Windows 8.1: Signed, sealed, but not yet delivered

Windows 8.1 is done, but unless you work for a major manufacturer, you'll have to wait until later this year to get your hands on it. 

|
Reuters
Windows 8.1 – the OS formerly known as 'Blue' – is set for an Oct. 18 launch.

On Oct. 18, Windows 8.1 will officially go live. 

In the meantime, today Microsoft announced that it had started doling out the new software to its official hardware partners – the first step in bringing the latest iteration of Windows online. In the past, the release-to-manufacturing (RTM) launch – also known as "going gold" – meant early public access to the operating system, but this time, Microsoft decided to do things differently.

"[I]t’s clear that times have changed, with shifts to greater mobility and touch as well as the blurring of work and personal lives," Microsoft reps wrote. "As such, we’ve had to evolve the way we develop and the time in which we deliver to meet customers with the experience they need, want and expect. We’ve had to work closer to our hardware partners than ever before."  

In other words: No matter how deep your Windows geekdom goes, unless you work for a Microsoft hardware partner, you'll have to cool your jets until mid-October. 

Over at CNET, Mary Jo Foley says the decision to withhold early access to Windows 8.1 may have something to do with the new way that Microsoft does business. 

"Instead of spending 2.5 to 3 years planning, developing and testing a new Windows build, Microsoft did all that in 10 months this time around," she writes. "Consequently, the company will be patching and updating Windows 8.1 and all the bundled apps that come with it (Mail, Calendar, the core Office apps, the Bing consumer apps, IE 11) right up until the launch. Microsoft will push updates to the whole shebang just before customers can get their hands on the final bits." 

Among the improvements included in Windows 8.1 are more personalized home and lock screens, a new search feature, and the return of the Start button. 

In related news, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer recently announced he would retire within the next 12 months. 

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Windows 8.1: Signed, sealed, but not yet delivered
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Technology/2013/0827/Windows-8.1-Signed-sealed-but-not-yet-delivered
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe