It seems that consumers voting with their wallets, and large OEM's like HP insisting on the ability to sell new PC's with Win 7, has finally resulted in Microsoft reconsidering their product choices.

Microsoft will next week be offering some changes that bring back some of the more Win 7 like features, that make for better use with a mouse.

The real news, is that a second update planned in the near future, will bring back a... Start button and menu! Yes, it will actually not just dump you back into "the interface formerly known as Metro", but actually give you a Start button and a start menu, which incorporates some live tiles.

It's been a painful journey, but Microsoft is finally getting it right. Here's a link to a decent article, with some good pictures of what some of the changes look like. [Link: arstechnica.com]

I've been using Win 8.1 on one PC, but just couldn't bring myself to use it on the machine I use the most. This will likely change my mind, as I've found plenty of other things Win 8.1 just does better... and it just seems much faster overall.