Back in 2013, Microsoft officially rolled out the first update for Windows 8

Jan 3, 2014 23:36 GMT  ·  By

If there’s something that’s really worth noting for Windows fanatics in 2013, it’s the arrival of Windows 8.1, the first major update for the core Windows 8 that brought back the Start button.

As you know, the lack of a Start button was probably the most controversial change in Windows 8, as many people deemed the operating system pretty difficult to use because they couldn’t find a way to get around the revamped interface.

Of course, Microsoft was well aware of all these complaints and even though many adopters actually managed to get used to the Modern UI and survive without a third-party Start Menu, the company decided to reintroduce the Start button in Windows 8.1.

The catch is that Redmond didn’t bring back the Start Menu together with the Start button, but only a shortcut that gets users to the new Start screen, which continues to be more appropriate for touch-capable devices.

Of course, users were rather disappointed with the new Start button, so Start Menu replacements continued to register millions of downloads, as adopters were trying to make the operating system look a bit more familiar.

On the other hand, Microsoft also introduced a boot to desktop option in Windows 8.1 that finally allowed users to jump straight to the desktop and skip the Start screen whenever they were powering on their computers.

This particular feature already existed in third-party customization tools, but Microsoft decided to make it a part of Windows 8.1 pretty much because it wanted desktop users to get around the operating system faster, especially because many desktop consumers were trying to ignore the Modern UI completely.

In the end, Windows 8.1 proved to be a handy update not only for users, but also for the company itself, as it boosted adoption of the modern operating system and brought back some of the users disappointed with the number of UI changes implemented in the core Windows 8.