM http://bit.ly/1djKPd9

 

[SuperTweaker]

With all of the work being poured into Windows in the form of Windows 8.1 it makes me really wonder what Windows 9 is going to be like ... unless there's going to be an 8.2, 8.3, 8.4, and so on.

I think they'll skip Windows 9 and go right to Windows 10 and create two version of the OS. One for hand-helds and surface. The other will be classic Windows for PC.

 

[msdos622wasfun]

I probably should have realized when I posted my comment that, obviously, even if they go in .1 increments, they'll reach Windows 9 eventually. I guess what I meant was that if their plan is to evolve this slowly, it might be a while until we see Windows 9.

And I personally don't know at all if they are going to completely divorce the tablet aspect of the OS from the desktop part. Who knows what MS is up to nowadays.

 

[Lee]

I've not missed the Start button so it doesn't make any difference to me.

 

[waltc]

Also, Microsoft blocked start8 software from the 8.1 version. So, bye bye aftermarket start button!

Start8 still works with the Windows 8.1 Preview. But it requires the latest beta version. We'll know more when Windows 8.1 RTM is released, whether or not MS blocks it. I doubt it will be blocked...

Both stable and beta versions of Classic Shell work splendidly with 8.1 RTM. I really like the new start menu options layout of the beta Classic Shell start menu v. 3.9.3 (I only use the startbutton/menu function of Classic Shell.)

 

[waltc]

I will say goodbye to 8 and 8.1 because lacking the standard Start Button/Start Menu/All Programs means that a "quick click" on the Pearl/Start Button and typing a few characters into the search field for files and folders was fast, very fast. Also the ability to right click any program or file from the Start Menu/search or the All Programs menu to "send shortcut to desktop" is very fast.

People from desktop illustrators to network administrators are use to quickly adding and removing shortcuts from the desktop when working on projects. There is no fast way to access "everything" in 8 or 8.1.

On the otherside of the coin, 8 and 8.1 are okay for for hand-held devices, but not for desktop and laptop personal computers.

Agreed, but Classic Shell (for instance) is free and fixes that Win8.1 RTM no-start-menu problem perfectly. 8.1 is well worth it over 7 because of the features it provides that are not found in 7, such as the automounting of .iso's! Very handy.

 

[Vertex]

8.1 is well worth it over 7 because of the features it provides that are not found in 7, such as the automounting of .iso's! Very handy.

I love the new speed and responsiveness of 8 but it not much of an issue with high end machines but besides that, I was upset with a lot of other things.

Mounting of ISOs is not really that of a big deal if you have freeware like 7-zip that can open ISOs anyway. But in another case, the taking away of Windows Media Center (and DVD support) as a separate purchasable bundle (which I personally use on Windows 7), the real native Start Button with Start Menu, the native drive imaging ability, WEI, GUI-based adhoc network management, making Safe Mode harder to find and the tearing down of the Library in place of Skydrive as default document saving location somewhat outweigh what was added on the desktop side of Windows 8.1. Disregarding the useless Start button on 8.1 and the boot to desktop option, there was more on the desktop side of 8 than 8.1. This is going backwards lol..

Windows 7 has features that Windows 8.1 didn't have because they were taken away.

The final final final RTM release of 8.1 was very very much anticipated by the tech community like this forum, but the average Joes who are sticking on an old XP, those still lounging on the reliable beauty of Windows 7 and those that have learned to live on Windows 8 that came preinstalled with the new machines they bought, mostly aren't aware of 8.1 or just didn't care. Now MS mandates updating Windows 8 machines to 8.1 which many non-techy people are not even aware of, making the sudden mandatory execution of this new update a bit of a flaw in procedure.

To me, the final RTM on 8.1 was quite late because its more than a year now since 8 had its initial release and most of the new bits on 8.1 were for the Metro side only and that there were even more bits on the desktop part of 8 that was stripped off on 8.1, making 8 even better on the desktop side than 8.1 is. If you don't care about the Metro side, there are almost no benefits from upgrading 8 to 8.1. In fact the only real benefit was the hidden option to boot directly to the desktop. It took them a year to do this little? What a shame..

Unless they were busy developing a beautiful Windows 9, I could let this pass, but if not, I'll now be 200% sure that something is in deed wrong inside Microsoft.

 

[HeavyHemi]

Also, Microsoft blocked start8 software from the 8.1 version. So, bye bye aftermarket start button!

Nope. Start8 works fine.

 

[jimbo45]

Hi there
What actually does Windows 7 give that Windows 8.1 doesn't. - How many people really NEED to use a menu and what's wrong with a custom toolbar -- this gives an 'XP' like menu which is far better than the hideous W7 menu that occupies a lot of real screen estate especially on HUGE monitors.

I find also touch works very well on laptops - especially the on screen touch keyboard -- note I'm not a fan of touch for LARGE external monitors but I'm finding it very handy on more and more occasions on a 14 Inch LAPTOP - especially when surfing the net or reviewing various documents while in crowded places - e.g trains / planes etc. I'm not in any way a tablet lover. I started off like the vast majority thinking who would ever need Touch on a laptop - but I'm finding it great now - especially it's easy being able to have touch keyboards of multiple languages without physically having to connect them or remember weird key combinations when using a single physical keyboard and inputting a different character set.

I never liked Aero glass -- and the speed of Windows 8.1 is far superior to W7 which although great in its day is beginning to look decidedly dated now.

Most people I've shown a decent W8.1 system to on a touch laptop have definitely SIGNIFICANTLY changed their views both about Windows 8 (they want Windows 8.1) and the usefulness of touch screens on smaller laptops (as I have too -- before I tried and used one I was with the vast majority view on this forum --"a waste of time" but I'd actually HATE to give up the touch feature now having used it for a little while.

The big killer app for me was "Boot directly to desktop" - and the ability to have a separate applications screen which the start button can show instead of the Metro tile standard start screen in the previous version - W8.

W8.1 is so much better that I can't really see why so many people are mouthing the same complaints as with W8 -- seems to be they are just behaving like those Call Centre people - mouthing text from prepared scripts --W8.1 is a DIFFERENT ANIMAL to W8.

Even the metro stuff - especially IE11 has improved a lot and actually for casual surfing with touch on a laptop the Metro version of IE11 works great -- the standard desktop version is fine too.

Not 100% perfect yet but definitely VERY useable. I for one don't see W7 staying on my machines for much longer -- but strangely I STILL need to keep XP for a while !!!! so XP will outlast 7 -- who would have though that.

Cheers
jimbo

 

[CountMike]

I always maintained that resistance to Win8 is psychologically/ esthetically based, without going any deeper because most users do not know/ do not care for anything else. To understand somebody / something is to know him(her)/it. All other is just intuition or guessing. As the time passes I can see less and less complaints about looks and more and more stuff about real issues. Even the lack of "real" Start Menu is less of a problem as far as I can see.

 

[jimbo45]

I always maintained that resistance to Win8 is psychologically/ esthetically based, without going any deeper because most users do not know/ do not care for anything else. To understand somebody / something is to know him(her)/it. All other is just intuition or guessing. As the time passes I can see less and less complaints about looks and more and more stuff about real issues. Even the lack of "real" Start Menu is less of a problem as far as I can see.

Hi there
Windows 8 did have some real serious issues - however most (not all but enough) have been rectified in Windows 8.1 so that this is really a different OS to Windows 8 and should really be "Sold" as such. The Boot to desktop does away with a HUGE amount of complaints as well as being able to disable the "Charms bar" if you want to for people who find that it gets in the way when they use a mouse.

Seems such a stupidity that Ms didn't have these two options available in the original Windows 8 --this would probably have killed about 85% of the original complaints.

Cheers
jimbo

 

[CountMike]

"Old guard" with MS would never let this happen, they were mostly programers first, salesman second, explorers, not pushers. Speak and think whatever of Bill Gates, nobody can deny him role in bringing PCs to an open era, where it is possible to be almost free from the clutches of HW/SW manufacturers. Otherwise we'll be still paying dearly for Apple-IBM war. The "New Guard" is again trying to close the market somewhat and tie OS to specific devices but luckily without too much restrictions for SW developers but suddenly putting them into unknown territory and looks like they'll need some time to do more than just mere porting of APPS from other systems.
So if you ask me, "Balmer, blame is thy name.)

 

[Vertex]

My question for 8.1 is why was WEI, the Libraries and the native drive imaging utility were removed when they were still on Windows 8 when those are useful features that pose no harm? Otherwise 8.1 would in all aspects (except privacy because of the integrated Bing search feature) will be better than 8?