JorgeA

Sorry to report this, but I'm once again not receiving e-mail notifications of new posts in threads that I'm subscribed to. The last notifications to arrive were on Friday, May 29. I haven't made any changes to my e-mail settings or to my MSFN profile preferences. --JorgeA

I dunno, I can see both sides of the argument. But personally I tend to notice my post counts once in a while and think, "Wow, I didn't realize how important this forum has become to me!" (A comparably valuable service of the post count would also be to make me realize that I have no life outside of that forum and need to get out more... ) Another point in favor of it is that, when I'm new to a forum, the post count information provides some guidance as to who's active and interested and contributing in "my" new place. Of course this is an imperfect guide -- no need to give counter-examples -- but I maintain that, overall, it's better than nothing. If a member with a count of 3 posts writes something that SEEMS to be well-informed, and a member with 3,000 posts gives an opposite view that SEEMS to be about equally well-informed, on the face of it I'm inclined to give the latter more weight, in the beginning. And if the respective posts have to do with the forum itself, then all the more credence to the veteran. Initial impressions can and do change over time, but we need to start somewhere and post count is one of the factors that goes into the mix. --JorgeA

All right, we've learned what one of those mystery Windows Updates does: Microsoft wants you to reserve your free upgrade to Windows 10 It makes a window pop up on people's screens, inviting them to "reserve" a copy of Win10. To judge from reports down in the comments section, it creates a large and persistent icon in the system tray: --JorgeA

^^ LOL --JorgeA

That's a relatively optimistic way to look at it. I hope you're right, but the way things are going the good guys seem to be losing the battle. Here's something I came across while researching something else, and which has some bearing on what you said: --JorgeA

One thing that gives hope in this regard is the perception the public developed about Windows 8, despite the marketing budget and despite all the best efforts by Microsoft and its astroturf shills (as detailed in the Windows 8 Deeper Impressions thread) to create buzz around Win8. We are disappointed of course that Microsoft's response was to double down on turning Windows into a mobile OS, but they did sense the need to respond somehow -- and if they bash their heads against the wall once again, PC sales will start dropping even more dramatically than they have (no XP EOL to rescue them), at which point you can be sure that stockholders will take notice and their OEM partners will raise a ruckus. As for Spartan/Edge, today I discovered something interesting and something annoying about the Print feature. When you go to print a Web page and access the print settings within Spartan, if you select "more settings" you get a loooong list of drop-down sizes under "Paper and quality." That's nice. What is not so nice is that this list expands and shrinks horizontally as you scroll around. If you're using the scroll arrows to move up and down the list, the pointer comes off the scroll arrow (or, more accurately, the arrow comes off where the pointer is) and eventually the scrolling stops and you have to move the pointer back over the arrow. The fact that the arrows disappear after a brief period of inactivity increases the frustration factor. Here are some screenshots to show what I mean by the drop-down list's widening and narrowing: Incidentally, maybe @jaclaz can fill us in on what that "Envelope Italian" size might be. --JorgeA

Third-party developers will have to be proactive in alerting their customers to these problems as soon as they arise -- and direct them to complain to Microsoft for moving the goal posts, even as they pledge to try to fix any incompatibilities ASAP. --JorgeA

Just noticed something peculiar about the Windows Updates app (build 10074): if you go to Settings, then select Update & Security, then click on "Advanced options," at the top of the window you can "View your update history." Now if you click on that, you're offered a choice to "Uninstall updates," which sends you to the Control Panel applet that lets you do just that. OK, but isn't this kind of pointless as Windows 10 is currently configured? Given that you can no longer hide or even decline unwanted updates, if you uninstall an update it will simply pop back up and install itself without regard to your wishes, and whatever problem it caused that led you to uninstall it will keep coming back. The only reason I can see for this is for testing purposes, to see if uninstalling gets rid of the issue. But this is a rather limited purpose, considering you can't pass up the problem update. I haven't heard any suggestion that Microsoft intends to let users permanently decline their updates in Windows 10 RTM. What other scenarios are there to justify the uninstall option in the new OS? --JorgeA

That's a great point! To borrow an English saying, with freeware it's pretty much "easy come, easy go." Oh well, shucks, too bad. But when you've made a monetary investment in the product and then suddenly it stops working -- well, there's going to be hell to pay!! --JorgeA

Thanks for the insight, jaclaz. From the blackbox samples, I couldn't form a clear view of how extensive its modifications are, or how thoroughly one could in theory replace the Win10 shell with (say) a Win7 shell. But from your answer it sounds like a determined developer could create something that's fairly comprehensive. A "good enough" replica. Once Windows 10 is officially released and surprises 600 million Win7 users on a late summer day, this could become a market opportunity for Tihiy or the Classic Shell folks or the Stardock people. Unless, as you point out, Microsoft keeps locking things down and making it ever harder to do that. --JorgeA

LOL (not funny in reality), between this and Facebook which asks you for your email password when you register so they can "help you find your friends", you've got to wonder what's coming next in the grand spy scheme of those IT behemoths, harvesting everybody's biometric data no doubt. Whoa!! Does Facebook really ask for your e-mail password?? Sheesh. NFW. Top four entries on my Hosts file: 127.0.0.1 localhost::1 localhost127.0.0.1 www.facebook.com127.0.0.1 facebook.com--JorgeA

Is Windows 10 malware? Check out this description on Microsoft's own pages: From their own definition of the term, Windows 10 would seem to fit at least some of Microsft's criteria for "unwanted software." So... if I submit Windows 10 to them for analysis, will they add it to the Windows Defender definitions? I can just picture some unsuspecting Win7 user starting to download Win10 because he left the update settings on automatic, and then Defender stepping in to intercept it... --JorgeA

According to Thurrott, in 10025 Microsoft in Windows Setup seeks to capture your "input data" and location, and offers to automatically connect you to hotspots: How many of those hundreds of millions of PC users who acquiesce to Microsoft downgrading them to Win10, will know to be on the lookout for this sort of thing? I can see enterprising hackers driving up and down the street with a roaming hotspot to see who they can get to connect to them. That can't possibly be good, can it? Things just get worse and worse. --JorgeA

The screenshots for that blackbox thing were too few for me to form a clear impression of how comprehensive their changes are. So the question is whether it's possible for anybody other than Microsoft (and maybe even them) to create a complete, integrated and comprehensive "Windows 7-style shell" that would be interchangeable with the Windows 10 shell, as the ZDNet commenter had suggested. That way, those of us who prefer the Windows 7 model could stay on it while benefiting from whatever security and other improvements have come since then, while Metro and app fans could enjoy their favorite model it its full glory. Is that a practical objective, or pie-in-the-sky? To be sure, I'm talking whether it could be done, given the way Windows is currently structured, and not whether Microsoft wants to do it. Is that really possible, or does the only conceivable approach involve resigning ourselves to bolting together a little from here and a bit from there, just to get near to what we had in Windows 7? We may get a clue as to this, if and when we learn definitively whether it'll be possible to install themes in Windows 10, as has been the case since XP. The last time I tried, it was not (yet) possible. --JorgeA

Strangely enough, I didn't mention blackbox casually http://blackboxdesktop.deviantart.com/ I spent almost an hour looking at that blackbox thing. It's all too obscure and arcane for a non-techie like me. I didn't see any tutorials for how to actually use it. And the DevianArt page describes it as a "window manager." So, many questions remain unanswered, such as: Can it be used to create Aero Glass-style window borders and title bars?Can it be used to replace the Metro-style new "PC Settings" app with Control Panel?Will it replace Metro crapps, such as the photo viewer discussed a few posts upthread, with their Win32 equivalents?Basically, as the poster I quoted said: can it be used to "put the Windows 7 shell... on the Windows 10 kernel"?Note, too, the caution just before the text that you highight in the quote above: "may have issues on Windows 8." All in all, it doesn't look like an especially vibrant ecosystem, what with websites disappearing, scant participation in the ones that do exist... and then this confirmation of what I had already observed: The final straw was when HitmanPro.Alert intercepted an attack (DEP) and closed my browser while I was on that blackbox4windows.com website. --JorgeA

Another thought about that article describing Microsoft's plans to push ads on users: if they use the lock screen for that, wouldn't this defeat the purpose of having a lock screen? The whole point of it is to prevent others from fiddling with your PC while you're away from it. But having the lock screen become "interactive" means being able to affect the system from the lock screen. --JorgeA

Can anybody speak knowledgeably as to the feasibility of this idea? Define "knowledgeably". At least until XP it was a piece of cake to switch shells (possibly to something nicer/more useful than Wordperfect, like - say - blackbox, though . By "speaking knowledgeably" to the question, I'm asking people who are familiar enough with the inner workings of Windows to give their opinion as to whether it's feasible for Microsoft to do what the poster suggested. It doesn't have to be an ironclad, authoritative statement; an "educated guess" or "well-informed speculation" will do. But the emphasis is on "well-informed" and "educated" -- as opposed to, say, me pontificating on that particular technical point. Of course, I doubt that Microsoft has any desire to provide that level of choice, but I'm wondering if Windows (7? 8? 10?) is structured such that they could do that if they wanted to, without having to overhaul the entire code base. --JorgeA

I didn't know about XP showing GIFs better than 7. How is that so? I'll have to try it out and see if I can tell the difference. As for the metrotard photo viewer being the default -- well, they want everybody eventually to move over to metrotard apps. (One possible reason may be found in my next post.) * Still on 10074 here and Firefox offers normally to set itself as default. I will definitely check out what you said about that when I get the new build. They seem to be intent on making it harder and harder to run the system the way the user wants: hiding the steps for creating a local account, now removing the automated offer to change the browser. Of course Microsoft and its fanbois will tell you that they're not "forcing" you to do anything, you can still get what you want done even as they make it harder to do it. This is the special evil of their approach. They are tilting the lake so that you have to swim uphill if you want to picnic on the far shore. --JorgeA (*) This post was intended to appear before the one above it. Had them on separate computers and hit the Submit button at the same time, but the other one made it through first.

It's getting closer and closer to being official -- Windows is turning into adware. See this long post in the Insiders forum: @rn10950: this is the possible reason I was hinting at for Microsoft wanting everybody to switch over to Metro crapps, so that they can push more Metro crapps via the ones they already have open. So Windows is being turned not only into adware, but maybe also into spyware. Wonder it it'll be possible to disable that. It's already the case that, in the Windows Firewall, you can't disable Cortana phoning home. (At least, I was not able to.) --JorgeA

Selling the yearly subscription for the Enhanced Metro Photo Viewer App[1] to every lolcat lover Hey, that's one way to monetize "free" Windows: remove basic functionality and then restore it for a price. --JorgeA

What do y'all think of the following suggestion in the comments section of a recent post by Mary Jo Foley: Can anybody speak knowledgeably as to the feasibility of this idea? --JorgeA

The new icons do look more discreet. Even Paul Thurrott was complaining about the icons in 10122: For comparison, here's what those look like: Unbelievable about GIFs not opening in the Metro photo viewer, though. What could be the thinking behind that? --JorgeA

You may not have realized that you can do quick translations with Internet Explorer (I think version 9 or newer, though don't quote me on this)... -Noel Huh, I'm not sure that I'd ever tried selecting a piece of text on a webpage and right-clicking on it. I'm on IE8 in my Vista system. Doing that there brought up a context menu with (among other things) a choice to "Translate with Live Search," whatever that is. EDIT: Even the hovering action works. Learned something new today, thanks! BTW, another option in the context menu is to perform a search with my chosen search engine. Now, isn't that feature something they're touting in Spartan/Edge as a cool new capability of Cortana that'll help to win people over to Microsoft's Metro/Modern/Universal browser? And yet it was already there in IE8. Hmm, maybe I'll see if anybody has pointed this out on the Insider forums, and post it if nobody has. It'd be interesting to see how the fanbois reacted to the news. --JorgeA P.S. The sentiment in Chinese is right on the money.

That's entirely possible. For 10074, they announced publicly that some would get the Start Menu with translucency and some without, so it wouldn't surprise me to learn that they're experimenting this way with other aspects of the UI too. --JorgeA EIDT: typo!

Given what you had said just before this, I can't help but think that that must say something like, "Your PC are belong to us!" --JorgeA