Your Thoughts on the Windows 8.1 Preview

[Pontifex]

I meant on the desktop. They showed a wallpaper with mountain tops and clouds where it moved

 

[husam2277]

I just wanna ask if anyone have the charm problem like me... Whenever i move from any app to the start screen then imedietly swype to show yhe charm bar, it will show and disappear quickly i f i try again there will be no problem... I use surface pro.... Also in general i noticed that there is still some bugs in general... My bluetooth mouse not smooth anymore and it disconnect frequently...

 

[Storl]

I meant on the desktop. They showed a wallpaper with mountain tops and clouds where it moved

Not sure what you are referring to, there are no new animated wallpapers on the Desktop.

I just wanna ask if anyone have the charm problem like me... Whenever i move from any app to the start screen then imedietly swype to show yhe charm bar, it will show and disappear quickly i f i try again there will be no problem... I use surface pro.... Also in general i noticed that there is still some bugs in general... My bluetooth mouse not smooth anymore and it disconnect frequently...

It's a beta and about the dissapearing charms well it can't be helped, if you watched some of the 8.1 videos from MS you would see that the charms bar is glitchy at the moment even for them so im sure this is a known issue and being worked on, it's easy to replacate even with KB and mouse

 

[jmerrey]

I've been noticing all kinds of graphical glitches and quirks. Part of being a preview version.
An especially fun one is hitting the desktop tile, pressing the windows key to go back to the tiles screen, and then swiping up to show all apps. I always get a locked-up view of the middle of my apps list.
I notice disappearing tiles alot too.

 

[nasellok]

For me, on my Surface RT - it is AMAZING.........no more hacks to see sd card in library, you can now have 4 tiles vertically without registry edit, multasking / snapping is sooooooooooooo much better with adjustable sizes, IE11 is noticeably faster. Only things that ive noticed are that Google search got worse, and google hangouts do not work in either browser........I guess this just means i need to finally ditch G money for good.

 

[Nabkawe5]

Anyone know how to get an animated background?

Its locked in this preview and will be available at launch.

 

[Nabkawe5]

I've been noticing all kinds of graphical glitches and quirks. Part of being a preview version.
An especially fun one is hitting the desktop tile, pressing the windows key to go back to the tiles screen, and then swiping up to show all apps. I always get a locked-up view of the middle of my apps list.
I notice disappearing tiles alot too.

I noticed those too , but after upgrading my Graphic drivers they went away pretty fast. I think you're using a tablet and thus I don't know if you can upgrade your graphic card's drivers.

 

[jhguth]

So far I have the following complaints:

1. I'm not a fan of having my tabs at the bottom of the screen, move them back to the top.
2. I want predictive words to be above the keyboard and not where my cursor is.
3. I really really hate that when you long press (right click also?) a link, you now have to hit something at the bottom of the screen to open in a new tab or window. I wish they had a drop down menu like they used to.

 

[Dadstar0410]

The beta is so stable that the only thing that could crash it was three and a half consecutive hours of Doodle God. Man this thing is smooooootthhhhh!!

 

[_Emi_]

after trying to do it through windows store, the update never appeared so I got the mdsn ISO from an unofficial link ;D, its the same image that Microsoft posted officially, same sha-1 so I got the update earlier from ISO, nothing bad happened and I was happy. but also I didn't want to do it much from the store anyways, I better made a clean install because I don't care installing couple apps.

BUT
Update is amazing! 8.1 feels really nice, and I love seeing my wallpapers as my start screen background, it feels so nice! well its also because its batman wallpapers. thats an amazing feature and its nice they added it

The only negative thing about this update... search. its the same crappy search win7 had... thats why i rarely used it. Its boring to have to type more to get the app i want or the setting. I have to be more specific in my search and i find it boring. it puts so many things in one tiny space, it wont find anymore things with just 3 letters.
thats the only thing i hate, i think. also i found a Little buggy the uninstall apps, specially if you have like sync layout and apps across computers? well sometimes i have to restarts to i can reinstall apps for example. but its not like i uinstall many stuff, i just wanted win8 apps to stop telling me i got an update and they didnt want to install.

but everything is good! button doesnt feel so bad, even though i wish my taskbar was clean like before, at least it doesn tlook bad when i hover and i see some pink in my taskbar.

accessing to all apps its awesome! so fast now. that's why I don't mind searching, I rarely used it, and I like using more my mouse for navigating. so its nice to be able to access all apps in an easy way. only click on left bottom corner and then the arrow and I can launch apps easily. I don't think I will fill my start screen so much with live tiles now, specially desktop apps that wont even have a live tile. but customizing start screen is much better.

But I like 8.1, my only complain would be search. sucky sucks once again.

oh also IE11 is of course not the best thing to use, I still do it! but for example if you go to adobe and test the flash, it will say like it doesn't recognize Internet Explorer, if you put the site in compatibility view settings (because apparently compatibility button was removed, and its boring how F12 dev tools have to be opened to emulate another version of IE like 10) adobe site will recognize IE as browser. so it will take time for some sites to fix that. but its not unstable or anything. just the normal for this crappy computer.


and I think its an amazing update! yeah yeah

Edit: I forgot to say, its cool IE modern app, will allow you to open links in a new window, side by side! . and so easy, right click -> open in new window and bam! you can view to pages. (in my case since I don't have a nice resolution monitor )

 

[agentcyan]

Wouldn't it be good if instead for a START word on the metro UI they could place a time?
I do not see a meaning of keeping a START word on the top. Such a waste of space.
Rather they could make it like a constant feeds line coming from multiple source.
What do you guys think

 

[Nabkawe5]

Wouldn't it be good if instead for a START word on the metro UI they could place a time?
I do not see a meaning of keeping a START word on the top. Such a waste of space.
Rather they could make it like a constant feeds line coming from multiple source.
What do you guys think

I thought about all of that wasted space since the first preview of 8, and I too would have preferred a watch as it would mean I could leave my PC on the start menu when it's idle instead of the desktop which I keep on for the sake of knowing time.

 

[Endorsay]

The Windows Store in 8.1 has some massive improvements eg default experience; detail screen of an app

Though some changes would be better the old way
(eg Top 100 lists to show more variety instead of just Top 40 lists which are mostly the big players;
continue showing the categories as they are now, instead of just placing them in a heavily cluttered top nav;
search charm doesn't search the Store, and must use the Store's own search box: seems like a bug)

 

[gilezzz]

I have an RT device. So far I like Windows 8.1 better than the original.

1) More options for the interface (tile size, boot to desktop, start button can link to apps list).
2) I can finally avoid using the old control panel.
3) Browser performance has improved.
4) Desktop background unified between metro and desktop.

I am ok with this OS on a tablet.

Things i still feel are awkward:

• I open an app on the desktop and it won't appear in the list of thumbnails on the left of the screen, but only if i press the alt+tab keys. Why? This is not logical at all. When using Windows 8 my (poor) brain has to switch between "desktop" and "metro" mode along with the computer. I am sure there is a cleaner and more logical way to do it.
  
• Let's say I open an app from metro: it takes the full screen. When I re-size it on a side, the rest of the screen is empty. If i want to put another app in the empty part of the screen I have to go back to the start menu, thus making the previous app disappear. I lose the focus from the app I had opened in the first place, then when I open the second app suddenly I go back to the half-empty screen. These continuous interruptions in focus take away one great thing about using windows, that is always keeping everything in control. Ok for small devices, but a bit poor on traditional PCs.

I understand the general idea is that Microsoft sees a future where we will only use tablets, so that we will use metro while being on the move and then when we are home connect the tablet to a big display and use the desktop interface. But then they shouldn't sell Windows 8 on today's computers.

I think the challenge for Microsoft is to make this thing work. And the only way for me is to merge together desktop and metro in one interface that adapts to the device you are using. Examples:
Start screen with folders (have you noticed that there are no folders in the metro interface?).
Desktop replaced by the new start screen on big displays.
On big displays, open metro apps in a window and always with the start screen (the tiles) in the background.

I think this is more flexible and more clear to use. I know this involves a lot of design challenges (how to open a folder in a slice of the screen? How to avoid slowing down the machine when opening an app in a window but with the tiles still active in the background?) and maybe today's mobile CPUs are still not powerful enough to do that. But I hope this is the path.

 

[Scienceguy Labs]

Is anyone having trouble with Xbox music???? I am having the worst time with it. It constantly fails to sign in, downloads duplicate song titles to the tune of over 25Gb of space on my laptop, and crashes quite a bit. Now, it's starting to download those same duplicates onto my Surface RT, which would eat up every bit of storage space left on the thing. Any suggestions???

 

[gilezzz]

It's a few weeks old, but I agree with this guy on the things to improve in Windows 8.1: 12 missing features we'd still love to see in Windows 8.1 | PCWorld

 

[gilezzz]

Is anyone having trouble with Xbox music???? I am having the worst time with it. It constantly fails to sign in, downloads duplicate song titles to the tune of over 25Gb of space on my laptop, and crashes quite a bit. Now, it's starting to download those same duplicates onto my Surface RT, which would eat up every bit of storage space left on the thing. Any suggestions???

I got used to using MediaMonkey so I haven't used Xbox music enough. Sorry.

 

[jhguth]

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It's a few weeks old, but I agree with this guy on the things to improve in Windows 8.1: 12 missing features we'd still love to see in Windows 8.1 | PCWorld

I only agree with some of those:
1. "the elusive charms..." the charms menus is not elusive anymore, its how you interact with the OS. The ability to pic it open would probably be a good option for luddites, but it's not necessary after you use Windows 8 for more than a few minutes.

2." Sure, you can shut down your PC from the new Start button, but only if you think to right-click on it and sift through a long list of administrative options" - or, you know, just shut it down from right there in the charms menu. It doesn't require sifting through long lists of anything.
"All Apps screen are buried under a submenu found only by right-clicking on the taskbar. Really, Windows?" - you just scroll down from the start screen
"You'll find only preset Start screen backgrounds and background/accent color options in Windows 8.1's Personalize screen. Microsoft should seize the opportunity to make it a one-stop DIY shop.Toss in the aforementioned desktop personalization options, screensaver and lock-screen choices (including the ability to set app notifications), the ability to swap out your profile picture, and heck, maybe even the Personalization syncing options found in the new SkyDrive submenu in the modern PC Settings. "
wat? all these settings they are asking for are right there in the settings. they are easier to find now than they were before in Win7.

4. definitely true, they need to add reading list to desktop apps. they should even release an API to allow 3rd parties to write in better sharing to reading list. I suspect that at least desktop IE integration will come.

5. I didn't notice this, is this true? I'm pretty sure I have chrome set as my default browser but I use metro IE.

6. skydrive integration in Win 8.1 is exactly how cloud integration should work, its perfect. Don't save things to skydrive if you don't want to use it. I see no need for a modern file explorer, you browse for files in the apps. if you want to open a file in the metro side just open the app and use the modern browser in that app to browse to your file.

7. I'm happy that I'm not required to pay for a license to play DVD's since its a dead medium I'm not going to be using. Let only those guys stuck in the 90s to pay for a license to play DVD's.

8. I think they said those things are coming

9. stacks would be a good addition, I don't think its necessary though.

10. uh... computers do have fingerprint readers. just buy one with that feature if you want it.

11. While I think this would be a nice feature, I'm fine with using a 3rd party to do it. Microsoft is trying to change the way people interact with devices, they are trying to change behavior. Building this feature in would not be a way to "coax diehard desktop fanatics out of their shells" it would allow them to continue to live inside their shells. I finally got rid of Start8 and ModernMix and am much happier now.

12. Seriously, they need to make a damn clock tile.

Overall I really like it. The lockscreen makes the best photo slideshow ever, even when I'm not using my tablet I leave it as a mobile "smart" slideshow.