A Build is Windows 8.1 - Computer Point

Into Just 8 months after its launch, Microsoft brings its consumer OS up to speed with a cycle of accelerated development. News for Visual Studio and dotNET

Rome – After dealing with the issue Windows Server, Cloud OS and corporate environments during TechEd, Microsoft has used the stage of the Build developer conference to unveil the many new features of its new consumer OS Windows 8.1, Internet Explorer 11 and updated versions of the programming environment Visual Studio and the dotNET framework.

Build On stage in 2013 was of course Steve Ballmer: Microsoft CEO opened the proceedings by explaining that Windows 8.1 is a mix “finished” between the experience of desktop computing and the “modern” in tiles, an update (free) that proceeds following the path of Windows 8 but adds new customization options that should make happy those who still have not made groped by the joys of the Start Screen .

The preview of Windows 8.1, for starters, is available for download starting from the store “app” integrated into the Metro / Modern / Windows 8: the installation of the preliminary version of the OS involves a procedure for updating the store explained on the official blog, and for all other questions is available a collection of FAQ on the website of Windows. The ability to install the OS via ISO will be made available later, Microsoft provides.

Windows 8.1 is proposed as an incremental upgrade free Windows 8 to eight months after the release of the latter, and in eight months much has changed: Microsoft seems to have accepted – at least partly – the many many comments and criticisms on him piovutele during this time period, and now Windows (8.1) should provide a compromise between the “king” of the Windows 7 desktop and setting the whole touch, tiles and cloud of Windows 8 will satisfy a significant portion of the two types of use rs. Into distinctive feature of this compromise is the infamous return of the Start button, a feature which, however, has little to do with the classical implemented up to Windows 7: The new “button” is placed on the Windows taskbar where before there was This the Start button, offering access to the renewed Start screen or in an advanced menu – also accessible via keyboard shortcut Win + X – that makes tasks easier made complicated by Windows 8. Through the above menu will be example, you can turn off (or suspend / hibernate) your system without having to disturb the control panel on screen Modern.

Among the options of customizing the behavior of a tile is the long-awaited ability to boot directly to the desktop without having to go to the Start Screen. The same Start Screen is now more customizable with the use of the same desktop wallpaper, tiles of different sizes to facilitate the organization of the app and display a less chaotic and “random” in the list of applications on your PC.

Into Users who prefer the desktop all the tiles of the world will then be available to conduct various angles of “smart” Modern interface to fit their particular need for contextual coherence of experience, as both the hot corner for move from app to app (upper left corner) and the “charms” (upper left corner) are disabilitabili.

Microsoft has of course also renewed the Windows Store with better organization of the app available for purchase / download, and now it should be easier for users to identify the apps they are interested. The new store will hopefully improve the app market for Windows for developers.

Another important feature of Windows 8.1 is the support of the screens with resolution “pushed” Retina 4K or that they are with the ability to scale the OS native applications (both Modern and desktop) more easily to the top. The “trick” used by Microsoft is the same as that used by Apple on OS X, namely support for an increase of 200 per cent of the definition of pixels and text.

Improved functionality is also internal research to the new OS, which now no longer distinguish between different contexts and offers all the results identified in the network and on the local PC (thanks to the Engine Bing and offline) an overview of what style, overabundance of im ages and some text here and there.

The same thrust integration between offline and online is also seen in the new synchronization features to SkyDrive, while on the control panel Microsoft has chosen to transfer a greater number of options under the Modern interface for easy customization of the system to users of tablet and touch devices.

Guaranteed improved support to portrait mode – always under a tiled interface – for phablet, tablets with small screens and similar devices. A new waiting but that certainly does not make you happy early adopters of hi-tech more stringent integration, Windows 8.1, a driver model and APIs necessary to install and use 3D printers.

Another feature of “qualifying” Windows 8.1 (but destined to land on Windows 7 at a later date) is Internet Explorer 11, and the novelties presented by the Microsoft Build conference reflects quite closely the rumors so far published: the new IE will be even more focused on simplification of the use on devices with touch screen, it will contain a representation of the various tiles to open sites and will include new technologies such as audio-video elements of HTML5, SPDY (not mentioned in the conference but present) and WebGL for 3D online.

And if users and lovers of the tiles for personal productivity will have to wait until 2014 for the debut of the Metro version / Modern / Windows 8 (.1) of the Office package, developers can already get your hands on a development kit based on the new Kinect Sensor 2.0 for Windows 8.1 (the same is included with the Xbox One, but no compatibility between the two systems).

As for the development code itself, finally, the new Microsoft presented at the conference called Build Visual Studio 2013, and dotNET Framework 4.5.1: in the first case Redmond shows the presence of features designed for the management of projects and test platforms “cloud” Git support to the revisions and bug fixes (also for Visual Studio 2012 with an update in part), while in the second – which is also part of the package Visual Studio 2013 – we are talking about increased performance and improvements in the development of the app store for Windows .

Alfonso Maruccia