Updated: May 10, 2014
This is going to be a rather unusual article. Normally, I do not write news. That kind of thing belongs to sites that want to dabble in news. Second, if you're prudent about updates, you won't go about installing them right away, you'll wait a bunch, hence April stuff being discussed in May. So yes, finally, I was intrigued enough about the rumors of the Start menu coming back in the Windows 8 family line to deign updating the relevant boxen and write this little piece. Yes, what did I tell you? Always right? Genius. That's me. More later.
Anyhow, I powered up my Asus VivoBook for this exercise. Coincidentally, of late, the ultrabook no longer only boots the rather failing Windows 8.1, recently upgraded, too, but now also houses Ubuntu in a dual-boot setup. More about that later, as well. Let's focus on the Windows side of things.
Note: Image source, Microsoft.com.
Updates
After a few update-and-repeat cycles, I saw a hefty 890MB update waiting for me. Well, I thought this was one was going to get me the Start menu back, and then I could write another piece on how ultimately awesome I am, and how I predicted everything and all, and give Microsoft their due credit.
Regardless of my infinite greatness, this is an important update, it seems, because if you do not install it, you won't be able to get any future updates for Windows 8.1. It is entirely up to you to decide whether you care about this kind of thing. For me, from the user side, the Windows 8.1 upgrade didn't do anything special.
After rebooting
Nothing much. Well, tiled apps now can be minimized to desktop. They have a proper border and windows buttons, and they can be tiled, meaning you can use more than one on your screen. Up to four, I believe, not that I have any incentive whatsoever to use these over-pretty and over-oligophrenic blocks of colorful Lego. Now wait, Lego is fantastic. This is an insult to Lego. Yup.
Honestly, I was expecting this thing below. But it turns out, this will probably be some kind of windows 8.2 update, and it is coming in August or toward the end of the year, and then I will be able to rant properly. But did I or did I not tell you? Twice? It's like that joke. What do you tell a developer with two black eyes? Nothing, he's already been told twice.
Note: Image source, Microsoft.com.
So for now, I still need to continue using Classic Shell. Not that I mind, because it is a great piece of software, and it does exactly what I want and need. Seriously, Microsoft could save so much money, but never mind.
Conclusion
On the bright side, an unrelated side, if you do a bit of searching and clicking around on Dedoimedo, you'll get several metric tons of fine new guides on how to install Windows 8 alongside Ubuntu, each one separately and such. A perfect way to spend time waiting for Microsoft to finally release the digital equivalent of an apology to Windows 8 to the market. Then, we can put this sorry saga to a rest.
On the less bright and totally related side, the April update brings much ado about nothing. Tons of trivial and unnecessary fixes that you, as desktop users, will either not notice or not care about. Stands to reason. Polishing the Modern interface makes sense, but it could have been done well in the first place. And we're done.
Cheers.