JorgeA

C'mon, man! That's just soooo last decade! http://lifehacker.com/399091/windows-search-40-available-on-windows-update LOL --JorgeA

A guy I used to know once told me that, many years ago, astronomers had captured signals of TV shows that had bounced back to Earth decades later. Don't know if that was true, but it makes me think. What would an alien civilization think of us if they saw some of the stuff that we put out there? Gives a new dimension to the idea of putting your best foot forward... --JorgeA

That's weird. When I copy-and-pasted the headline from NeoWin, it came with the hyperlink automatically (the "hand" would show up when I hovered over it), so there was no need to manually add the link. And now the headline is underlined but not associated with a URL. Very strange. --JorgeA UPDATE: Link now added. Thanks for pointing this out.

One small ray of light: Windows 10: Transparency coming to future builds for the Start menu You know it's really bad when even NeoWin thinks it can be improved. For three years they've been cheering for the Metro/Win8 UI train wreck. --JorgeA

Return of Aero Glass Theme most requested feature for Windows 10 Your customers are speaking, Microsoft. Are you truly listening? --JorgeA

I clicked on the Cortana icon and the first thing that came up was a box telling me how nosy the service was going to be. Sorry Microsoft, but I'm not interested in you knowing everything about me. So I declined the offer and went straight to Settings to disable all privacy intrusions. Funny thing -- there didn't seem to be a listing for privacy settings anymore, I had to search for it specifically. If you didn't already know it was possible to change your privacy settings, you wouldn't search for it. At some point while I was turning off all the privacy intrusions, I got a warning that this would disable Cortana. "Go for it!!" was my reaction. Now the search icon in the Taskbar calls up the regular search function. Still need to see if it's possible to tell it to look ONLY on my computer, and not around the Web. --JorgeA

I had it even worse than you a couple of times already -- clicking on Settings would open the window, but with nothing inside it, just black. --JorgeA

Thanks, that's good to know! Let's see how long they allow that to continue... --JorgeA

I had to extend my Win10TP partition in order to get it to install 9926. Finally got it installed last night, and my impressions match yours: they're making it worse, not better. Did you notice the tiny, impossibly thin navigation arrows they've put in File Explorer? (Maybe not, they're easy to miss except that that's where you would look to click on the arrows.) They've made the Start Menu even uglier than before, if that was possible. Now it shoots halfway across my screen, no matter how few tiles I have on it. :angrym: And if you're using a dark-colored theme, there is so little contrast between the Start Menu background and the scrollbar and arrows that you can hardly see them. The Personalization category in the new Settings app is a joke compared to what you can still get by right-clicking on the Desktop. About the only meaningful choice you get there is to change the wallpaper. The new Windows Update process is even less informative than before. Click on an available update, and it no longer tells you the size of the update; while the infobox tells you to see the related KB article for more information on the update, it gives neither a link nor even a URL to cut-and-paste onto your browser so that youy can look it up. Wrong way, Microsoft, wrong way! --JorgeA

Thanks jaclaz, that was informative as always. It's remarkable how much activity and innovation was going on in the UI arena twenty years ago. If Microsoft doesn't fix the Windows 10 UI, maybe there will be a resurgence in the market for alternative UI's. --JorgeA

^^ I remember reading somewhere that Microsoft is offering these tablet licenses for free or almost free, figuring that they'll make it up on Windows Store app sales. --JorgeA

Something else that people are reporting missing from the revamped Control Panel (now renamed "Settings") is the choice whether to download and install updates. See this thread; it's giving people fits and leaving their computers unusable. There is a registry fix here to bring back the regular Windows Update (I have not verified that it works). Sure, this is a beta and we agreed to the terms of use and all that. Nonetheless, up to now you could call up the regular Windows Update applet and hardware drivers were optional, not automatic. This is just asking for trouble, and is already getting trouble. Nor does it speak very well for the direction Microsoft is taking with regard to user choice. --JorgeA

An important tidbit from that thread: --JorgeA

Check out this thread about the build 9926 Start Menu thread in the Windows Insider Program. Unfrickinbelievable. If you look around the discussions in that forum, the standard responses to complaints are "use the Feedback app," and "you know this is only a beta, right?" Well for all intents and appearances the effect of using that Feedback app has been negative -- i.e., the developers are moving AWAY FROM what people are clamoring for. And no doubt they would like for everybody to shut up about what's wrong with the UI until it's too late to fix it before RTM, at which time they could respond, "well, you should have spoken up sooner." And as I pointed out upthread, in any case it's now questionable whether they care about or even want any feedback that doesn't conform to their predetermined direction. --JorgeA EDIT: typos

The windows in that Breadbox Ensemble UI look very much like Windows 95/98. I'd never heard of Breadbox, did they come out with this UI before or after Windows 95, and what OS was their UI intended to be used with? Regarding the people who devised the interface, IMO either the Win10 designers need to go to remedial design school at once before they do any more damage, or they must be fired and replaced immediately. --JorgeA

They have managed not only to eliminate the 3D (depth) aspect, but also to wash out the coloring from the window control buttons. What is it with this spreading (anti-)esthetic in OS design?? --JorgeA

A link to a description of a Win10TP rollup led to the following screen: Maybe the TP program isn't quite as open and forthcoming as we'd been led to believe... --JorgeA

From this blog post by Gabriel Aul, some good news and some bad news: Question: where is the equivalent to the Programs option in Control Panel?? This seems to be replacing the dedicated Search box on the TP Taskbar, as well as (some say) Start Menu Search. So, can I configure Cortana to search ONLY on my PC? One definite improvement. It was annoying to have it go to "Frequent Folders" by default. And a big "uh-oh" in the comments section: --JorgeA

I'm starting to question either the competence or the integrity of the TP Windows Feedback program via the Windows Feedback app. Over the last few days, I've submitted at least three items via the app. None of them has shown up in the list of "Most Recent" items. As my suspicions grew, I decided to start capturing them before submitting (thankfully, the highlight + Ctrl-C commands work on the app so that I can save them in Notepad). Here are two: Please enable use of the PgUp, Pg/dn, Home, and End buttons when wading through the Feedback suggestions. (Currently they don't do anything within the Feedback lists.) It's slow and tedious to have to scroll through every listed suggestion all over again every time you finish voting on a particular one -- you're always taken back to the top of the list. For Pete's sake, at least take us back to where we had been on the list instead of back to the top!!! If this Feedback app is intended to showcase the possibilities of Metro, I am NOT impressed. It's a limited, constrained existence compared to real Windows applications.The feedback I submit via the Feedback app never seems to show up on the list, even days after I submit it. Makes me wonder about either the quality or the integrity of the Feedback process.Somehow, I suspect that Microsoft's response is more likely to be to disable saving feedback to memory for pasting to Notepad, than to address these concerns. --JorgeA

Amen to that. About the merging of the Control Panel with the PC Settings: my first reaction to that is -- OK, what user choices are they eliminating with this overhaul? --JorgeA

The odd thing is, I saw that same translucent TP Start Menu on another website (can't find it now ) as well as on the print version of the Wall Street Journal's coverage of this week's Win10 showcase. --JorgeA UPDATE: In the ongoing discussion in WinBeta, a couple of people have said that that translucent Start Menu is shown on Microsoft's own website (although, sadly, nobody gives a URL):

Your analysis and predictions make a lot of sense to me, they're right in line with what I've been thinking. The only quibble I may have is that Microsoft did make some UI changes in Win10 for the sake of desktop users -- bringing back the (Franken)Start Menu and enabling Boot to Desktop without having to go searching for these tweaks on the Web. This may tip the scales in 10's favor for some number of Windows users. To me, this makes the 10 UI less objectionable, but when I look at the opaque window borders I can't help but feel I'm back in 1998, and when I see the all-around flatness I feel I'm back in 1985. And yet they call it "modern" and "progress." --JorgeA

I'm interested in this hologram thing only if I get to chase Counselor Troi or Dr. Crusher around a meadow. --JorgeA

That rates both a (for the first part) and a (for the second, in agreement). Other screenshots I've seen of the Start Menu don't feature this translucency, so I'm wondering if the image I sourced from WinBeta might have been a mockup rather than something that represents what the Start Menu will actually look like in the coming TP build. The Microsoft folks apparently weren't real clear on this (Windows subscription) point in their presentation today, maybe on purpose. But I hadn't thought of it as ransomware -- yet that's exactly what it sounds like, doesn't it. I would hope that if you stop paying the monthly fee they would let you retrieve your existing data and application licenses; I think that's how it's supposed to work with Office 364 where you can download your current files but not create new ones if your sub expires. --JorgeA

Yeah, the battle rages on. Sad to say, some people just don't seem to be able to grasp the concept of choice: for them, it's either their way or the highway. You did yeoman work for what, three years fighting Metro, and I'm sure I'm not the only one around here who admires the quality (and the persistence ) of your arguments over on Channel 9. Let someone else take over now. --JorgeA