NoelC

Consider also Classic Shell, which stops short of replacing the UI entirely but does a great deal to improve and augment what Microsoft chooses not to do well. And of course there's Aero Glass. Now consider that Microsoft does things to the system to break these nice tools practically every time they release an update (e.g., right now the "Run" facility of Classic Shell is non-functional in the latest build of Win 10, and Aero Glass doesn't work at all). Microsoft could provide documented interfaces for people to use, and maintain them for compatibility. As a matter of fact, their stated goal is to make the system modular so that they themselves can update whole parts of it independently. But they simply make it more difficult than practical for people to do anything to (and with) Windows for whatever reason. They are actively turning it into a moving target. Full control must be a sweet, sweet thing for unpublished reasons. The gulf is growing between what could be and what is, not shrinking. -Noel

Seems a natural fit to me... -Noel

DHJohns, I assume you're speaking of an unofficial build. I can't blame you for leaving the official flight ring... But I doubt it will have symbols available. I have read elsewhere that all the icons have all been updated - again - in leaked build 10125. Maybe there is someone inside the Galactic Empire that isn't completely corrupted by the Dark Side of Marketing. Maybe their system test people still have some clout. Sure would be nice if Win 10 starts to see usability improvements between now and release time. But there's the one BIG thing: Having used 10122 without Aero Glass for a few days, in this state it's simply unsuitable for replacing a system that has Aero Glass. Whenever I would boot up 10074 I would think to myself, wow, I could get to like the feel of this. Now, without AG or even any color, it's like, "ugh, why does Microsoft insist on making this so difficult?" Anyone notice that the "sterile ice planet" Win 10 theme matches the eye-searing "polar bear in a snowstorm" look of Office 2013? Maybe that's the way of the future: Make the (free) OS match the (money-making) App. If you stare at it long enough the UI just disappears. -Noel

I'm sure it's all in the name of "security". Need to secure Windows from all that nasty 3rd party software. If Microsoft can't make better software, they can wall off the garden so the better software just can't get in. -Noel

The first one at the top works on 8.1. -Noel

Hm, notwithstanding the doubling, some people's Xs are white and some are dark (mine are dark)... I wonder... Instead of giving people options and seeing what they choose, could Microsoft be setting some people's systems one way and others' another way, then looking at the feedback to see which gets more positive comments? "Lesser of evils" indeed! -Noel

You have a problem. You're frustrated. Welcome to the 21st century. But wouldn't it be better to start out respectfully and politely? Wouldn't that make it easier when you find out it's not working because of something you did wrong? Do you normally greet others with a threat in your very first communication? Do you get a lot of quality help when you do that? -Noel

You live in the USA too? What street? -Noel

Right, this isn't about running unlicensed, it's about what's considered legal by Microsoft and doing proper planning. In the case of virtual machines, as I recall there is a clause in the Windows 7 Ultimate license that allows the installation and use on multiple virtual machines. -Noel

I'm not running 7 on the host - there I have Win 8.1. I don't plan to change that until after the Win 10 release has proven itself. -Noel

Seriously? After all that revamping of the icons to be such an eyesore, they're throwing them all out and replacing them again? Is this an "it feels a lot better when it stops hurting so much" move? Are we supposed to thank them for this? Doesn't anyone at Microsoft have real work to do? I can't help but think that multiple branches are being developed and that there's really little hope we'll get good icons by the time of release. -Noel

You can schedule system image backups, and if you use the VSS (Volume Shadow Copy) integrated form they will be incremental once the first full one is done. Windows 7 offers a decent UI that you can use to set up scheduled backups. Go through the "Let me choose" path and uncheck everything in the top part of the dialog and make sure you check the [ ] Include a System image of drives: Reserved, C: box near the bottom. That gets you a VSS-integrated system image backup. Windows 8.1 unfortunately eliminated that UI but the same kind of backup is still possible. You'd have to schedule (with the Task Scheduler) a command similar to the following, which is the one I'm using: wbadmin start backup -allCritical -vssFull -quiet -backupTarget:G:\ In the above command, G: is my locally-connected MyBook drive. You'd use whatever drive letter or network path you need for that. If you want to be able to write to the same USB drive from both systems, you'll likely have to open up permissions (if they're not already open). -Noel

What expectations of Spartan do you have? Why does it need to be a separate app from Internet Explorer? What's the attractiveness in that? I have kind of a high end system but I don't find any speed problems at all with IE. I am having difficulty understanding why anyone would crave another browser from Microsoft - especially since they have said they're not going make it as compatible with existing web pages as IE. -Noel

I don't think you need to partition an external drive to run two different Windows Backup operations to it. Windows itself identifies the system from which System Image backups are made. The \WindowsImageBackup root folder will have subfolders named for the system being backed up. If both of the computers are on your LAN, you could share the external drive from one and set up scheduled backup to work via networking. You'd never need to change where the drive is plugged-in. Or you could get another inexpensive external drive (I'm very fond of Western Digital MyBook drives myself) and dedicate one to each system. That's actually what I do. -Noel

What would you want it to do? Overwrite the file quietly without a prompt? Not overwrite the file? Without knowing the answer to the above, I'll point out that there is an option in the Folder Options panel, View tab called "Hide folder merge conflicts" that causes Windows to handle file conflicts more automatically. Only other thing I could think of... I believe Classic Shell at one time could be configured to change the way Explorer dialogs like the one you showed to be more like older versions of Windows, but it doesn't work it for Windows 8 nor do I think they ever provided an option to overwrite without prompting. -Noel

Made some progress on this. They're changing the way the registry entries are interpreted. This (after doing the necessary Take Ownership and grant of permissions) hid the entries: -Noel

Ugh, don't remind me how much money I've sent to Microsoft over time. I bought Ballmer a basketball player toe or two. Hm, I wonder... If I have a legitimately licensed Win 7 VM all nice and activated and everything (which I do), and I clone it... Will I be able to upgrade it to Win 10 and still continue to use the Win 7 VM it was cloned from? -Noel

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

As mentioned, it's simply not possible to run 16 bit software on a 64 bit system. Microsoft COULD have made a Windows On Windows setup that would do it - all the components are already there (they can run 16 bit software on a 32 bit system, and 32 bit software on a 64 bit system, ergo they COULD run 16 bit software on a 64 bit system). But not having provided that, they incentivized software authors to upgrade their applications to at least 32 bit which, coincidentally, is where most software stopped at. The interesting thing is that while binary compatibility is provided by their WOW implementation, it's really quite trivial for a software writer to recompile his 32 bit program to run on a 64 bit system - yet many have never taken that step. I'm sure they think, "why bother?" I wonder when (or if) Microsoft will obsolete 32 bit software (i.e., remove the WOW system entirely from their 64 bit systems). I'm kind of surprised they didn't test those waters with Win 8 or 10. They're all about deleting things to make the system easier for Microsoft to maintain, and I've got to believe that the WOW system is complex. -Noel

Sadly, the day and age of respect have passed. We have entered the era of "take this software and shove it". Microsoft wants us to get used to being told off by them and the OS - and of course paying for the privilege. A public so trained will be valuable indeed. Maybe it's a good thing, since it won't be long before systems achieve self-awareness, at which point they'll stop doing things for us anyway. Or there could be a time a system will be provided in a single language that's not amongst the one(s) we know. 高科技是越来越低。 -Noel

-Noel

My audio interpretations: >...a lot of bridge-burning and people who didn't like it and people who really did like it because they [inaudible] to him and it just happened... [inaudible] == "...they owed their career to him..." AZ says: "At the end of the day they essentially gave everything back." ...then a bit later... PT says: "They got the desktop part of it right." NC says: NOT BY A FRICKING LONGSHOT. -Noel

(said with tongue in cheek)... Why would you want to know which was is the active one? Running multiple applications so yesteryear! What's wrong with you? You're SUPPOSED to want to run just one of anything at a time! Get with the program! By the way... Two windows compared on Win 10 build 10074 running Aero Glass... Without Big Muscle's Aero Glass to help differentiate active and background windows, it's just ridiculous to try to use the desktop. Since he's promised a new version that works with Win 10 only after the actual Win 10 release, it's not going to be very pleasant testing the rest of the Win 10 preview builds. Maybe I should just stop... By the way, this "can't really tell what's active" isn't really just about border coloration. Remember way back when you could count on the window with the flashing cursor being the one you're about to type into... I can't remember the situation, but I've definitely seen flashing cursors in multiple windows simultaneously. -Noel

These shills (and make no mistake, that's what the people quoted still are) are making the tacit assumption that Windows 10 is NOT a one way street. It's simply a deflection of attention to the thing everyone agrees was a flop. Kind of a "have you stopped beating your Windows yet" situation. We could of course all just go on and pretend that Windows 7 was the last release that ever meant anything. I suspect that's going to happen amongst enterprises. Now, whether some successor updates to Win 10 will make it *just* attractive enough... We can't know. No one has wanted to find the Good in Darth Windows more than I, but ****, the dark side doesn't yield easily. Each new build makes me want to adopt it less and less. -Noel

I think that's reasonable. From where I sit it sure seems like they keep doing things specifically to thwart you. You might as well wait until they release - though frankly there's no promise they won't continue to change these things the day after release. I'll bet the phrase "they can't hit a moving target" has been used inside Microsoft. Have you noticed that the "please restore Aero Glass" feedback messages with the huge "Me Too" counts seem to have evaporated? People who are pro Aero Glass are being banned from Microsoft sites. Microsoft clearly doesn't think Aero Glass could be good for their future. Apparently the folks who govern the "development of the brand" inside Microsoft have Absolute Power and really, REALLY want no one to be able to change the look and feel. If car makers took this extreme an approach they'd make cars that couldn't be painted a different color or have any spoilers, racks, lights, etc. bolted onto them. Sadly, those of us who'd like it to look different than what Microsoft prescribes, because we find Aero Glass more productive or just prettier, are probably just screwed from here on. -Noel