More dosktop friendly tweaks show up in window 8.1 update 1 leaks.

Following last week's public leak of windows 8.1. a newer build has made its way online, revealing even more desktop friendly tweaks in what's reportedly a near final version of the code. First and foremost, it's been confirmed that this latest build boots to the desktop on non-touchscreen PCs by default, while tablets like the surface 2 bring up the start screen by default.

The ability to boot to desktop already exists as an opt-in setting since windows 8.1, released in january. The change makes sense, though, leaving the touch-optimized interface as default only for actual touch devices.

Elsewhere Microsoft is adding title bars with minimize, close and snap buttons to Modern UI (aka Metro) apps, but they will only pop up for a second after launch so you know they are there. You will also be able to bring up the windows taskbar from Mtero apps by Hovering your mouse along the bottom of the screen, and the tskbar will be customizable with both desktop and Metro apps so you can switch between them or access window previews. You can even activate the tskbar when yo are on the start screen by dragging th ecursor down to the bottom.

The changes are clearly meant to optimize mouse and keyboard performance as most will only be apparent, or enable by default, on PCs. As reported earlier, similar improvements are made to the Start Screen, where right-clicking on live Tiles now produces a contex menu with options to resize, unpin, and more, while search and shutdown buttons have added right onto the Start screen to let users more easily find those options.