14 DAY TRIAL // As you most likely know by now if you’re already a Microsoft fanatic, the Redmond-based software giant will release a large update for Windows 8.1 in early 2014, most likely at the BUILD developer conference in April.
While the company has remained completely tight-lipped on this new release, sources familiar with the matter revealed that Windows 8.1 Update 1 would bring lots of improvements to the existing platform, as part of a broader campaign to make the operating system more familiar.
But as WZOR wrote earlier this week when he leaked new details about the spring 2014 Windows 8.1 update, this is going to be more like a service pack, even though Redmond has quietly abandoned the concept of service packs.
Basically, Windows 8.1 Update 1 will include all patches, security fixes and feature improvements that Microsoft has released since October 2013 when it officially introduced the operating system.
As a result, major feature improvements are in doubt right now, including the Start Menu that’s supposed to make Windows 8.1 look more like its predecessors.
Sources familiar to the development process at Microsoft have indicated that Redmond is working to bring back the Start Menu in Windows, with some developers explaining that this feature could even return in April at the BUILD developer conference when Microsoft is set to unveil Windows 8.1 Update 1.
In the meantime, others believe that the Start Menu would only return in the next Windows version, possibly called Threshold and likely to be the eagerly awaited Windows 9. Nobody knows for sure whether the return of the Start Menu is indeed possible, but given the fact that so many users have asked for it, it would clearly be a very smart decision to bring back this feature in modern Windows.