VIDEO Windows 8.1: What's New, Video, and Screenshots

[Mike]

Hello, as an update to be discussed and dissected over time, here is what we know about the changes in Windows 8.1, formerly referred to as the "Windows Blue" update.

Pricing

Microsoft will release Windows 8.1 as a free update sometime this year for all Windows 8 and Windows 8 Professional license holders.

New Functionality

The desktop Start Button will be available, like in Windows 7, and may be customized to go to the Start Screen "Apps" view. How much further customization will take place, and whether or not the Start Menu will make a return to the operating system not known. It may actually just be a button that sends you to the Start Screen.

You will be able to boot to desktop instead of the Start Screen.

On the Start Screen, you will be able to select multiple tiles at once to move them, resize them, uninstall them, or rename them.

There is an "All Apps" screen to get Apps off of the tile menu on the general Start Screen.

You hold down right-click to select multiple pieces of content on the Start Screen.

New apps will appear under the Apps view, by default, and not the Start Screen itself.

Renaming tile categories is easier.

You can take pictures from the lock screen without having to log-in.

You can launch Skype calls and perform other functions from the lock screen.

Windows 8.1 will feature an overhauled and aggregated search feature, operated by Microsoft's search engine Bing. When you search for a file, metadata, or other content, a search will be performed through the web, SkyDrive, your files, e-mail, apps, and other locations to try to aggregate the best results. For example, if you search on a celebrity, you can side-scroll through all of the aggregate data that is collected for this search term.

Support for Miracast via blutooth, NFC, and wireless, for screen sharing and projection.

Support for WiFi direct printing, which requires no printer drivers on compatible devices. Additional support for NFC-enabled printers, which will allow you to print using NFC on your tablet or phone.

Support for mobile broadband tethering, which will allow you to form a wireless hotspot with your device and allow multiple devices to share the mobile Internet connection.

The built-in apps created by Microsoft and bundled with Windows 8 are being updated:

The Music app is slated to receive a major redesign and overhaul due to lackluster consumer feedback and usage. It will likely be replaced with the XBOX Music App.

The Photos app will have new editing features for macro-stylizing pictures, much like Instagram. Bring together pictures from your PC, SkyDrive, and phone.

There will be new Microsoft-published apps, like an Alarm Clock.

Improvements in the usage of apps when multiple apps are open.

You can now display up to three apps at once on the same monitor.

Click on an image in an app like Mail, and it will try to open it in the Photos app using a 50/50 split screen.

The SkyDrive app will be updated to let you save files directly and access files offline, like the desktop version has since it was published.

Most of the features in the desktop Control Panel may now actually appear in PC Customization under the Start Screen.

Internet Explorer 11 will allow you to sync webpages across multiple devices like Google Chrome and Firefox have for the last several years.

You will be able to choose directly where the Start Screen goes when it is opened.

You can "change what the corners do". Maybe they are talking about the Charms functionality, which appears whenever you touch or move your mouse to the corner of the screen.

More support for mouse and keyboard (but not specified directly).
Eyecandy

The Start Screen will offer more backgrounds, colors, shades, and backgrounds that contain motion visuals. The lock screen background will also be customizable.

The Start Screen is updated to contain new multi-size tiles.

Newly installed apps will be flagged as "new".

The Windows Store has been redesigned.

In addition to the lock-screen, there may be a "kiosk" mode, that allows for limited access to the device while showing off more eyecandy. This may have been a joke or rumor.

Picture frame feature will allow you to turn your computer into an electronic picture frame.

Security

There may be security updates, but no one knows what they are until release notes are made available.

Bugfix

There is actually a bug where, if you do not restart your computer for Windows Updates, and Windows forces the computer to restart, it warns you not to "unplug your tablet". No word yet if that will ever be fixed, or if we are all just assumed to be tablet users now.

Release Date

Microsoft has announced the public preview, scheduled June 26th, 2013 and a general release on October 17th, 2013.

Video





Screenshots

Windows 8.1 screenshots leaked, redesigns showcased | Windows Phone Central

All of this, just so you don't have to use a precision stylus! Do you have any comments? Be sure to comment on your thoughts regarding Windows 8.1, or whether or not you have become aware of new updates.

 

[RuskinF]

This is what intel says is new in Windows 8.1:
Windows 8.1 introduces a host of new personalization options with over one-hundred different color combinations and pre-installed Start Screen Patterns.
In Windows 8.1 PC settings are much richer, with hundreds of new options organized into 9 categories and 42 subcategories.

 

[MikeHawthorne]

Feels like a message out of time...

 

[MikeHawthorne]

You sound exactly like this old IT guy I know.

Back when laptops and notebooks came out and became popularized, he was criticizing non-stop. He kept telling everyone, including me, that laptops/notebooks were useless and no good for anything.

What profession are you in, may I ask? I'll tell you a little about what I do to clear some things up.

I'm a field engineer. This means that I spend half of my time out in the field. Sometimes, we'd have a meeting in a trailer. Here is something that every engineer will tell you. We have to carry around very large 2,000+ page manuals and regulations. Why? Because we're always the ones ok-ing a go ahead. If anything goes wrong or a violation is made, it always comes back to us. The contractors don't really care because they almost never take responsibility. It's always the poor engineer.

In my case, there's the concrete manual, state manual, EPA manual, steel manual, etc. These are all very large books to carry around.

Now, imagine if these could all be compressed down to pdf files with pages, favorites, and search options. Some guys I've known tried to use laptops in the field for these. But in the end, a tablet works infinitely better.

What if the contractor or client needs some preliminary results right away for financial or licensing purposes? Back before mobile devices were available, we'd be making a quick run back to the office to scan in the documents and send them out. Now, I can just use either my phone or tablet to scan in the documents and email them out right there and then at the work site.

Things have been somewhat slow due to all the project cancellations (everyone's been having funding problems). So, I've been going back and forth on a train to our city office. All I carry with me is an hp envy x2, and with visual studio while sitting on the train to and from I've written 2 apps with it. Ever since I published those apps, they've been selling steadily on the winstore.

So, if you're someone that works in an office all the time, sure you're going to see that tablets and hybrid devices are useless. But the American economy does not consist only office workers. Do you not see how hybrids and tablets are a godsend to those of us that don't sit in an office all day?

My brother is the chief engineer in his company, and he and his hybrid device are inseparable. In the last 2 years, I haven't seen him without his hybrid device. Last time I rode in the car with him, I noticed that all his manuals were gone. He's in charge of all the teams (design, inspection, construction, etc.) so he has to refer to more manuals than most engineers. He used to have them all in his car all the time. Nowadays, the only thing he needs is his hybrid device.

The point is productivity does not stop where your imagination ends. The possibilities are endless.

Added by edit.

And why is it that people who don't use something always say it like they're hollier than the rest of us? I've heard guys with no tv always say it like having a tv is somehow a bad thing. Same with guys without smartphones or tablets.

I'm not a gamer. I have no idea how to operate my boyfriend's ps3. Does this make me somehow better than everyone who has a ps3? I don't get this logic.

This was posted back in 2013, I can't believe it's been that long, I'm 82 now.
But my new PC can do things you couldn't even imagine doing on a laptop. LOL

My video card is probably more powerful than my whole computer was then, and now I have a 34" monitor.
PC gaming is more popular that ever and uses graphics that we could only imagine back then.

I'm a couple of computers away from those days, my new computer is so far beyond what I had then I couldn't have imagined it back then.

Now some computer game are approaching 75 Gigabytes of disk space. I have a 500 Gigabyte SSD just for games and I should have gotten a terabyte.

I don't think PCs are dead yet.

Mike