Windows 8.1 changes aren't for everyone

That's it, it's already public. Anyone who wants to can install the "public preview" of Windows 8.1 through the Windows Store or try it on their computer using the ISO image downloadable from the web. The trial version of Windows 8's first major update arrives not without controversy Some of the changes have been criticized as Microsoft's concessions to users who They resist moving forward. But after reviewing them carefully, one can only come out in their defense.

Windows 8.1 has come to fix some of the initial flaws of Windows 8And I classify them as defects consciously, knowing that many of you are not going to agree with the use of that word. But I do it because for me they were defects to be polished in the operating system.

No matter how hard I've tried, moving around the system with a touchpad or mouse has never been comfortable for me. Switching between desktop and Modern UI always caused me some confusion, as if I were facing two different systems. And the lack of options when deciding how I want to work with the system was often frustrating.

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The use of the word flaws and these last statements are not just gratuitous attacks on my part on the work of the people at Microsoft. The innovation that Redmond&39;s have introduced with Windows 8 is so great and is such a shock that it would be incredible, if not impossible, if they got it right the first time. The logical thing was that over time we learned from mistakes and polished details, finishing perfecting the experience.And yes, for this, many times, it is necessary to listen to the users."

The necessary presence of the useless home button

Although the inclusion of the start button in Windows 8 is no more than a replacement of a gesture or key combination, the impact of its presence is more than enough to justify its existence. It does not matter if it does the same as if we move the cursor to the lower left corner, or display the charms bar or press the Windows key. The fact of being there is to recover the familiarity of the user with his Windows of a lifetime.

Many of you will defend the contrary with good arguments, but the truth is that, in my opinion, his return is of paramount importance And is that when we talk about experiences of use we talk about personal experiences, individual perceptions that can never be revived by others no matter how well we try to describe them.Unfortunately, the start button, even though it is a less useful or efficient method, adjusts precisely to those personal experiences of many users.

Surely it is irrational and even lacks any logic to insist on his return. Even more so when it returns as a simple button that doesn't add any additional functionality to the system and isn't even accompanied by a drop-down start menu. But even so, its mere presence transmits familiarity to those who use the system and is an anchor that is still necessary with the Windows of a lifetime, one that helps locate us and feel comfortable in front of the screens of our teams.

The little detail that changes everything

The reappearance of the start button is also accompanied by a new option that may go unnoticed but for me it is one of the fundamental novelties of Windows 8.1. I'm talking about something that may seem so trivial at first glance like the ability to use the same wallpaper on your desktop and home screen

That little detail completely changes the experience With that little detail you achieve much more than with any other idea you could come up with in redmond. Thanks to that small detail, the transition between the two environments is not only smoother but also feels more natural, eliminating at a stroke the feeling of having two separate systems within the same Windows.

It's something that might seem insignificant but it suddenly erases one of the worst feelings I've had when using Windows 8. For some I'll be exaggerating, or giving too much importance to a personalization option without much relevance, but once again we are talking about a personal perceptionThe one that, no matter how hard I try, I will never be able to transmit it completely to you.

Starting from the desktop

In addition to the button, Microsoft's other great concession is the ability to configure the system to start directly on the desktopIts incorporation seems strange considering the vision that Microsoft has of Windows 8. After all, the people of Redmond want us to consider the desktop as one more application of the system and not as a separate environment. Such an appreciation is fundamental to understanding Windows 8, so it is surprising that Microsoft has given in on it.

For Redmonders, Windows 8 is Modern UI and its apps. The desk is one more of them and that is how they want it to be seen. But the truth is that it cannot be said that this message has penetrated the users.For a good part of these, the Windows environment is and will continue to be the desktop. The 'Start Screen' in Modern UI is a start menu on steroids. And the truth is that, as long as the desktop is still there, this second way of understanding Windows 8 is more digestible.

Understanding and accepting it must have cost more than one discussion within the company. Although they insist on explaining to us that the desktop is just another application, Redmonds find it very difficult to impose their point of view Again, against the personal perceptions that govern the uses and customs of the users can make little rational arguments, however vehemently presented or refined they may be. Including the option to start from the desktop is Microsoft's way of thinking.

Everything must change for everything to stay the same

Windows 8 needed these new features Contrary to what many insist on seeing in this need, I do not believe that we are facing a problem of lazy, capricious or resistant to change users.As much as logic tells us that with certain gestures or key combinations tasks are faster, simpler and easier to perform, the user experience remains something personal, and I would even dare to say emotional on a certain level. Adapting to that user sentiment is Microsoft's job, not the other way around.

To me that's what they've done with Windows 8.1, or at least that's what they've started to do. This is not a rectification or “dropping your pants” from Microsoft. It does not mean reversing your project with Windows 8 It is, neither more nor less, what you would expect from the company whose operating systems work with the vast majority of computers from all over the world and whose presence in our daily lives is incomparable. Others do not carry such a responsibility.

The problem is not having changed things based on the feedback of some disenchanted users, the problem would have been not having listened to them.To ignore Windows 8 users, many of whom were asking for some of these changes, would have been worrisomely blind. It would be enlightened despotism applied to computing. It is not something that the writer can defend. The position to praise is just the opposite, the one that Microsoft has carried out with the changes in Windows 8.1, which if we don't like it can always be deactivated.