Out With the Old and In With the New

As I stated earlier today, Windows XP was retired by Microsoft from receiving any further support or updates. It seems that along with this retirement, there is also a major update to Microsoft’s flagship operating system.

When Microsoft released Windows 8 to the world in October of 2012, it was met with much criticism. A lot of this criticism was based around Microsoft’s major shift from the desktop environment. The idea that their new operating system was designed with touch input as the primary interface scared a lot of people. What Microsoft did next, was wholly based on the criticism that they received. One year later, in October of 2013, Windows 8.1 was released as a free update. Included, was the previously removed start button from the desktop’s task bar as well as a few other changes.

Microsoft did not stop there.

As if to say that they were indeed listening to customer feedback, Microsoft released another free update to it’s heavily criticized operating system. Today, we have Windows 8.1 Update 1 which adds even more of the desktop experience back for free. Some of these updates include a re-located power button and the ability to see all applications that are open, no matter if they run in desktop mode or Metro, on the task bar. An additional list of changes can be found here.

The update will come down the traditional install path, via a Windows Update. Do not be concerned if you do not see it tonight as it may take some time for all of Microsoft’s servers to get the update.

It is recommended to have not only the 8.1 update installed from last fall, but also this new update as well as it will hopefully address a lot of complaints that you may have from the original 8 release from 2012.

In the meantime, I will continue to digest this new release and see if Microsoft is making better a product that seemed so doomed from the beginning.