JorgeA

Anybody here using Microsoft Edge, the new browser introduced with Windows 10? I've been trying it out. There are claims that it's faster than other browsers, but I haven't noticed any difference in webpage loading speed (or in the speed of anything else, for that matter). However, one area where Edge is significantly different from other browsers is in functionality. I can't find a way to download any kind of file except for images. In other browsers you can right-click over a link and select "save target as" or something similar; there seems to be no such option in Edge, at least none that I've found. If there is a way, the procedure is non-standard for browsers; that alone would count as a minus in my book. In fact I had a somewhat funny experience while trying to figure out how to do downloads. I visited the page for Steve Gibson's Security Now! podcast to test the downloading of an MP3. I put the mouse pointer over one of the little "speaker" icons, which is what you do in IE or Firefox if you want to save the file to your PC, and right-clicked on it. Edge gave me an option to download the picture, but not the file itself. So I could download the speaker icon if I wished. Cooooool. In order to save a PDF, apparently you have to first open it and then you can right-click over the open document and do a "Save as." This is bass-ackwards: if I wanted to view the document before saving I would do that, but I don't necessarily -- there are times when I simply want to save the PDF for later viewing. Doing this in Edge requires additional steps. And if you have any amount of PDFs to save (from an archive, for example), that's all the more time and effort involved to accomplish what you need. Far from a serious application, Microsoft Edge is a joke of a browser. I cannot believe that MSFT is pushing for it to replace IE. --JorgeA

Ragnarok? Is this what you mean? Yes. Well, what can we do then, except enjoy the time that we have left. As the end of the 10-year Win10 support period approaches, I'll start playing Götterdämmerung on a loop day and night until the fateful hour. --JorgeA

Up until (but not including) build 10240, Spybot Search & Destroy 1.6.2.46 survived successive installations of new builds. After installing build 10240, though, things were very different: the Spybot desktop icon was gone, the icon in the system tray was gone, and there was no Spybot listing in the Start Menu (in either the Metroized Start Menu or the Classic Shell Start Menu). Even the Spybot folders in C:\ProgramData and C:\Program Files (x86) were gone. It's as if Spybot had never been installed on this machine... except that it was still listed under "Currently installed programs" in Control Panel. That was the only trace of it left. Go figure. I still had the installation .EXE for SS&D 1.6.2.46 in the downloads folder. It did install properly and it's now running, same as always, in 10240. This remarkable little program has worked for me on every version of the OS since Windows 98FE. As far as I know it could even have worked on Windows 95. What a magnificent run. --JorgeA

Going through the settings options that show up once you agree to the license terms, if you accept the default ('Express") settings you will thereby set the following dandy setting: "Automatically connect to suggested open hotspots." Only if you select the "Customize settings" option -- which is given in tiny print at the bottom of the "Get going fast" page -- will you realize that Microsoft is actually, really proposing to connect your machine to any random hotspot it comes across, without your knowledge or specific consent. What eedeeot at MSFT came up with this brilliant idea?? The custom setting for that option quietly notes that, "Not all networks are secure." You don't say! Of course, users who go along with Microsoft's recommended settings will not be seeing this little warning. --JorgeA

Ragnarok? Is this what you mean? --JorgeA

I've just finished going through the Windows (10) license, and I saw no reference to that. A couple of observations about the license terms, which are presented to the user right after the installation of build 10240 and before you can actually go into Windows: The bright white scrollbar used to navigate through the license contrasts nicely with the blue background and is easy to find. instead of the light-gray scrollbar that they've adopted for their browsers and File Explorer, Windows developers should take the hint and create a scrollbar with such decent contrast. OTOH, there are multiple references to other Microsoft terms, given in the format "aka.ms/xxxxxxx". The terms say that "You can review linked terms by pasting the (aka.ms/) link into a browser window." Considering that at this point in reading the terms, you are not yet in Windows, it's going to be a bit of a challenge to "paste" a link into a browser. Moreover, there is no way to highlight or otherwise select text, so you couldn't cut-and-paste it into a browser even if you could open a browser at this point. And of course, these "linked terms" (their phrase) don't actually link to anything, they're just URLs. Customers for whom the machine they're looking at is their first or only Internet-capable device, will have a hard time following up on these additional terms (such as Privacy). To do that, they would have to use somebody else's machine, with all the associated effort and inconvenience. Maybe that's the idea. --JorgeA

jaclaz Actually, I'd argue that this is not only not at all OT, but very much ON-topic. After all, it's for the sake of this mobility sh*t that they've been wrecking Windows this whole decade. Placing an order through your real computer sitting at your desk is an inherently more deliberative process than the kind of spur-of-the-moment action you'd tend to take while walking down the street or sitting at a café with your friends. If most buying is taking place at a real PC, it suggests that people are aware of the impulsive nature of mobile and have factored it into their shopping practices. Maybe the general public deserves more credit for good judgment than supporters of Metro/mobile expect and opponents fear. The question is how long it will take for the arrogant twits pushing mobile-first to catch on that desktop computing is where the real money is. It may take a couple of high-profile corporate bankruptcies for them to take the hint. --JorgeA

Wise advice. Too bad it's kids barely past adolescence who are developing Windows 10, and they already know everything important that there is to know about the world. --JorgeA

Fantastic -- now you as the user can get yourself tracked by TWO busybody companies instead of just one! I have an Android phone, and somehow I've managed to avoid opening a Google Account. (I only use the pre-installed apps and a few others I manually downloaded directly from their respective websites.) Microsoft seems to be headed toward a model that's even more restrictive than Google's -- where, ultimately, you won't be able to install anything without Mother Microsoft doing it for you. --JorgeA

Good to know, thanks! --JorgeA

If you're referring to the link for downloading 10162, I believe that Microsoft has now removed the ability to download Win10 ISOs, at least for recent builds. IIRC it somehow had to do with preparations for the mass launch, although I can't remember the reasoning. --JorgeA

Not yet AFAIK, but this lifecycle policy for Windows 10 was announced today. Note that Win10 is included there, which brings up the question: if Windows 10 is "the last version of Windows," as we've been told, then what comes after support for Windows 10 ends? Unsupported Windows?? A few other disturbing implications may be discerned in the fine print: OK, so if I read this correctly, then if a "device needs to install the latest update to remain supported," and if Microsoft keeps adding features via Windows Update, some of which will not "work on all devices," then arguably machines will become unsupported as soon as they are offered an Update that they can't install. (Think touch support for older laptops and desktops, for example.) Since each new Update is "built upon all of the updates that preceded it," then conceivably as soon as your machine receives its first incompatible update, you're out of the update game. Bottom line: your trusty, working PC could be left without a supported version of Windows sooner than if you'd stayed on 7 or even 8.1. And if that happens, we still don't know for sure if you'll be able to roll back to your earlier OS. Interesting times lie ahead... --JorgeA

Put together the mesages of these two articles... Windows 10 is free because... Windows Phone US consumers losing interest in smartphones, but Microsoft 'delights' ...and the conclusion is that Microsoft ruined the Windows UI for their customer base, in order to compete in a declining market. --JorgeA

I think that's where @dencorso's point that Microsoft will say "you agreed to it, so quitcher whining" comes into play. --JorgeA

Some months ago, I installed Rafael Rivera's UxStyle Theme Patcher and, hoping to get a convex Taskbar, tried applying a Vista theme to an earlier build of Windows 10, but other than installing the Vista default wallpaper it made no difference at all in what I saw on the screen. I've left UxStyle in place for later builds but haven't done anything further with it. Still seems to make no difference. Is there a way yet to install and use themes in Win10, or is this something that still awaits resolution? ---JorgeA

Yeah, really. Thanks for the scoop. I sure won't be signing into this Firefox feature! --JorgeA

One other data bit related to Windows 8.1 adoption: Of course, as @dencorso points out, Microsoft is taking advantage of its default "recommended settings" for Windows Updates to push Win10 on an otherwise unsuspecting user base. Fortunately the user still has to take positive action to finalize their Win10 reservation; it's not a purely passive process. But -- do they give details, anywhere in the upgrade process, as to what the user will be losing if and when they make the switch to Win10? If not, then additionally there is an element of deception in the process. To borrow a concept from the health-care industry, this would be an informed-consent nightmare. --JorgeA

That jibes with my own experience working in large organizations. --JorgeA

*** Sounds good to me. Let's do that, unless @NoelC objects. *** That will be interesting to watch if it does turn out that you can't roll back to Windows 7. There'll be he!! to pay for Microsoft as tens or even hundreds of millions turn to Twitter, Facebook, and countless tech forums to complain about it and excoriate MSFT for their sneaky tactics and rigid policies. It will also be interesting to see how many Win7 users did in fact reserve Win10. Thurrott's news gave me hope that users out there aren't as pliable and submissive as one might have thought. Time will tell. --JorgeA

Maybe people aren't (quite) as clueless and sheeplike as some of us on either side of the Win8/10 debate may think. I just heard the following remarkable exchange on the What the Tech podcast: [boldface added; italics reflect speaker's own emphasis] A bit later, Paul corrected his percentages: So maybe there IS hope for all those Windows 7 users out there that we fear (and the other side hopes) won't know any better than to fall into the Windows 10 trap. --JorgeA *** P.S. With @dencorso's permission, I'd like to post this over on the Win10 First Impressions thread in the next few days. ***

^^ Looks like you did read the Terms of Service... --JorgeA

If the limitations of working without signing into a Microsoft account extend only to Metro/Universal apps, then that's something I can well live with. I haven't found a compelling need for any app, and Classic Shell's Start Menu provides all the search functionality I'm interested in. What (if any) limitations have you noticed while working in the Win32 world, when logged out of the MSA in Win10? IIRC that does have to do with Insiders who wish to keep receiving future builds, such as the one expected on July 29. They say you need to have your computer "connected to" a Microsoft Account (whatever that means) in order to get that build. And in fact I've been getting regular nag reminders that I "need to fix" my situation with respect to signing in with the MSA. Maybe I'll sign in after all (so far I'm only signed into individual apps), as I will be curious to see if the nagging continues after the official launch. --JorgeA

Analysis: Microsoft is Scaling Back on Windows Phone Dramatically Another Microsoft product with an ugly, flat, squared-off interface bites the dust. When will they ever learn?? OK, so all that Metro sh!t having failed everywhere it's been tried, when can we expect Windows itself to revert to a sensible UI? --JorgeA

I'm running Win10 on a separate partition of a laptop HDD where Windows 7 is already installed. I've been installing each new build over the previous one, using Microsoft's automated process (meaning: no manual installs of ISOs). Because of all the tracking and monitoring involved in the beta testing program (which is understandable), I haven't been doing a whole lot with the system, other than surf the Web, test some programs for compatibility, and check out features and settings. My customers would throw a fit if I were to put confidential Word documents on a computer where I suspected that a third party such as Microsoft could read them. As a result, I realized that there's not a whole lot for me to do on the machine, and so the long waits for new builds got pretty boring. --JorgeA

You really don't think your life is a bit empty without a connected coffee mug? http://www.pauligmuki.com/index.php?lang=en I guess a lot of people miss gross images and pranks very early in the morning.... ... or maybe the friends and colleagues I ever had are actually (much) worse than average . jaclaz One more thought about this: How long before a friend of the user of one of these networked coffeee mugs gets a virus, and the user receives a phishing picture message on his mug? If the friend's account (maybe from Facebook) is hacked badly enough, the networked coffee drinker could get a photoshopped image of his friend's face to show (for example) terror, with a suitable attached message like, "Charlie, I've been kidnapped by Romanian gypsies and they're demanding $50,000 by TOMORROW!!!! Please HELP!!!" Imagine being suddenly confronted by something like that as you're sipping your morning brew... --JorgeA