Update 1 - Cannot close Metro App and Stay in Metro UI

Question

I installed Win 8.1 Update 1 that became available to TechNet subscribers yesterday on my Lenovo non-touchscreen laptop.
Whereas before I could go to the Metro UI start a metro program, then suspend it by dragging the window to the bottom of the screen, and then I would return to the Metro UI
start screen.
Now if I go to Metro, run a metro app, then close the app, I get kicked back to the traditional desktop.
The behavior before Update 1 was such that I could stay in Metro after closing a Metro app.   Now no matter what I do, including unchecking the "when I sign
in or close all apps on a screen, go to the desktop instead of start" in the taskbar properties, I get kicked back to the desktop.
Unless this is a bug, I suppose now this is a new "feature" for Win 8.1 update 1.

Answer 1

Hey charlestek,
My name is Miron Vranjes and I’m a Senior Program Manager on the Windows team. I worked on a number of features in Windows 8.1 Update, including the new title bar and the specific behavior you talk about in this thread.
First, thanks for writing your thoughts on what you’re seeing in the update. As far as the settings, it is the intended design and Kate’s earlier post does correctly outline the behavior. That said, I’d like to clarify how they work to address the confusion.
In Windows 8.1, we introduced the “When I sign in or close all apps on a screen, go to the desktop instead of Start" setting as a way for users to control their “home base” (the place they end up navigating to when they’re not running any Windows Store
apps)—Start or the desktop. With Windows 8.1 Update, we’ve made this the default setting for primarily mouse and keyboard devices.
As we designed Windows 8.1 Update, we wanted to introduce a number of changes for mouse and keyboard users that would help them use and switch between Windows Store apps alongside their familiar desktop applications. A lot of these changes only made sense
when combined together, so they are toggled by one setting, which is “Show Windows Store apps on the taskbar.” This is usually enabled together with the first setting as a complimentary set of improvements for desktop users. When the setting is enabled, Windows
Store apps are intended to feel more like regular maximized applications living on the desktop, though they are full screen only. For example, when you launch apps from Start, they appear on the taskbar until they are closed. You can also minimize them or
switch between them by invoking the taskbar. Finally, as you can see in the table Kate showed, Windows Store apps can occlude the desktop and also each other! This may not be apparent at first but you can see it if you open up Bing Weather and then launch
the Mail app, for example. Closing (or minimizing) Mail won’t navigate to the desktop, it’ll reveal Bing Weather. If you then close Bing Weather, it’ll reveal the desktop. The intention is that this behavior (even the animations) is similar to launching and
then closing two maximized applications on the desktop.
Ultimately this is the reason that unchecking the “When I sign in or close all apps on a screen, go to the desktop instead of Start" setting has no effect on close and minimize behavior when the “Show Windows Store apps on the taskbar” setting is checked,
since they are controlling two independent things. If you tend to use only one Windows Store app at a given time, it may seem like we’re not respecting the setting by going to the desktop, which I can understand could be confusing.
You also brought up that unchecking “Show Windows Store apps on the taskbar” doesn’t unpin anything (including the Windows Store) from the taskbar. The main reason for this is that we didn’t want the setting to be destructive. For example, if you’ve pinned
the Mail and Bing Weather apps to the taskbar, we wouldn’t want to unpin them unexpectedly when you toggle the setting.
We’ll definitely evaluate the wording and behavior of these settings in the future and see what we can do to make things clearer and improve the experience overall.
Thanks so much for your thoughts,
Miron