Windows Blue - Confirmed as 8.1 and Free!

[CAM]

Microsoft: YES! You can have your desktop back again for FREE! ? The Register

 

Most interesting part...

“It will be easy to get it right from the Windows Start screen through the app store,” Reller told the JP Morgan Technology, Media & Telecom Conference in New York.

 

She also revealed that "Blue"'s official name is now Windows 8.1 and that it will be finished and released “near the end” of the calendar year.

 

Time to start penning in some time near Christmas for those who are testing or rolling out Windows 8. Shame it couldn't come during summer!

[SYNACK]

I wonder if they'll do an 8.11 for workgroups with nice network features like manageability

[LosOjos]

Not to be a cycnic, but nobody has actually said officially that the standard desktop is coming back as a boot option... yeah, they say they're not being stubborn, but then most stubborn people deny the fact they're stubborn...

 

I hope they have listened and will give us the option to at least start in desktop mode, but I can't help but feel they'll just have tweaked the Metro interface slightly...

[tmcd35]

I thought they announced they wasn't going to be doing a service pack 1?

[sted]

wonder if it will be deployable via wsus orm some other way than just via the store and preferably as an integrated install dvd

[localzuk]

It'd be nice if they're going to introduce some proper Active Directory controls for TIFCAM.

[sted]

It'd be nice if they're going to introduce some proper Active Directory controls for TIFCAM.

 

i just dont see it as far as im concerned windows vista+ while based on nt code are akin to 95/98 home os's that can be made to work in a business unlike 2k/xp that had settings for pretty much anything

[CAM]

There is still no announcement as to what exactly Windows 8.1 will have in it. At least we now have a proper name, one of the possible install methods and a rough release date.

[LosOjos]

Hopefully after June we'll get some more details.

 

Anyone know if there's a beta programme?

[Arthur]

Anyone know if there's a beta programme?

2013-06-26.

 

Also...

 

By the way, my sources tell me that the "Blue" update to Windows Server will indeed be called Windows Server 2012 R2 as expected. (Source)

Edited May 15, 2013 by Arthur

[Arthur]

It'd be nice if they're going to introduce some proper Active Directory controls for TIFCAM.

They're including some brand new PowerShell cmdlets for managing the Start Screen and Apps. e.g. Get-StartApps, Import-StartLayout, Export-StartLayout, Set-AppXProvisionedDataFile.

 

• withinwindows.com/within-windows/2013/4/7/windows-81-powershell-40-and-new-cmdlets
  
• itknowledgeexchange.techtarget.com/vista-enterprise-desktop/windows-blue-gets-powershell-4-0-too/
  

[SYNACK]

They're including some brand new PowerShell cmdlets for managing the Start Screen and Apps. e.g. Get-StartApps, Import-StartLayout, Export-StartLayout, Set-AppXProvisionedDataFile.

 

• withinwindows.com/within-windows/2013/4/7/windows-81-powershell-40-and-new-cmdlets
  
• itknowledgeexchange.techtarget.com/vista-enterprise-desktop/windows-blue-gets-powershell-4-0-too/
  

 

Yay, logon scripts, weren't GPP + GPO supposed to replace them, schitzophrenic fruitcakes that they are can't stick to anything. Bring back MSI, bring back GPO. Why they insist on scuttling their strenths to focus on what other people do worse is stupid. I hope Balmer gets caught in a chair related explosion of his own making. He has to go.

[localzuk]

Yay, logon scripts, weren't GPP + GPO supposed to replace them, schitzophrenic fruitcakes that they are can't stick to anything. Bring back MSI, bring back GPO. Why they insist on scuttling their strenths to focus on what other people do worse is stupid. I hope Balmer gets caught in a chair related explosion of his own making. He has to go.

 

My thoughts exactly GPO works beautifully. Its easy to maintain, so long as you can decode the quadruple negatives they use and it all makes sense - just a series of registry settings in essence.

 

Forcing us to now go back to having to use scripts, after we've all just got used to using GPP for things is dumb, plain and simple.

[sted]

it looks like these days ms want you to do everything in powershell. As ive said before gpp to me is a lazy way of ms doing gpos they dont have to write anything you do it for them an alter settings/registry

[SYNACK]

it looks like these days ms want you to do everything in powershell. As ive said before gpp to me is a lazy way of ms doing gpos they dont have to write anything you do it for them an alter settings/registry

 

Anf PS is their answer to Linux, unfourtunatly they forgot to take into account that a stack of their audience would be using Linux anyway if they wanted to be locked into a shell for every little thing. Their initial stated goal was PS compatibility wile maintaining GUI tools, that did not even last the first product release before you had a stack of configuration stuff you needed to do only avalible through PS along with GUI tools so sluggish thanks to their PS underpinnings you were better off reading the book on it and doing it by the shell because it was quicker than waiting for their tools. In their haste they just made the jump to Linux for some users make more sense.

 

PS has been one of MS's worst mistakes in my view, it in itself is good but the cost has been far to high.

Edited May 16, 2013 by SYNACK

[localzuk]

PS is a brilliant tool, but it shouldn't be developed at the expense of the graphical environment - which is what their millions of server admins are used to. Moving everything to PS means a massive amount of retraining. Something which many businesses won't pay for.

[Michael]

The biggest question I have is why are Microsoft being silent about what's coming in Windows 8.1? Surely they'd want to announce now that the Start Menu or Desktop is properly returning. At least then admins could take it more seriously and plan deployments now. Deploying Win 8 and Win 8.1 will no doubt be exactly the same.

[sted]

i dont have a problem with powershell as such but i just cba learning another scripting language although i know i should

[SYNACK]

i dont have a problem with powershell as such but i just cba learning another scripting language although i know i should

 

I don't have a problem with it specificly, just the effect it has had on the GUI tools and design decisions. It is a great thing to have as an extra but they have slashed and burned the GUI to plant it, again canabilising their strengths in the hopes they can win a completely different game.

[Arthur]

The biggest question I have is why are Microsoft being silent about what's coming in Windows 8.1?

Because Microsoft are announcing all of the Windows 8.1 features at the BUILD developers conference at the end of June (the public preview will be released then too). There isn't any reason to say anything prior to the conference for obvious reasons.

[Arthur]

PS is a brilliant tool, but it shouldn't be developed at the expense of the graphical environment

If you cram everything PowerShell can do into a GUI, you'll end up with monstrosities like these...

 

http://i.imgur.com/he4Assn.png

 

http://i.imgur.com/yzSHLMR.png

Edited May 16, 2013 by Arthur

[Theblacksheep]

If you cram everything PowerShell can do into a GUI, you'll end up with monstrosities like these...

 

Although 9/10 you don't need to do everything. You have a list of small jobs that can be easily done in a gui or end up several times longer with PS. I understand why they are doing it, but some routine tasks on exchange for instance are becoming a PITA.

[rich_tech]

You could always see this coming with M$ about the desktop changes, it was a "New Coke" to borrow off the news articles about it, it was such a fundamentally stupid change to make I thought personally, I have met very few people at all who liked the changes with 8, even the kids in the school here don't like it at all, which is never ever a good sign, they should have gone down the apple route and had two seperate OS platforms, one for mobile platforms and one for normal PCs (as much as it pains me to actually say nice things about Apple)

 

What I don't get though, is that in their obvious QA/Beta Testing, did no one actually poll people and ask did they like these changes ? it seems to have been such a love it or hate it feature to leave an OS release balancing on.

 

That being said, I use 8 here and after the initial screaming frustrations, I am used to it now, but it took a fair few installs and a steep learning curve to allow me to actually get past the "I hate this metro sh*t" stage, but I will say, that a lot of the new features are very welcome changes, mounting of ISOs is finally integrated, but the horror of metro detracts from that and overshadows everything else with it.

[LosOjos]

What I don't get though, is that in their obvious QA/Beta Testing, did no one actually poll people and ask did they like these changes ? it seems to have been such a love it or hate it feature to leave an OS release balancing on.

 

I used the beta and believe it or not, the current iteration is much better than the beta was! There was never an official poll, but the feedback from the vast majority of beta testers was that Metro sucked. It seems MS did listen to some of the feedback as they did vastly improve it to be fair to them, unfortunately it was never going to be a winner in a desktop environment, how they missed that message is beyond me - rest assured the beta testers were very vocal about that!

 

That being said, I use 8 here and after the initial screaming frustrations, I am used to it now

 

I've been using it as my main home OS for the past few months now and like you, I'm "used to it." The problem is, I don't want using an OS to be a case of just getting used to it, I want to enjoy the experience!

 

IMO the biggest problem with the whole Metro interface is it's treated like a completely separate OS to "legacy desktop" (shudder to say that!) and the two just do not gel well. Plus there's the fact that the majority of the Metro apps are awful, watered down versions of their desktop/web counterparts and you have yourself an irritating piece of pointless bloatware.

[Duke5A]

Every major change coming through the pipes from Microsoft seems to be more about gradually boxing the user base in and gently leading us into vendor lock-in. This is especially true with their gaming division if the rumors of the 720 turn out to hold water. I can't be the only one who thinks they've been doing nothing but chasing Apple for the better part of a decade now with nothing to show for it.