Microsoft’s recent keynote for the BUILD developer conference detailed an update to Windows coming on the next scheduled patch Tuesday called 8.1 Update.
Microsoft will be bringing back a Start Menu and windowed Metro-Style/Modern apps.
Traditional PCs – desktops and laptops – will now boot to the desktop by default. PC makers building tablets or types of hybrid machines with touchscreens can now set a flag to identify the device as a Slate, which will make them boot to the Start Screen. The Modern interface is now aware of how it’s being used. If you are using touch, it acts just like 8.1, but if you are using a keyboard and mouse, there are now context boxes on the right click menus. Moving the mouse to the top of the screen reveals the traditional minimize and close options. The task bar is now available on the Start Screen. Hidden functions like Search and the Power button are now available right on the Start Screen by your login ID.
An interim step until further Desktop/Modern integration happens is the ability to pin Modern apps to the taskbar. These still open the full screen or snapped Modern app, but it’s an easy way to multitask with desktop and modern apps. Microsoft also demonstrated further integration coming in a future update. Whether that is an 8.1 Update 2 or Windows 9 wasn’t specified, but it brings Modern apps to the desktop in a window. This will increase the usefulness of Modern apps. Full screen on a 10” tablet is not the same as when a desktop is equipped with 22” to 32” monitors, when there’s a LOT of wasted real estate by running these apps in full screen, or even split screen mode. This is a huge change from the original vision of Windows 8, and if anything can make Modern apps more useful, this is it.
Microsoft plans to allow developers to build “Universal Apps” that will work across Windows Phone, Windows and Xbox devices. Given that the Xbox One operating system is based on Windows 8, this cross-Windows portability is possible. Universal Apps are applications built using a common Windows Runtime shared across these different flavors of Windows. Developers will be able to reuse more code and still target their apps for different form factors and experiences. Universal apps are a stepping stone on Microsoft’s path toward bringing its Windows versions closer together, in terms of programming interfaces, toolsets and user interfaces.
