On July 8, at the Worldwide Partner Conference in Houston, Microsoft executives announced that Windows 8.1 will be released to manufacturing in late August. Still no word on when the update will become available to consumers in retail stores or through other channels.

Another question that remains is whether Windows 8.1 will be available through Windows Update or Windows automatic updates. If so, will it be a forced update, or will it be optional? In the past, Windows Service Packs (which are the closest analog to the 8.1 update) were available via Windows/auto update and – at least initially – not forced.

Microsoft has been gradually destroying Windows’ search capabilities since Vista. When I originally evaluated Vista, I discovered that searching for file contents would mysteriously fail if the search string only existed past the first ten kilobytes in the files being searched. I posted a video on Youtube to demonstrate the problem.

Vista search had a lot of problems, but I had discovered workarounds for most of its bizarre limitations. The 10K problem looked like a bug, so I dutifully reported it to Microsoft. After several hours on the phone with Microsoft Support, they were able to reproduce the problem and it was fixed in Vista Service Pack 1.

But the damage was done. With each new version of Windows, search has become increasingly useless, and I’m reluctant to trust it. I still try to use it, but I always go back to third party tools such as Everything and Fileseek, or even (when desperate), ancient DOS tools like FINDSTR.

The root of this gradual decline in Windows’ search functionality seems to be one of perspective. As clearly demonstrated by the Windows 8 UI, Microsoft no longer cares about ‘enthusiast’ users, which include power users, system administrators and software developers. For these elite users, the new UI just gets in the way, and the search tools are almost entirely useless.

<rant>Microsoft is making Windows a consumer-oriented O/S. What Microsoft doesn’t seem to realize is that while this change may solidify Windows as the consumer O/S of choice, and reduce support costs, they are driving enthusiast users, including me, to Linux. Worse, business IT departments are staffed with enthusiast users, and these are the people who evaluate software and make organization-wide recommendations. Eventually, these people are going to get tired of fighting Microsoft and look elsewhere for a corporate O/S.</rant>

All of which leads me to wonder how the otherwise reliable Ars Technica could publish an article extolling the virtues of the search changes coming in Windows 8.1. Possibly Ars has realized that Windows is now a consumer-grade O/S and adjusted their viewpoint to suit.

In Windows 8.1, search will be entirely integrated with the Bing web search engine. Any time you search for something, Windows will assume you want to search the web as well as certain specific areas of your local system. This also means that you’ll start seeing advertisements in your Windows search results.

Problems I see with this change:

• Blurring the line between local and web search is dangerous for privacy.
• For me, as with many users, there are distinct search use cases; there is almost never any reason to search the web when I’m looking for something on my local system, or search my local system when I’m looking for something on the web.
• The same applies when searching for locally installed programs or features; it’s an activity that’s completely separate from web searching.
• I was previously able (in Windows XP) to easily search local files in a particular folder and its subfolders, by file name and/or contents. Now that functionality has been eliminated: it is simply no longer possible to perform useful local searches and third party software is required.

Microsoft is pulling the plug on Facebook and Flickr integration in Windows 8.1. Microsoft insists that its own apps should be sufficient. Anyone who is currently using the Facebook or Flickr integration in Windows 8 may be heading for major annoyance when they upgrade to 8.1.

When Microsoft first started talking about making the Windows user interface more like the XBox 360 UI, I wondered if that also meant we would be seeing advertising in Windows 8. I was both surprised and relieved to see that the Windows 8 Start screen was not filled with ads, which alas cannot be said of the XBox 360 UI.

Well, that relief was short-lived. It was recently announced by Microsoft that the search function built into Windows will display advertising, starting with the Windows 8.1 update. As you read the announcement, marvel at the way advertising will “mak[e] it easier for consumers to complete tasks.” Nice try.

Preview versions of Windows 8.1 were recently made available to reviewers, and The Verge reports on some additional tweaks to the Start button. There’s still no Start menu, but right-clicking the Start button will show a power user menu of sorts. The menu includes options to disable hot corners and shut down the computer.

Microsoft heard the complaints, and is bringing the Start button back in Windows 8.1. The problem? They heard, but they didn’t listen.

The Start button itself isn’t really all that useful. What’s useful about the Start button in previous versions of Windows is what happens when you click it: a menu appears. Of course, that menu has been criticized for years, but it’s still the only practical way to see a list of what’s possible on your computer.

With Windows 8.1, Microsoft has brought back the Start button, but pressing it just takes the user to the new Start screen (the one with the tiles). Useless. Apparently the Start screen has an “All apps” section that can be configured to look somewhat similar to a traditional menu, but this menu would be incomplete at best.

In public discussion on this subject, Microsoft spends a lot of time talking about branding, desktop wallpaper on the Start screen, and the ability to boot to the desktop. They also apparently realized that on a computer with no menu, searching is the only way to find anything, so search has been ‘improved’ to Windows 7 functionality.

On the positive side, it will once again be possible to have more than one program or window visible on the screen simultaneously, although that feature will also be limited.

Here’s a roundup of related articles from around the web:

• In Blue: Start Experience Changes
• Windows 8.1: Microsoft brings back the Start button with options to appease desktop users
• Windows 8.1 preview: many small tweaks make for a significant update
• Windows 8.1 given first official outing, and yes, the Start button is back

Update 2012Jun03: Peter Bright over at Ars Technica also noticed that the Start menu won’t be back in Windows 8.1, although I disagree with his conclusions.

After much speculation, Microsoft has finally announced a name for the next version of Windows: Windows 8.1. Up until now, the working name for the new version was Windows Blue.

Anyone currently using Windows 8 will be able to install the new version as an update for free. This sounds a lot like what Microsoft used to call a Service Pack. Well, whatever they want to call it, as long as it’s free, I’m all for it.

The new version is expected to bring back some aspects of the Start button, the Start menu and the traditional desktop, but the details remain unclear.

Microsoft is moving toward a release system for Windows that more closely resembles Apple’s OS releases. The reason is fairly obvious: money. With major new operating system releases from Microsoft separated by several years, and every other release being largely ignored (think Windows Me and Vista), Microsoft just isn’t making enough money on Windows.

So, Microsoft has been working away on their next Windows release, code-named ‘Windows Blue’, and they plan to produce additional releases on a yearly basis. Pricing remains unclear, but apparently the upgrades will be “low-cost”. If Microsoft can make this work, they will have a steady inflow of cash from Windows sales.

In the past, incremental releases were provided in the form of service packs, which were always available for free. Microsoft insists that the new releases will do much more than the old service packs, but that remains to be seen. For now, the simplest way to think about this is that Microsoft is going to start charging for service packs.

The Verge has a series of posts about Windows Blue that are worth reading.