Windows ‘Blue’: Microsoft blows it

If you like Windows 8, you’ll like — maybe even love — Windows 8.1 “Blue.” But if you’re a denizen of the old-fashioned Desktop world, without a yearning for touch and/or you don’t want your PC to act like a smartphone, Windows 8.1 will disappoint — big time.

Last week, Microsoft invited several members of the press for an on-the-record two-hour demo of Windows 8.1, code-named “Blue.” Microsoft took me off its Christmas card list some time ago, but the reports among journos on the ground are telling: Windows 8.1 offers more of the same, with a few new twists for touch users, but nothing substantive for the Desktop.

As Microsoft says — no doubt the irony escapes it — “It’s Windows 8 even better.” You can read the demo/leaked version preview reports from Engadget, Slashdot, Paul Thurrott’s Windows Supersite, and (most thoroughly) Ed Bott’s ZDnet columns. In addition, Microsoft’s Antoine Leblond has published a “first look” on the company’s Windows blog.

The minor and obvious improvements to Metro

If you use the Metro side of Windows 8, Windows 8.1 brings the Metro environment up to a full “version 2.0” experience. The Metro Start screen background can be set just like the old-fashioned Desktop background — even to play a slideshow. You be the judge if that makes the transition from the Windows Desktop’s Dr. Jekyll to Metro’s Mr. Hyde less jarring. Similarly, the lock screen can play a slideshow of pictures either from your PC or from your photos stored online in SkyDrive.

Tiles used to exist in single- and double-wide sizes only; Win8.1 adds quadruple and quarter sizes. Organizing and naming groups of tiles becomes slightly easier and less error-prone in Win8.1: The list of all installed apps can be sorted by most used, date, or category.

In a questionable bit of usability change, when you install a new app from the Windows Store, Win8.1 no longer automatically puts a tile for the app on the Metro Start screen. Instead, you have to find the app in the apps list and manually pin it to the Start screen. Apparently, there’s no change to the current behavior for installing new Desktop programs.

The Win8.1 Search charm (in the hidden Charms bar on the right side of the screen) uses Microsoft’s Bing service to automatically go outside your computer when you conduct a search. Just as in Windows 8, the Search charm not only looks for matching files on your computer and in SkyDrive, it also searches for program names and descriptions and for settings. Now, for good measure, the Search charm in Win8.1 also runs a Bing search on the Web. But the Search charm still doesn’t search Mail.

Microsoft’s demo includes screenshots of a Search charm search for “Marilyn Monroe” that produces lots of glamorous pictures and nifty headlined articles, as well as links to videos and songs that you can actually buy. A search like “June invoices” isn’t likely to turn up such photogenic results — but, hey, Bing can crunch on it for a while.

Unlike Apple’s Siri and Google Now, the Win8.1 Search charm doesn’t support voice input. Per Microsoft, “It is the modern version of the command line!” — which is exactly what you were looking for in a fast and fluid re-imagined touch environment, right? del c:*.* /q

Metro’s Snap View is starting to behave a little more like Windows Vista’s Aero Snap. Win8.1 lets you put up to four apps on the Metro screen at once, and it allows you to drag the dividing line between snapped Metro apps. In multiple-monitor scenarios, you can have Metro apps running on all of the screens (it isn’t clear if the four app limitation applies per screen, or per system), and the Metro Start screen can be left open on one monitor. That’s a boon for PC users who have a touch monitor on the side.

Considering that 60 percent of Windows 8 users launch a Metro app less than once per day on average, I don’t expect to hear too many cheers, but the new (albeit limited) screen versatility definitely brings the Metro side up a bit from version 1.0 status. But the Metro interface hasn’t yet hit the “resizable overlapping windows” stage pioneered at Xerox PARC in the early 1980s.

PC Settings, Metro’s bastard son of the Control Panel, finally gets some respect. Microsoft says, “You can do things like change your display resolution, set your power options, see the make and model of your PC, change the product key, let you run Windows Update, and even join a domain.” Imagine that. Details are forthcoming.

Many undefined Metro app improvements are promised as well

If you use any of Microsoft’s Metro apps, you can expect to see changes, although Microsoft’s being coy about the details.

There was a big wave of Metro app updates in late March — Mail, Calendar, and People — and there’s been a flurry of other Metro app changes in recent months, but apparently more big changes are in store. ZDnet’s Bott reports that the massive changes in Mail, Calendar, and People will arrive after the Win8.1 preview comes out on June 26 but before the final version of Win8.1 gets released this fall. Nobody knows at this point what changes are coming or when; if history is any indication, we may never see a definitive change log, even after the mods arrive.

The good news is that the Metro Xbox Music app has been “completely redesigned,” Microsoft claims. It certainly couldn’t get any worse. All 10 people who use Metro Music may notice — or not.

Microsoft says it is also improving the Windows Store to make it easier to buy more apps. Before lapsing into exaltations, keep in mind that all 10 best-selling apps in the Windows Store right now are games.

The SkyDrive app is in for a major makeover, which is … timely, considering Windows 8 users right now have to resort to the Desktop version of SkyDrive if they want to get any work done. The current Metro SkyDrive app leaves much to be desired, which leaves Windows RT tablet users out on the cold. The new SkyDrive app is promised to sync to the cloud automatically, but it only pulls files from the cloud and puts them on your computer if you give permission. The unsynced cloud-only files are represented by stubs — file name, size, dates, and so on — so you can find what you want in the cloud, even if you don’t have room (or time) to download all your SkyDrive files. Rumor has it that the redesigned SkyDrive app may work better than the SkyDrive apps for Android and iOS. Time will tell.

Internet Explorer 11, says Microsoft, “is the only browser that is built for touch,” though Google Chrome and Apple Safari users would strongly disagree. In Windows 8.1, Microsoft promises that “you can now adjust the appearance of modern IE11 to always show the address bar, and you can have as many open tabs as you like” — just like IE7, yes? In addition, it sounds like IE11 will finally sync tabs across computers — a feature I’ve been using in Chrome for the past year and Apple’s Safari does as well.

Skype appears to be headed for improvements too. During the demo, Microsoft said you will be able to accept Skype calls from the lock screen without logging in. No word on whether the IM part of Skype — the part that replaced Windows Messenger not long ago — will get any attention.

The Start button that isn’t and other minor Desktop changes

Unless you live in a Faraday cage, you already know that Windows 8.1 will have a Start button. If you’ve read past the first sentence in the gushing announcements of that “victory” for users, you also know that the Start button isn’t anything at all like the Start button in Windows 7 (or XP, for that matter).

Right now, in Windows 8, if you click in the lower-left corner of the Desktop, you’re sent to the Metro Start screen. In Windows 8.1, if you click in the lower-left corner of the Desktop, you get sent to the Metro Start screen. The only difference is that Win8.1 will have a visible Start button, not the invisible version used in Windows 8. I guess somebody at Microsoft figured the presence of a Start button would mollify the 1.4 billion people who click on Start and expect to see a Start menu. The returned Start button is definitely is not the Start menu that people really miss.

Frankly, I think the new Start button will only make experienced Windows users angry — very angry. It’s certainly going to confuse the living daylights out of a lot of otherwise sane Windows users. In spite of what you may have read in some well-known publications, there simply is no Start menu in Win8.1. No way, no how — all we get is a Start button, and it’s a sham.

If you don’t like to look at Metro’s tiles, you can tell Win8.1 to show the All Apps list instead of going to the Metro Start screen. Because you can sort the All Apps list in order of most frequently used or alphabetically by group name, there’s some chance of finding your app needle in the Metro Start haystack without clicking or swiping through mounds of live tiles.

One change in Windows 8.1 that may be a worthwhile improvement for some users is the ability to reserve a second screen for the Metro environment, essentially letting you have the Desktop and Metro running side by side, if you have an extra monitor hanging around. To be effective, you’ll need a decent multitouch trackpad (for the Metro monitor) and a mouse (for the Desktop monitor). That’s a lot of hardware to throw at a configuration, but I can imagine situations where it might be useful.

There’s also talk of being able to disable the loathsome hot corners on the Desktop. If you’re tired of running your mouse up to an X box in the upper right of the screen, only to accidentally bring up the Charms bar, some respite may be at hand in Win8.1.

Finally, we’re assured that Windows 8.1 will be able to boot directly to the Desktop — or to any selected Metro app, for that matter. Nobody’s seen that capability yet, but you can count on it making the final Win8.1 preview release cut.

Some industry analysts are trumpeting Win8.1’s ability to support lower-resolution (thus, presumably physically smaller) screens. Sorry — that feature was introduced in Windows 8.

It sounds like Win8.1 will de-emphasize libraries by removing the Libraries entry on the left side of the File Explorer (formerly Windows Explorer) window. I haven’t heard any justification for knee-capping one of Win7’s best features. No doubt we’ll see something in the Windows blog about it shortly.

The bottom line: Windows 8.1 “Blue” is more of the same nonsense

There’s a lot coming down the pike in Win8.1, but it’s mostly more of the same, now piled higher.

If you thought Microsoft would suddenly realize it was alienating the world’s largest installed user base and thus backtrack on some of its more controversial Win8 decisions, you’d be dead wrong. Windows 8.1 clearly reiterates Microsoft’s vision of a Jekyll-and-Hyde operating system, with hardly a nod to traditional Desktop customers.

Microsoft really should look at InfoWorld’s Windows Red proposal that would seriously fix Windows 8’s flaws and showcase the several useful innovations now buried in an unusable user experience.

This story, “Windows ‘Blue’: Microsoft blows it,” was originally published at InfoWorld.com. Get the first word on what the important tech news really means with the InfoWorld Tech Watch blog. For the latest developments in business technology news, follow InfoWorld.com on Twitter.