With Windows 8 not even six months old, Microsoft is already rushing out a major upgrade, codenamed Windows Blue, which will offer better multitasking, new built-in apps, more personalisation and an improved "Start" screen.
The improvements to the settings and personalisation options are intended to prevent users from being bounced quite so frequently to the old-style desktop user interface, just for making basic changes to the operating system.
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Improved personalisation will enable users to change the background, and edit background and "accent" colours from the "charms interface". It also offers SkyDrive configuration options, choices for editing the "lock" screen, a new section for network and app settings, a separate "update and recovery" menu, and new features for editing power-saving settings.
Windows 8 had also been panned for such poor multitasking that users could not run applications in two different windows. This much-criticised shortcoming has also been rectified.
Visually, though, Windows Blue will be similar to Windows 8, with two new tile sizes for the home screen, a new personalisation menu accessible from the "Start" screen and a new calculator that can also perform conversions of temperature, length, volume, speed and more. It will also ship with Internet Explorer 11.
The speed with which the upgrade has been rushed out represents a tacit admission that Windows 8 has underwhelmed the market. Indeed, far from providing the customary lift that major Windows releases have in the past provided to the computer market, sales of PCs and laptops have continued to fall as people increasingly purchase powerful smartphones and tablet computers instead.
