Windows 8.1 Update 1

Windows 8.1 Update 1 has been announced last week at Microsoft Build 2014 conference.

It is free and already available for MSDN subscribers, and for everybody else on April 8th via Windows Update.

This update is mainly for mouse and keyboard users.

Microsoft finally realized that pushing touch features to everybody was definitely not a good choice, and lead to the low Windows 8 adoption that we all know.

This update is what Windows 8 should have been since day 1, and it would have help with adoption for sure.

The fact is 90% of people don’t have a touch PC (and probably don’t care about touch) so migrating to Windows 8 has been very painful for them, if ever considered.

Anyway this is a good thing, 2 updates later and MS is finally doing it right with Windows 8!

Some of the new features of Windows 8 Update 1:

• Boot to Desktop: it was introduced by Windows 8.1, but it is now the default for non touch systems (staring at the obvious… )
• Power and Search Buttons on Start (Ok now I am not ashamed anymore to show someone how to shutdown a Win8 PC… going to settings menu to shutdown a PC… WTF!!??)
• Modern Apps on the Taskbar (more integration and coherence between desktop and modern apps, good thing)
• Desktop clicks don't open modern apps anymore (I was so tired of this…)
• Title Bars for modern apps, with minimize and close buttons.

All in all I am *very* happy with this update for my laptop, where I never really use modern apps.

In the opposite, I really enjoy Modern Apps on my touch devices and Surface.

Starting with this update I think the dual mode of Windows 8 really works.

Scott Hanselman did an awesome quick video walk-through of the new features of Windows 8.1 Update 1: