NoelC

Only problem with this logic is that 7 was too, just not quite as good or exclusive one - so all you're doing is choosing between the style of tag. They've been executing to this plan to turn Windows into what it is for quite some time. Only real thing that's changed is that they used to think they had to provide value, then hype it. Some bastard figured out that you can go almost the whole way on hype alone. -Noel

...Do you also lose the ability to play DVDs in Media Player if you upgrade an MCE system to Win 10? Or by some miracle do the additional codecs survive? If they're lost, is there any way to port them up into Win 10? -Noel

Are you sensing any advantage to using Edge vs. Internet Explorer? Just curious. -Noel

So glad I upgraded to Office 2010 from 365. -Noel

Not exactly, not without a full theme replacement anyway, and fully operational, polished themes may be a little scarce since Win 10 is so new. But you can get part of the way there... This is the best I've been able to do by using registry reducing the title bar size via registry mods and reducing the button graphics via a theme atlas replacement (facilitated by Big Muscle's software): Registry file for reducing title bar size can be found here: http://Noel.ProDigitalSoftware.com/ForumPosts/Win81/SetWindowMetrics.reg Theme atlas files: http://Noel.ProDigitalSoftware.com/ForumPosts/Win10/10240/RoundedCornersBlueActive.png http://Noel.ProDigitalSoftware.com/ForumPosts/Win10/10240/RoundedCornersBlueActive.png.layout -Noel

The InstallSignatureBypass file is just a .reg file I created for convenience, and it may be system-specific depending on whether you have anything else in the AppInit_DLLs value. Here's what mine contains. I believe Big Muscle provides an AeroGlassReflectionImage.png with one of his packages; in any case I don't use it at all (the "Glass reflection image" box is unchecked in my setup in the Aero Glass configuration GUI tool). It's just in that folder because that's where I happened to unzip the contents of Big Muscle's .7z file. I provided a link to the theme atlas that matches the Aero7 theme in the first post above. The RoundedCornersWin81.png file is a leftover from before I used the Aero7 theme and isn't used to achieve what you see in my screen grab. -Noel

Hey, the instructions are bigger than ever before. -Noel

Thanks for the high level discussion, guys. Don't get me wrong, I'm in full agreement with the "...yet" part. I prefer to plan before acting. I'm thinking ahead to the time when all the lights are green. Trying to define when that will be. Based on what I see right now, I don't think it's going to be terribly long - possibly a matter of months. Just today, for example, Classic Shell is released for Win 10. I went into my Win 8.1 from 7 upgrade a couple of years ago with exactly the same thoughts, and I did skip Windows 8.0 entirely precisely because it degraded my working environment by a small amount that I never could recover. By the time Win 8.1 came out I already had resolved all the usability issues (through the use of reconfiguration and augmentation with 3rd party software that had become available), and so it was a convenient time to re-evaluate. Ultimately I did go with Win 8.1 and looking back I'm happy that I did, as it has been the most trouble-free, productive experience I've had to date with any Windows system. And that's saying a lot, because my Windows 7 experience was also very good. My drive to keep on the "bleeding edge" is in large part because I've had good experiences so far riding that wave. There is no better way to know how the latest things work (and keep the mind pliable) than to immerse oneself in them. But, as they say, "past experience is no guarantee of future results", so I also remain prudently cautious. If it's a decision that's more than just "what system am I going to play games with?" it's a necessary prudence. Is this a time where it's still best to wait? Certainly for a short while at least. A month? Three? Not sure. Is Microsoft going to do nefarious things after getting a whole bunch of people to migrate from Win 7? Their recent track record isn't that good. Windows 7 Backup is back, for now. It will go away again, almost certainly, as Microsoft continues their Grand Plan. I'm sure they just feel Windows 8.1 was ahead of its time. When considering "staying current", does Microsoft have my best interests as a "content and program producer" in mind? Their recent antics suggest otherwise. On the other hand, one could find oneself producing things no one wants if one holds back too long. There's still no direct path for a "less than enterprise-sized" small business to get into using Windows 10 Enterprise for a reasonable price. The idea has always been to use "Pro" for that sort of thing, but what happens if they differentiate the variants further? That being said, Visual Studio 2015 Community is actually fully-featured, so that represents a big expense I won't need to have and it does say that Microsoft is interested in supporting producers. The mention of the Skylake architecture preferring to support Win 10 is not unexpected. This goes to the point I mentioned where product development will look more forward than back - i.e., primarily at the current system and less at "legacy" systems. It will happen more and more, since like it or not Windows IS becoming something else. We don't yet know what an attractive computer system in 2020 is going to look like, exactly, but we can be pretty sure it will be more connected than ever. I'm getting an upgrade to 100 megabit service here in a week or two, for no extra cost. I believe we can expect ever more reliance on the net. Does that mean I plan to share everything with Microsoft or whomever runs a cloud server? Hardly. Chances are pretty good that Microsoft will, now that they've achieved "release", start to optimize Windows 10 a bit, so we may see some performance improvements over time. As mentioned above, it's not really worse per se, just not better as many want us to believe. While everyone likes better performance, I use good enough hardware that "not better" is okay. I think it will certainly be prudent, upon the choice to "throw the switch", to buy a separate USB drive strictly for the purpose of long-term system image archival (in addition to the multi-level ongoing backups I do), so that I could resurrect my activated Win 8.1 system to a formatted partition should there suddenly be a "can't get there from here any longer" situation with the new system. That being said, I've never had such a situation arise in the past. It crossed my mind that this could be a good time to buy a whole new workstation just to be able to keep a whole older system intact. Trouble is, what I have is not outdated and I really don't have an ongoing use for another system (I already have a separate small business server). Having upwards of $10K in workstation hardware just sitting in the closet as a hedge, and growing obsolete, isn't really a viable plan... Decisions, decisions... -Noel

Win 10 is upon us. It's released, and it's actually proving to be quite compatible with the realm of desktop applications. No one has built a "must have" Metro/Modern App that I have a use for yet, and I'm weighing the potential value of a desktop-only Win 10 configuration, which I already have on my workstation currently based on Win 8.1. Here are the attributes: Oriented to business / software engineeringDesktop-only (for now at least)Tweaked with Aero Glass / Classic Shell (and a host of other things) for usabilityOptimized for performance and responsivenessLarge amount of applications and dataExclusive use of Local AccountUAC (and thus all Modern toys) DisabledTelemetry and data gathering blocked At this point on a test virtual machine I've achieved technically all the same tweaks I have done for the host system desktop, so now I am trying to refine my analysis to determine whether Win 10 will give me sufficient value over Win 8.1 to offset the risks. I'm presently comparing the following positives and negatives: Pros It's current and will be kept up to date by Microsoft. The big question: How much is this worth given that Microsoft's goals to be ever more consumer-oriented and mine to be work-oriented seem to be drifting apart? It's not like it's more stable than Win 8.1, nor am I really seeing any bugs solved. So what is the value of a continued partnership with Microsoft now? It's harder than ever to quantify. 3rd parties (e.g., display driver writers, high-end application writers), will no doubt start putting the most effort into writing and testing their products for Windows 10 - especially if it gets a decent adoption rate. Most folks believe a large percentage of Win 8.1 users will migrate to Win 10. That will matter if I expand my system, or get a new one. I've got a fully set up and tweaked system in a big VM, and I can run it as an immersive environment across all my monitors, so I have already proven Win 10 will support all my development tools. I actually enjoy using it (hardly surprising, it's an almost perfect workalike to my main system's desktop). I also have a pretty good idea how difficult it will be to set everything up, as I have already done it. I would make a new system setup a fresh, clean install, of course. Cons Given the promise of "continuous updates", there is no assurance that just because I can make Win 10 work today to my expectations that it will be acceptable in the future. But... How much less acceptable will an older OS be in 6 months? 2 years? Chances are very few folks are going to stay on Win 8.1, specifically, so I'll probably be hanging out in the breeze pretty soon. On the other hand, Microsoft can't be completely insensitive to the needs and desires of enterprise. Such users do pay good money and keep the lights on in Redmond. A few minor, non-show-stopping challenges... I still haven't got a full theme replacement that returns visual styles to all the common controls (personally, I find skeuomorphism makes a system a lot easier to use), but there are already such themes out there that are good, if not polished. I'll either polish one up or find an acceptable one at some point. And flat, square buttons aren't completely unusable. (short term) A few applications aren't *quite* ready yet. An example of an important application I use is VMware Workstation. Reports still seem mixed so far about how well it runs under Windows 10 as a host. I'll also want to wait until Big Muscle releases a production version for Aero Glass for Win 10, and Ivo Beltchev releases Classic Shell as well. It's a difficult decision, perhaps even less clearly delineated for me than ever before. There really aren't yet things about Windows 10 that differentiate it much from Win 8.1 yet. It's really what we'd have expected from a Win 8.2 package, and for that reason it's not terribly compelling to me - yet - but on the flip side is also a pretty easy migration. Up to now I've done well by running the latest Windows systems - with a few notable exceptions (I waited until Vista matured with a Service Pack, and I skipped Windows 8.0). So I feel there IS a good bit of value in keeping current. Just writing this stuff down has already helped me to see things more clearly... Right now, considering the things I've jotted down above, it boils down to trying to quantify one thing: How much value is there really going to be in a continued partnership with Microsoft? -Noel

Do you have secure boot enabled? I believe that has to be off. Do you see any debug window open (basically, a CMD console) when you start a Modern App? -Noel

What does that set of keys have to do with telemetry / privacy? Just curious. I searched my registry and found other references to {21157C1F-2651-4CC1-90CA-1F28B02263F6}, listed below, but with virtually no info describing what they're for. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\DeviceAccess\AccessChangeProviders\{21157C1F-2651-4cc1-90CA-1F28B02263F6} HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\DeviceAccess\CapabilityMappings\Sms\{21157C1F-2651-4CC1-90CA-1F28B02263F6} HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\DeviceAccess\Classes\{21157C1F-2651-4CC1-90CA-1F28B02263F6} HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Control\DeviceClasses\{21157c1f-2651-4cc1-90ca-1f28b02263f6} HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\DeviceClasses\{21157c1f-2651-4cc1-90ca-1f28b02263f6} HKEY_USERS\S-1-5-21-xxxxxxxxxx-xxxxxxxxxx-xxxxxxxxxx-xxxx\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\DeviceAccess\Global\{21157C1F-2651-4CC1-90CA-1F28B02263F6} -Noel

I agree, people are irresponsible quite often. When occasionally that strategy goes wrong it becomes a "life lesson". And it's not even a very nasty one - it can be fixed without loss of life or limb. I don't know how Microsoft manages its activations, but if they blacklisted his original product code there may be a good reason. But, as stated, it's all just conjecture. This brings to mind a question... Does Windows re-check its activation regularly? Or does it just stay activated once it's activated? I honestly don't know. -Noel

Reboot, of course, to get the AppInit_DLLs setting to take effect. If that's not it, then details matter... The key elements are missing from your display, Hunk4TH. Export the key and see that the listed fields match this, which is from a working system: Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Windows]"AppInit_DLLs"="C:\\AeroGlass\\UxThemeSignatureBypass64.dll C:\\AeroGlass\\ModernFrame.dll""LoadAppInit_DLLs"=dword:00000001Note the escaped backslashes. -Noel

With all due respect to Woody and others (and I do think Woody has his head screwed on straight; I really like his writings), why would anyone think Microsoft will change their direction now? They clearly have a master multi-year plan that does not include the kind of computing freedom we once had.They haven't shown any tendency to veer off course from any prior "bad ideas", however bad.They're not failing, business-wise. -Noel

Why would anyone choose to upgrade without having made a system image backup they could restore in a pinch? That's just irresponsible, especially if they're doing things they shouldn't be. One of the awful things about criminal behavior is that criminals are on their own, without society's support. Poor dears. -Noel

Uh, no. The only thing available now is a beta build intended for finding bugs. -Noel

From the perspective of a company making an operating system that is (supposedly) capable of completely replacing an older version, why would they bother to put new features in an old version? That would make no sense. Whether Windows 10 actually IS capable of replacing Windows 7... That's open for debate, but Microsoft's intent is clearly that it will. It would be absolutely stupid of them to have cut such a clear path (i.e., where they expect EVERYONE to upgrade) and then do something that would make it even slightly more likely someone would want to stay on the old version. Face it, Windows 10 is here. The time for optimizing its use is upon us. Those who are taking a conservative approach will find it viable for only a limited time (possibly years, but limited nonetheless). -Noel

Have you installed a 3rd party theme? I ask because I experimented briefly with a theme called "Aero 7" and it began changing backgrounds automatically. What you described seems to be the way to set it normally... I have the Background setting at "Picture" and it doesn't change. -Noel

Looks like a suffusion of yellow... And green. And so the claim that Windows 10 is faster than earlier versions for gaming is now debunked too. Interesting. Is this OS better at anything - besides pleasing dhjohns and raising everyone else's suspicions - than its predecessors? -Noel

No. and http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/173379-windows-10/page-9#entry1094319 You will need also to create registry value RequireSignedAppInit_DLLs in that same key and set it to 0. -Noel

DHJohns, did you by chance get a comparative speed test from the old system before you upgraded? -Noel

LOL, I'm as early adopter as they come. Been involved with the preview program since day one. I have a fully set up and optimized for work Win 10 test system here. It's just that it's not (yet?) better than Win 8.1 for what I do, nor is it mature. For some folks, "moving on" involves more than just a whim and a desire to be "fashionable". Thank you for listing the benefits you've sensed. I hadn't heard about a lower ping time. I take it that's with an existing game. I'm all about objective multi-system testing, and what I see is maybe a slight improvement in upload speed with Win 10... No latency improvement though. I'm not sure that's not just the expected variation one might expect from one test to the next. Interesting that it's steadily faster as the systems get newer. Nor am I sensing any apparent difference in page load times. I suggest differing configurations could be responsible for that. -Noel

I realize you're trying to use a feature that should work, but... I've found I get the best results with the newer several generations of operating systems by not trying to use any of the features Microsoft has tried to glue on. This includes things like pinning, libraries, jump lists, and even keeping items in the Taskbar that are not running. It's like they created new ways for people to do things, but never bothered to finish them. The last thing in the world we need is an operating system where things don't work reliably. On the other hand, ancient things like icons on the desktop work pretty reliably. Maybe it's not "hip", but personally I think "works" is a lot better than "hip". I suggest gradually getting out of the habit of using the "new" features can lead to a good way to use Windows. -Noel

Yes, it's possible to make a desktop-centric, local account-based Win 10 configuration. As far as being impressed... I'd be interested in hearing what you find impressive. I have been able to find very little to be impressed with so far. -Noel

Thanks. My web server didn't have an .htaccess entry for .layout files to set the mime type. It does now. -Noel