Microsoft made the mistake earlier this week of allowing anyone with Windows 8.1 to download the files for Update 1 thanks to a simple change in their registry. While this hole has since been plugged, this allowed many people to get the near-final version of the OS update.
That included some of our Neowin forum members and they have been writing up their hands-on impressions of the changes in Update 1 on our message boards. In a forum post called "Your observations on Windows 8.1 update 1 (a.k.a. Feature Pack)" the opinions seem to range from one extreme to the other.
The folks who believe Update 1 is a solid improvement for Windows 8.1 are represented by forum member "CJEric" who states:
You know, I"m really enjoying this update. Feels very smooth with nice little improvements across the board. Once again a step in the right direction, as far as I"m concerned.
His thoughts are echoed by Neowin member "mzta cody" who writes:
After the update the OS feels smooth, overall feels a bit snappier. Notice certain animations are quicker- minimizing and close in particular. I notice an almost imperceptible difference there. Disk usage after cleanup is about the same as pre-update.
Other forum members don"t seem to like the update at all. That includes "Dot Matrix" who has written several posts on this particular forum thread. His main issue is that he feels Microsoft is not doing a good job mixing the Modern-Metro and desktop UI elements. In one post he says:
I want Metro integration on the desktop, but what I mean by that is the Metro dynamics, the UX, etc on the desktop, not just shoehorned into a classic window, and certainly not having the taskbar appear over Metro apps. Quite disruptive behavior.
Neowin member "theyarecomingforyou" is in the middle regarding his view on the changes made for Update 1. He writes:
This update is a step in the right direction but it certainly doesn"t eliminate the quagmire that is the Metro-Desktop integration.
Microsoft is expected to release the final version of Windows 8.1 Update 1 for free to Windows 8/8.1 users in early April and it should also be included in new Windows PCs out of the box around that time as well.
Image via ITHome.com