News

Windows 8.1 Update 2 Release Date Revealed, No Start Menu Included

Microsoft’s Windows 8.1 Update 2 was released in its RTM version just recently meaning its release date is close. Now that release date has emerged courtesy of Russian site PCPortal, that release date is expected to be August 12th. However, despite all the hype surrounding Microsoft’s second major update for Windows 8.1 most users probably won’t even notice the change. Why? Because nothing on the surface (not a tablet pun) will observably change. There will be no start menu, no change in the way metro apps are launched and so on. Instead Windows 8.1 Update 2 will mainly be an “under-the-hood” update based on optimisations and major bug fixes that Microsoft has discovered over the past few months. This update will be delivered “silently” through the Windows Update mechanism on patch Tuesday.

What has happened to all those cool new features that were rumoured then? Well according to the source Microsoft has decided to withhold those new features like the new start menu and the ability to run metro apps in windowed mode on the desktop. These features will be released with Windows Threshold (expected to be Windows 9). Windows 8.1 Update 2 may therefore not be very exciting but it is very important: it marks the end of Microsoft’s focus on Windows 8.1. Microsoft will now channel all its development efforts into Windows Threshold (9) and Windows 8.1 will be serviced in the same way as Windows 7: with critical and important bug and security fixes only, no new features.

Source: WinBeta

Image #1 courtesy of Microsoft, image #2 courtesy of PC Portal

Ryan Martin

Disqus Comments Loading...

Recent Posts

Marvel Rivals Devs Arrested for Money Laundering and Corruption

Marvel Rivals is back in the spotlight, and not for any gaming merits, as NetEase…

4 hours ago

Dragon’s Dogma 2 Surpasses 3.3 Million Sales After Six Months

Dragon's Dogma 2, Capcom's long-awaited open-world action RPG, debuted on March 22 on PS5, Xbox…

7 hours ago

MONTECH Unveils the MKey Pro Mechanical Keyboard

During the COMPUTEX 2024, the manufacturer MONTECH presented several new products, among which were some…

7 hours ago

AMD Desktops With Zen 6 Cores Will Also Use Socket AM5

AMD announced the new AM5 socket alongside the Ryzen 7000 Series processors that feature Zen…

7 hours ago

ASUS 27″ Rog Strix XG27UCS IPS 3840×2160 IPS 160Hz 1ms Widescreen Gaming Monitor

Efficiency ClassEU Energy Efficiency Class HDRGEU Energy Efficiency ClassFSpeakersSpeakersNoProduct SeriesProduct Series/FamilyROG StrixDimensionsLength / Depth21.88 cmWidth61.48…

7 hours ago

Cooler Master GM34-CWQ2 34″ WQHD

SpeakersSpeakersYesSpeaker amount and power output2x 5 WattLightingLightingNoStandards / SpecificationsAdaptive Sync Technology (G-Sync / Freesync)AMD FreeSync…

8 hours ago