Windows 8.1 Preview breaks touch scrolling in XAML Windows Store apps

If you’ve installed the Windows 8.1 Preview build 9431 on the Surface or any other touch computer, you might have noticed touch scrolling is really buggy if not completely broken in XAML Windows Store apps such as the official Twitter app or MetroTwit. This is a known bug.

At BUILD 2013 I learned a bug creeped into the WinRT framework and caused any virtualised ListViews with variable sized items (like the tweets in Twitter app) to scroll unpredictably when panned with touch. Fortunately it has been fixed so when Windows 8.1 RTMs it’s all good, but for anyone who downloaded the Preview a patch is not yet certain.

In my opinion, touch scrolling is a pretty essential aspect of the user experience, especially when over 6,000 attendees of BUILD just received two tablets for free and eager to try out the Windows 8.1 Preview. It’s understandable a preview release build has bugs but it’s unfortunate this bug has such a severe impact on a pretty important aspect of the touch experience.

The fix missed the Windows 8.1 Preview day-0 hotfix cycle which were made available yesterday through Windows Update and may even face an uphill battle for future Windows Update patches because it’s not a critical security, data loss or crashing issue.

If you have 8.1 Preview on your tablet and has been suffering scrolling issues, this would be why. I sincerely hope the Windows team can come together to push out a fix as soon as possible.

Update: A hotfix has been released. I recommend all users to install.

10 insightful thoughts

  1. I’m glad it’s not just me. I assumed it was some sort of driver issue on my Series 7 Slate and was dreading thinking of the correct keywords to search for a solution.

    On the bright side, that new version of Metro Twit is looking pretty awesome. Can’t wait!

  2. My Surface is up to date on patches, but still scrolling is jerky. Surely they can’t leave this until fall. I would hope that MS recognizes that developers will have a hard time testing if the system is acting like this.

  3. yeah, same here after all updates still scrolling in some apps is frustrating…

  4. Welcome fellow XAML brothers & sisters to your first hint of mediocrity and quality assurance in the MSFT UX Platform. Remember to mark out your “Failure” buddy in the event of more bugs like this as if its like WPF/SL we are in for a big treat ๐Ÿ™‚

    All part of the whole “lets reset everything” meeting of 2009!.. High Five! ๐Ÿ™‚

  5. This is NOT a bug!
    It’s a feature …. we realised that too many apps were touch based so we fixed it.
    Whatever does not work with touch, use your mouse or your keyboard.

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