You’ve all heard about Windows 8. It’s reception was not as great as Microsoft would have hoped. This was mostly a result of the updated Start Menu as well as new cleaner Metro Interface. Well, Microsoft has been listening to the complaints and we are glad they did. Windows 8 has many powerful new features that overlooked because of “Windows 8 hate.”

The Windows Blue update is now officially called Windows 8.1, Microsoft executive Tami Reller revealed this week at the JP Morgan Technology, Media, and Telecom Conference in Boston. It appears that Microsoft is getting away from the Service Pack titles and moving to a dot versioning like Apple. The free update will be available to Windows 8 users through the Windows Store when it launches sometime later this year.

The rumors for Windows 8.1 are the return of the Windows Start menu button and a direct boot to desktop option. This will allow users to completely bypass the intrusive Windows 8 Metro interface.

Windows 8 sales have not been slow. Launching in late October of 2012 they have sold over 100 million licenses to date.

Windows 8 Learning Curve

The problem was the learning curve. People are creatures of habit and change, while good, must be made easy for all users across the spectrum. We ran Windows 8 for quite a while and reverted back to WIndows 7 due to compatibility issues. Hopefully this Windows 8.1 update creates a new love for Windows 8 and Microsoft.

A public preview of the new software will be available on June 26, which coincides with the start of a Microsoft developer conference in San Francisco.