JorgeA

Slowly, the truth trickles out. Looks like our suspicions about the intended phaseout of Win32 applications are well-founded. Check out this discussion from Windows Weekly 406: [corrected mistranscribed name for "Win32 apps"] [emphasis added; highlighted portions edited for clarity] On a more ridiculous note, see how Metro which became Modern which became Universal has now become "Windows apps." Truly a NCI, as @jaclaz designated it. --JorgeA

The tech headline of the year: Microsoft needs to cut the mobile cancer from Windows 10 --JorgeA

Gorgeous!! Nice work. Must have taken quite a while to put these together. I appreciate your taking the time to show what Windows 10 could be. Any of these themes is light-years ahead of Metro flatness in beauty, but of course my favorite one is the Aero Glass theme. Thanks very much. --JorgeA

^^ I had my suspicions, and had speculated about it, but hadn't actually seen such a clear example of groupthink where their opinions would do a 180 based on what Microsoft did. I guess in the back of my mind I kept hoping that it'd be possible to carry on a rational discussion with them. --JorgeA

Here's a very interesting observation in the Windows Insider forum: This suggests that hatred of Aero has more to do with fashion/bandwagon/groupie/sheep psychology than with matters of taste or esthetics. There are the people who are wired (or who have wired themselves) to automatically cheer for anything Microsoft does, or for anything that's "new" -- and then there are the people who have their own independent judgment. --JorgeA

Windows Phone sees meager growth from Q1 2014 to Q1 2015 worldwide --JorgeA

And another choice removed from Windows users: Windows Media Center is dead The (IMO) best program Microsoft ever added to Windows was a victim of bad timing. When it first came out in XP around 2003, it was too early. CableLabs dragged their feet mightily in approving (certifying) WMC for use with CableCards, which enabled users to view cable TV channels via WMC. Lacking that capability at a time when virtualy the whole country was on cable, Media Center had little reason for existence. There's no mention of CableCards even in Vista MC. It wasn't until when Windows 7 came out that WMC could finally process cable channels, but by then the Great Recession was in full swing and the cord-cutting trend had started as people were looking for ways to cut down on expenses. You can save $10-$12 a month by using WMC instead of the cable company's DVR, but then you can also save $100 a month by dropping cable altogether. In any case, by that time WMC had already been forgotten. What a shame. But for fans and users of Windows Media Center, it's yet another reason to stay on Windows 7. (There is a version available for Win8, but that one was already gimped as it lacks support for WMC extenders.) --JorgeA

Thanks for the idea, Formfiller. Sadly, it didn't work either. I'm torn between reporting the issue on the TP Insiders forum to help improve the OS, and refraining from reporting it so that it ships with as many problems as possible. They've become so hostile to user choice that I am just no sure any longer that they deserve to be helped to succeed. --JorgeA

Got a chance to try this. It does work on 10074, for me at least. --JorgeA

Windows 10 emoji give new skin tones, middle finger and some sass Well, it's not hard to guess which emoji will get the most use, especially with regard to Windows 10... --JorgeA

And speaking of the Start Menu, it sounds like What You See (now) Is What You Get: New features and improvements coming to Windows 10 --JorgeA

All right, I've managed to wreck the new Win10 Start Menu. Relying on @Formfiller's link showing how to get to the Group Policy Editor, I found settings under "Search" to turn off Web search when using Start Search. Because of the way they're worded ("Don't search the web"), I figured that the desired setting was to Enable. Did that, and then launched the Start Menu. The Search bar disappeared completely from the Start Menu. I guess Microsoft considers my laptop part of the Web. Went back into gpedit.msc (which I still had open), and reverted the setting back to "Not Configured." No change: the search bar didn't come back to the Start Menu. Rebooted and opened the Start Menu. No dice -- still no search bar in there. For whatever reason, the Search icon in the Taskbar still works (although with Bing results and headlines included :angrym: ). Not sure if there is any other way to try to get the search bar back into the Start Menu. What a POS, this Win10. And no, that doesn't stand for "point of sale." It's back to Classic Shell for me. We'll see if Search still works from there. --JorgeA

"Comparison"?? Are you kidding??? There IS no comparison between Windows 7 (or even 8) and Windows 10!!! There is so much empty real estate on those Win10 apps, a "developer" could move right in and put a mall there!!! Which (come to think of it) may be exactly what they're planning to do... --JorgeA

Apple iPad, Tablets' Best Growth Years Are History Those "two-in-one devices" presumably include Surface -- one of the increasingly dubious reasons for which Microsoft is busily destroying the Windows experience. --JorgeA

Heh, now you have an example to give if a metrotard asks you sarcastically if you've ever admitted to being wrong about anything... --JorgeA

The following paragraph in Woody's writeup reflects my main concern about the new update process: Annoy half a percent of your user base here, half a percent there, and before you know it your user base will be at... half a percent of what it was when you started with this asinine policy. --JorgeA

The size mismatch is a tiny price to pay for the immensely improved and helluva lot more integrated look. Title bars in Windows 10 are looking more and more like the dingy, gritty gray window borders you see in most unmodified Linux distros. --JorgeA

I haven't cared for that "My Documents" thing since Windows 98. It's an unnecessary layer of abstraction that actually makes things harder on those occasions when you need to navigate to the actual directory for whatever reason. At the same time, I do like the abstraction represented by assigning letters to drives, as it simplifies matters considerably. That "sba3" and "hdb1" stuff in Linux directories drives me nuts, I never know what's what. Every time I use some Linux variant, I end up screaming at the monitor, "Just tell me where the d*mn C: drive is!!!!!" --JorgeA

Maybe not all you'd like, but there is still the possibility of just replacing the theme atlas with Big Muscle's Aero Glass toolset... -Noel Yeah, I guess I'll have to read up on "theme atlases" if and when I make the move to Windows 8/10. Have to admit, though, that your Desktop looks pretty nice. Hey, is that the Weather app in the middle of the screen -- with its own translucent border? I thought that Metro apps were, uhh, immune to customization of that sort. --JorgeA

Another one that had me scratching my head was the setting to, "Let apps use my advertising ID for experiences across apps." What's my "advertising ID"? --JorgeA

LOL

^^ That sounds promising. How do you do it? --JorgeA

The numbers are in, Windows 7 still the most used operating system worldwide --JorgeA

That may be the AIO (all-in-one, I had to look it up ). Missing is the iconic PC tower case that we all (or at least I) think of when we say, "PC." BTW, I've noticed some deep, deep discounts on laptops and PCs lately, both online and at bricks-and-mortar stores, on the order of hundreds of dollars. It's actually making me nervous, as that's the sort of thing that happens when a product is on the way out. If the idea behind Window s8 was to kill off the real PC, I fear that it may have worked. --JorgeA EDIT: @Trip beat me to the explanation.

This goes to @MagicAndre's question a few posts back about being able to change the desktop icons. Windows 10 build 10074 ditches classic Appearance and themes support Themes are definitely not working for me yet (if they ever will). I keep trying to install a Vista theme using UxStyle, but it doesn't make any perceptible difference. --JorgeA