xpclient

Exactly how I feel too. It's just entertainment, fun and games. Your work productivity is also entertainment for Microsoft.

You write well Noel and express exactly my thoughts about Windows. Keep your criticism coming, I love it. What you see as a problem that maybe you think started with Windows 8 - I feel that it started with Windows Vista - the general trend of dumbing down and elimination of useful old features just because something new had to replace it. Whether it was better or not suddenly no longer mattered to Microsoft, it just had to be different. Still I would say Windows Vista and Windows 7 were significant steps forward in overall functionality although that's when the attention to detail was lost and many regressions and backward steps started happening in certain areas of the OS. Windows 8.1 too as you say can largely be fixed, as flawed as it is, using third party desktop apps making up for what Microsoft could never give power users with serious productivity and professional needs. And like you, I find that with Windows 10 they have reached a point where third party apps can no longer truly fix the mess they have made. You can't fix the forced updates, or forced drivers. They don't get it that such a design can create a problem for people, waste their time, abuse their internet bandwidth, affect a mission-critical task or simply reduce hardware functionality (in case of forced drivers from WU!). One can no longer fix what they completely removed from the UI such as seeing the size of updates. You can't fix what they eliminated completely from various Windows settings and features. It's not that I am against fun features in Windows. Everyone loves fun features as long as they don't actually affect serious work. But it has reached a point where the silliness is getting ahead of serious computing. Silly features are REPLACING more capable features of the OS. And the feedback is just a token marketing gesture. Their culture no longer has a healthy relationship with customers. They will do whatever the hell they want and you must accept it. The touch-first UI (Settings app and most of the silly built-in apps) are still being shoved down our throat. These apps lack menus and text labels - two core UI elements which aided usability and helped mouse and keyboard operation. All of the UI is flat giving no sense of where to click, it has only icons. It is slow, hardly does anything new or impressive. Even if it's dumbed down, it's NOT easy to operate using mouse or keyboard. It's simplified but not intuitive. And when you start using it, they will abandon it if telemetry tells them that no one uses it. Or if there's no team or no developer at Microsoft to manage that code, it will be abandoned too. The whole platform is falling by the wayside as it gets more and more irrelevant because they don't focus on the product's experience as a whole. The majority of the world is a consumer of content, only a few create it but the OS for content creation is being modified for content consumption. Things that can help developer and power user efficiency, or productivity are just no longer important to Microsoft. It's really a sad state of affairs. The new Microsoft CEO openly says things like "Our industry only respects innovation, it doesn't respect tradition". That is code for "We will only ship new code and do planned obsolescence of old stuff, and in this process, if anything gets lost, it's not our problem. Deal with it." Despite such a toxic attitude towards customers, Microsoft's Board keeps him as CEO because he brings in money from the Azure business he once led!

Hmm I don't know what then. I guess some app corrupted the Reg keys and so they got reset back to OS defaults. I have Update 1 and all later updates including November updates installed for a long time. @Dibya, yes I am referring to Windows 8.1/10 as Bob 8.1/Bob 10 Because I don't consider them serious OSes. They have a child-friendly kiddish UI which is getting more and more dumbed down by the day, losing this feature and that, and without any meaningful advancement that maintains continuity of the great past innovation in Windows.

Has anyone had their default programs or file associations reset on Bob 8.1 after installing updates? I had Media Player Classic and foobar 2000 installed but after some monthly updates it reset the default to Windows Media Player. We know that since Bob 8, Microsoft blocks apps from programmatically resetting as default however if the Registry key for the default app is corrupted, it resets back to the MS-recommended default. This is a fairly common known issue on MS Bob 10 but I was surprised to see it happen on Bob 8.1 too!

KB3103709 appeared for Windows 8.1 (Enterprise edition also) and then disappeared/was pulled from WU. Since it had no description, I chose to not install it.

This VBScript I found somewhere works for me well for manual and automatic restore point creation. It shows prompt for UAC elevation too if run normally. You can set up a hidden scheduled task for regular restore point creation. If WScript.Arguments.Count = 0 Then Set oShell = CreateObject("Shell.Application") oShell.ShellExecute "wscript.exe", """" & WScript.ScriptFullName & """ Run", , "runas", 1 Else Set oWshShell = WScript.CreateObject("WScript.Shell") oWshShell.Popup "Creating a SystemRestore point. Please wait.", 2, "System Restore", 0 swinmgmts = "winmgmts:\\.\root\default:Systemrestore" GetObject(swinmgmts).CreateRestorePoint "Scheduled Restore Point", 0, 100 'MsgBox "System Restore Point created", 0, "System Restore" End If On Bob 8, there are some new Registry values affecting System Restore: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/aa378727%28v=vs.85%29.aspx?f=255&MSPPError=-2147217396

And another one that adds insult to injury:

@Noel, what if you turn off tab completion in Cmd.exe as per this article? https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/310530 I wonder if those reg values work in MS Bob 10?

Well if they're getting LTSB, they'll be stuck with white title bars for a long time.

Updategate: Windows 10 is resetting default apps back to Microsoft stock: This is the big disadvantage of Windows as a service as Noel has pointed out so many times. I simply have no interest in wasting my time on Windows 10. It's become too hostile - almost forced/deceptive "upgrades" from Win7/8, forced system updates, forced drivers, forced app reinstalls, forced reset of many settings, forced app default resets, forced GUI changes, forced acceptance of removed features, even forced hardware changes (as such most touchpads not coming any more with two physical/clicky buttons). I mean the fact that it just keeps not only changing now but RESETTING your personalized setup every few months is a major deal-breaker!

Finding the stuff on third party sites that Microsoft deleted isn't hard. I think the OP's point was that Microsoft is deleting downloads from their Download Center!! They seem to have deleted Calculator Plus too. Anything to get people on to modern versions of Windows and force them to use apps. A number of old downloads applicable to older versions of Windows seem to be gone, besides the service packs.

I just want to get an idea of how much fixing and replacing with classic desktop apps we would have to do if Windows 10 was the only OS left to use.

Can we have a list of all the Universal Windows Platform junk that's *REPLACED* Win32 components or programs in Windows 10? - UWP Start Menu killed Classic Start menu - Live Tiles killed Gadgets - UWP tray applets killed classic applets - Action Center killed balloon notifications - Settings app killed Control Panel - Edge killed IE - Calculator killed Win32 Calc - Cortana killed Windows Search inside Start menu - Mail, Calendar, People killing Live Essentials - Photos killed Windows Photo Viewer - Groove Music, Film & TV and DVD Player app killing Windows Media Player - Voice Recorder killing Sound Recorder - Solitaire and other Metro games killed classic games Compared to Windows 8: - Start screen killed Classic Start menu - Live Tiles killed Gadgets - Settings killed some parts of Control Panel - Classic games

How to set a folder view in Explorer for all folders – List, Details, Tiles, Small or Large Icons: http://winaero.com/blog/how-to-set-a-folder-view-in-explorer-for-all-folders-list-details-tiles-small-or-large-icons/

Because when OldNewExplorer needs to be updated, the DLLs are often in-use (loaded into other programs) and you've to unload/stop apps which have it loaded or unregister them before they can be extracted and overwritten. With an installer system, this too can be handled automatically and a simple Windows restart or logoff can update the in-use DLLs. It's not just Explorer.exe that the DLLs get loaded into, but other apps too. Or it could get a "Load only for Explorer.exe option". Then updating it will be easier.

Request: Single self-extracting EXE installer for OldNewExplorer?

When you click "Uninstall" Classic Shell runs a PowerShell command to remove the app (but only for that user account), it doesn't just hide them! Some built-in apps can't be removed and they don't get removed for all users. If your disk space decreased after that for some reason, that might be a problem with DISM failing to uninstall that app. (PowerShell eventually calls DISM). Also, note that Windows Update is constantly trying to ruin your plans by auto-updating Windows 10. It might reinstall some apps. Every time you do a build upgrade, it will bring them back. If you use PowerShell directly to uninstall all apps from all user accounts including the provisioned AppX packages, you will save a ton of space.

You can uninstall crapps with the latest version of Classic Shell for free. If you're on those unfortunate OSes (Windows 8/10) that is Best if you're on Windows 7. Although that tool is nice for removing apps using a GUI from a Windows WIM image.

Not sure how something that's free is overpriced... I'll tell you how. Because it replaces something that was not free and was of high quality. It replaces that with a "free" low quality OS that few want.

MS Bob 10 definitely is the worst crap ever but if you can't see how, there's no point explaining how.

Thanks! This is interesting!

Nope I can't find any reason to "upgrade" to Bob 10 but I am seeing plenty of reasons to NOT upgrade. I don't find Bob 10 better than Bob 8.1 either. It is neither revolutionary, nor evolutionary. It's a regression in many areas.

As I understand, I think they're complaining loss of control in tuning how the text is rendered. In older versions of Windows components (Explorer shell, IE8, Office 2010), text is rendered by GDI and it has ClearType RGB antialiasing. Plus this is tweakable so people can completely turn off ClearType or adjust its contrast/crispness. Most people were satisfied with its rendering. Because ClearType utilizes the physical layout of the red, green and blue pigments of the LCD screen, it is sensitive to the orientation of the display. When tablets arrived, they found that for rotated displays, in which the subpixels are arranged vertically rather than horizontally, using ClearType on these display configurations will actually reduce the text quality. So they replaced it with DirectWrite grayscale antialiasing. In all Microsoft apps like IE9 onwards, Microsoft GarbEdge, Office 2013, and all of Metro, ClearType RGB antialiasing is gone. Plus, all user control over tuning the text is also removed because DirectWrite provides no end-user tunable parameters. Some people have trouble reading the text, some don't find it as easy to read, hence the complaints, while some actually prefer it. Many of them would have wanted RGB anti aliasing to remain at horizontal orientation but Microsoft as we all know doesn't believe in giving choices any more.

Here's an interesting stat: http://www.computerworld.com/article/2980867/microsoft-windows/free-upgrade-gave-windows-10-a-one-month-boost.html"Free upgrade gave Windows 10 a one-month boost but increases flattened before the 30-day mark, and recently have fallen below Windows 7's gains in 2009"