Microsoft’s Windows 8.1 update to fix usability issues is coming, and not a moment too soon for Windows 8 sufferers, of which there are many. Amid predictions of the eventual demise of the Windows operating system, Microsoft is fighting, and slowly losing, the battle to maintain its dominance over the personal computer space. Due the first week in April, it will be grabbed up by frustrated Windows 8 users.

Complaints about Windows 8 surfaced soon after the system’s first pre-release date in September of 2011. Some users loved the new interface. Most of them purchased Windows 8 in a “bundle” with a new touch-screen computer. Windows 8 works well with touch-screen computers because it was “optimized” for use with those device. Many of the users who purchased Windows 8 for older computers that were not equipped with touch screens have not been happy with the results.

One group that really hates Windows 8 are the computer technicians who have to support the system. An informal survey of technicians at OMG Technical Support generated a long “hate list” for Windows 8, but the most important issue was user frustration with the interface.

“People who have had Windows 7 on their computers several years are really used to being able to find tools easily from drop-down menus. With Windows 8, they are stuck with a system that requires the user to scroll through screen after screen of over-sized hyperlinks that they have to click on in order to get anything done,” according to Henry, a computer service consultant at OMG.

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Read also:

Windows 8.1 Update 1: Modern App Taskbar Previews (Paul Thurrott’s SuperSite for Windows)

Microsoft to end Windows XP support April 8 (San Francisco Chronicle)

Windows 8.1 Update 1 download leaked early by Microsoft (The Verge)

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