Associated Press reports that the company made a preview of Windows 8.1 available for free as a download on Wednesday.
At an event Wednesday in San Francisco, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer acknowledged that the company pushed hard to get people to adopt a new tile-based user interface. Microsoft is now back-pedaling, making it easier to reach and use the older "desktop" interface.
Windows 8.1 will allow people to start in the desktop mode automatically. In that mode, the company is restoring a button that resembles the old Start button. The button will now take people back to the Windows 8 start screen, rather than the old Start menu, but the re-introduction of the familiar button may make it easier for longtime Windows users to get accustomed to the changes.
Other new features of Windows 8.1 include more options to use multiple apps. People will be able to determine how much of the screen each app takes while showing up to four different programs, rather than just two. The update will also offer more integrated search results, showing users previews of websites, apps and documents that are on the device, all at once.
The preview version of Windows 8.1 is meant for Microsoft's partners and other technology developers, but anyone can download it. The release comes exactly eight months after desktops, laptops and tablets with Windows 8 went on sale. The version of the Windows 8.1 update meant for the general public will come later in the year, though the company hasn't announced a specific date.
Many of the new features have been shown off already. A three-day Build conference, which started Wednesday in San Francisco, gives Microsoft developers a chance to learn more about the new system and try it out. It also will give the company a chance to explain some of the reasoning behind the update and sell developers on Microsoft's ambitions to regain relevance lost to Apple's iPad and various devices running Google's Android software.
Windows 8, released Oct. 26, was meant to be Microsoft's answer to changing customer behaviors and the rise of tablet computers. The operating system emphasises touch controls over the mouse and the keyboard, which had been the main way people have interacted with their personal computers since the 1980s.
Microsoft and PC makers had been looking to Windows 8 to revive sales of personal computers, but some people have been put off by the radical makeover. Research firm IDC said the operating system actually slowed down the market. Although Microsoft says it has sold more than 100 million Windows 8 licenses so far, IDC said worldwide shipments of personal computers fell 14 per cent in the first three months of this year, the worst since tracking began in 1994.
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