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Windows 8 - Deeper Impressions


JorgeA

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A few things I found, to lighten the mood.

Why did they skip to Windows 10? Because 7 8 9.

Obviously. But then there's the Windows OS vs Star Trek movie rating trend.

I’m kind of optimistic, Windows always had a pattern to their OS releases.

Windows XP – Good

Windows Vista – Crap

Windows 7 – Good

Windows 8 – Crap

Windows 10 – Good?

But as pointed out, if this trend were to continue, Windows 10 is going to be "crap" as the "good" Windows 9 was shelved. Lastly, large image in a spoiler...

466.jpg

source: http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/subcultures/windows

 

 

That's pretty funny!  :lol:

 

A plausible explanation has emerged for why Microsoft skipped the "Windows 9" label:

 

Why Windows 10 isn't named 9: Windows 95 legacy code?

 

But now a far more plausible answer has surfaced to the question "Why Windows 10?" A Redditor named cranbourne, who claims to be a Microsoft developer (though it's unsubstantiated), says rumors inside the company point to legacy software as the main reason for shooting straight for ten.

 

[...]

 

To save time, some third-party Windows desktop developers used a shorthand to check the version name (not number) of Windows they were installing their app to. Instead of coding apps to check for Windows 95 or Windows 98, developers coded instructions to check for "Windows 9."

 

[...]

 

Microsoft may have looked out at the vast catalog of legacy code and decided the easiest way to avoid an annoying rewrite for all those programs was just to skip Windows 9 and head straight for Windows 10.

 

Accommodating legacy code may sound ridiculous, but it's certainly a plausible explanation and, if true, it's a smart move by Microsoft to not upset its developer base or potentially mess with customers happily using legacy software.

 

If true, in my book that would be a praiseworthy decision, even if it leads to the strangeness of jumping from 8 to 10. (It doesn't seem so praiseworthy to have lazily used "Windows 9" to stand for 95 and 98 back then. People more qualified than me to comment on that -- please speak up! :) )

 

--JorgeA

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...The main problem with "no major versions" is that Windows will appear stagnant. Even (semi-)embedded OSes like Android, ios and MacOS introduce new versions with great fanfare to crank up sales for the next line of hardware. Windows 10 for the next ten years or more on the other hand doesn't sound so sexy. New Windows versions stirr also the media up, that publicity would be gone...

 

That's a great point, calling it merely "Windows" forever does bring up exactly those possibilities.

 

Wonder how long it'll be before the MSFT marketing geniuses pick up on that. Maybe we'll never get to versionless Windows, after all.

 

--JorgeA

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First impressions of Windows 6.4.9841 Enterprise Technical Preview

 

 

Fabulous!  :thumbup

 

The insight about the available area to grab the edge of a window for resizing may seem insignificant, but I do that almost every day and it sounds like it could be harder to manually resize windows now.

 

Have you put the VM on a network? If so, what name for it do you see when looking at the network in Windows Explorer from another computer? I'm wondering if you can give the computer a name other than "This PC." If all the computers on a Windows 10 network are called "This PC" by default, then how could one tell which is which?

 

Another question: is it necessary to open (create) a Microsoft account in order to download and use the TP, or is that only necessary if you intend to provide feedback?

 

--JorgeA

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They require you to use a Microsoft account - nothing more than an eMail address really - to get to the download. 

 

I already had an eMail address that I use as an account to post on their forums, and I just signed up as an "insider" with that.  I do not use that for my Windows login, though (as I mentioned I only set up local accounts on my systems).

 

The computer can be named anything you want (just as it always has been).  I named my VM W10EVM (for Windows 10 Enterprise VM).  When Homegroup networking is disabled (and thus files are shared the traditional way, with username and password gating access), it appears by that name from another system.

 

For example, I shared the C drive root (and set appropriate permissions) and unshared the Users area (which was shared by default).  This is what I see from another system:

 

W10Shares.png

 

 

Furthering a comment I made above...  DISM apparently cannot be used to correct the servicing database corruption (as shown by SFC).  Just to make absolutely sure it wasn't something I've done (which is very little so far) I tested an SFC /SCANNOW command on a fresh W10 setup just seconds after seeing the desktop for the very first time.  It's corrupted right out of the box.

 

-Noel

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...  "Search", and "TaskView" icons (that cannot be unpinned, by the way) ...

 

"You would think that Microsoft would have learned from their Windows 8 mistakes of forcing terrible features down people’s throats, but it looks like they’ve integrated a positively awful Search button / panel into the Taskbar. Here’s how to hide it, although we haven’t figured out how to completely remove it yet ..."

 

How to Hide the Stupid Search Button on the Windows 10 Taskbar

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I would encourage everybody who want to try make Windows better to send lot of feedback and sign in to Insider program.

 

Feedback application really helps to highlight what people want about new Windows releases instead of feedback being scattered to different forums.

 

I don't have much interesting things to tell about Technical Preview. I would encourage people to try it themselves instead and send feedback. Feedback application can help to change things for better and get Microsoft fix what is wrong in Windows 8 and following releases.

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Of course, the Windows Feedback app is right there.

 

My most recent feedback is this:  Why not allow infinite resizeability of windowed Metro/Modern apps?

 

Especially in this day and age of a) tiny screens on portable devices and B) high dpi computer monitors, what's the downside to allowing people to shrink apps down?

 

Metro/Modern seems to be all about simplifying things - reducing the amount of stuff that a person sees at one time to (presumably) reduce cognitive load.

 

In other words, Windows for Stupid People.

 

Trouble is, we're not all stupid.  Sometimes we really need to see lots of stuff at once.  Do you have multiple monitors?  Why?  So you can get more on the screen at one time, not so you can see the Calculator with bigger fonts and giant meat-stick accessible buttons.

 

Microsoft now has the unique opportunity to fix their recent mistakes in gauging what people need by doing something as simple as allowing the infinite resizeability of Metro/Modern apps back on the desktop.

 

To put it in pictures:  The XP Calc.exe application is the one I go to when I'm working on software today.  This is its size as compared to the smallest sized horizontally laid-out Metro/Modern calculator:

 

CalculatorComparison.png

 

Microsoft doesn't yet seem to "get" that we want full and complete control over our technology.

 

-Noel

Edited by NoelC
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While Microsoft readies its next OS, the current one loses ground to previous versions:

 

post-287775-0-06424800-1412600147_thumb.

[source]

 

Compare to last month's pie chart:

 

post-287775-0-21141300-1412600261_thumb.

[source]

 

Window 8.1 went up by LESS THAN what Windows 8 went down. XP held steady, Vista actually went up a little bit, and Windows 7 was the big winner, up a full point.

 

No doubt 7 will start going down and 8.1 will register steady gains as of the end of October, when OEMs are no longer allowed to sell systems with 7 preinstalled. But the market's verdict, when it had a choice, is clear.

 

--JorgeA

 

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They require you to use a Microsoft account - nothing more than an eMail address really - to get to the download. 

 

I already had an eMail address that I use as an account to post on their forums, and I just signed up as an "insider" with that.  I do not use that for my Windows login, though (as I mentioned I only set up local accounts on my systems).

 

Thanks for the info about naming the computer, that's a relief.

 

About whether one needs to sign up for the Windows Insider program in order to download Windows 10, I found this direct link to the download page. Despite what it says are the steps to follow in order to get the OS, I scrolled down to the downloads and it allowed me to download Win10 no problem.

 

As to whether I'll be able to actually install it without opening some account or signing up for anything, we'll see. I do want to give them feedback and so what I did was only an experiment. I thought that it might ask me to go back and sign up before proceeding with the download, but it let me just get the ISO without hurdles.

 

BTW, I read somewhere (might be able to find the source again if necessary) that you don't actually have to enter the license key for the Technical Preview to work? :unsure:

 

--JorgeA

Edited by JorgeA
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...  "Search", and "TaskView" icons (that cannot be unpinned, by the way) ...

 

"You would think that Microsoft would have learned from their Windows 8 mistakes of forcing terrible features down people’s throats, but it looks like they’ve integrated a positively awful Search button / panel into the Taskbar. Here’s how to hide it, although we haven’t figured out how to completely remove it yet ..."

 

How to Hide the Stupid Search Button on the Windows 10 Taskbar

 

 

Amazing -- how many days did it take for someone to start coming up with tweaks to the new operating system? Two, three? Wow.

 

--JorgeA

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No doubt 7 will start going down and 8.1 will register steady gains as of the end of October, when OEMs are no longer allowed to sell systems with 7 preinstalled.

That EOL only applies to Home Premium and Ultimate. As of this moment, there is no EOL announced for Professional SKUs.

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The reviews on Windows 10 are starting to come in:

 

Windows 10 review - A good Start

 

All right. So what gives? Let's not delude anyone. From the purely technical perspective, Windows 10 only slightly improves the existing baseline, well familiar to the user since Windows XP, and even more so since Windows 7. Some cosmetics, better driver support and such. Nothing to be too excited about. Oh, there's battery life, and that's good.

 

From the usability perspective, Windows 10 has restored the functionality has been missing since 2012, making this a very reasonable and desirable product for those who like Windows. Your human needs are met, you have good looks and stability, performance and battery life are very decent, and there's a feeling the company is actually listening to its customer base, even though the enterprise pace of change is slow. We could say this is Windows 8 redeemed, we could say this is a service pack, we could say Microsoft has pulled one on us, and now we love what we hate. Perhaps.

 

It does not matter. The sum of all things is that I have felt pretty relaxed during the review. Things fell into place the way they should. Windows 10 gave me the needed functionality and speed that I demand. The system was stable and beautiful. It does not matter that it's based on a failure, because that's the whole point. It fixes the failure and makes it good. So I believe that Microsoft will recover nicely with this release, and overall, the desktop scene is about to get exciting and fun once again. Quite nice, and for that, kudos Microsoft. As a release, Windows 10 is a pretty good one. Try it.

 

 

Windows 10 Technical Preview, hands-on

 

For the most part, if you’ve been using Windows 8 on a mouse-and-keyboard desktop PC for a while, Windows 10 Technical Preview will feel very familiar. Here are the new changes/features that immediately stood out:

  • Windows 10 looks a lot sharper. The new 1-pixel borders on app windows, along with the drop shadow, really does make the Windows 10 Desktop look rather smart.
  • The new Alt-Tab view is horrible. I’ve always hated Microsoft’s attempts to re-work the Alt-Tab app switcher into something more visual. The new Alt-Tab view in Windows 10 is pretty horrendous (picture below). Maybe it’ll be better once I get used to it — but if you’re used to a neat line of thumbnails that you can cycle through, you’re in for a shock.
  • Snapping is indeed much improved. In Windows 10 Technical Preview you have many more ways of snapping apps than in Windows 8. You can now snap left and right, and left and right of the middle divider on a multi-monitor setup. You can also snap in a top or bottom corner. When you snap an app, if you have other apps minimized, a new interface pops up asking if you want to snap another app into the remaining gap. It’s kind of cool. Very much a throwback to the “tile view” of yesteryear.
  • The Start menu is back. Personally I don’t use the Start menu much (I prefer to pin my apps to the taskbar), but yes, the Start menu is back in Windows 10 — and yes, you can remove all of the live tiles if you want. (Funnily enough, after removing all of the live tiles, I don’t know how to put them back.)

 

--JorgeA

 

 

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No doubt 7 will start going down and 8.1 will register steady gains as of the end of October, when OEMs are no longer allowed to sell systems with 7 preinstalled.

That EOL only applies to Home Premium and Ultimate. As of this moment, there is no EOL announced for Professional SKUs.

 

 

Cool, so Windows 7 can continue to climb and 8 can keep deflating. :thumbup

 

I did not know that. Thanks for the information!

 

--JorgeA

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