I Upgraded to Windows 8.1, and Bad Things Happened [Update]

This morning, I picked up my Dell Latitude 10 tablet and fired up the Windows Store. Boom—right there, I saw a tile that would allow me to upgrade my OS to Windows 8.1. Not having participated in the beta, I was ready to see what Microsoft had in store for its latest, greatest OS. After about a two or three hour download and installation process, I finally had it. I swiped a few tiles, clicked this, touched that, then clicked the sleep button. About an hour later, I tried turning my tablet back on, and this is what I saw:

Wuh-oh. I recently wrote about my shameful glee at seeing that iPhone users had inherited the Blue Screen of Death. I’m sad to report the BSOD’s return to my life with Windows—though at the very least it’s gotten a little more visually interesting.

While the pattern may be interesting looking, and could serve as a nice screensaver, let me assure you: this was not something I’d planned on seeing. Additionally, the time the tablet takes to wake up after I hit the power button also seems to take a few seconds longer than it did prior to the update—and “a few seconds” feels like an eternity compared to the instantaneous wake-ups that I used to have with regular old Windows 8. Oh, and then there’s the sudden appearance of RunDLL errors that I’m now trying to figure out. Great update you got there, guys.

This post could be about the ways that Windows 8.1 improves on the experience. I mean, I do have a Start Button now, so that’s cool. Microsoft has written a blog post that goes through all the tweaks and improvements the newest upgrade of the OS brings—there are new tile sizes, the ability to boot right to Desktop mode, more options for snapping multiple programs onto one screen. I have to say, I’m looking forward to putting the thing through its paces and seeing how much more user friendly 8.1 is.

But to be completely honest, I’m kind of scared. I got this device in August, and until today, I’ve had no problems with it. Then I upgrade to 8.1, and BAM. I’m annoyed.

I’m hopeful that I’ll be able to get these issues resolved before the end of the day. But it seems I’m not the only person out there having issues with upgrading his system to Windows 8.1. I hate to think what kinds of problems other Windows 8 users are having.

Maybe these problems are limited to just a handful of Windows customers. If that’s the case, then good. But I’m worried about the fact that 8.1 was supposed represent a new and improved, streamlined iteration of an OS that’s been having some trouble making headway in the marketplace. If these issues are more widespread, then Microsoft may have just shot itself in the foot by releasing a half-baked OS upgrade.

In the meantime—pray to the computer gods for me and my tablet.

3:46 p.m. Central – Update! The DLL error has been fixed with some help from my super savvy brother–some Logitech software that didn’t need to be there has been ejected from the proceedings. That still leaves a weirdly long delay in waking the tablet up. And my dreams are still haunted by the Wallpaper Pattern of Death.