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Windows 10 - First Impressions


dencorso

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I spent almost an hour looking at that blackbox thing. It's all too obscure and arcane for a non-techie like me. I didn't see any tutorials for how to actually use it. And the DevianArt page describes it as a "window manager." So, many questions remain unanswered, such as:

  • Can it be used to create Aero Glass-style window borders and title bars?
  • Can it be used to replace the Metro-style new "PC Settings" app with Control Panel?
  • Will it replace Metro crapps, such as the photo viewer discussed a few posts upthread, with their Win32 equivalents?
  • Basically, as the poster I quoted said: can it be used to "put the Windows 7 shell... on the Windows 10 kernel"?

It was only a proof that changing the shell on a modern system is possible.

Nothing more, nothing less.

 

Considering that - as you have noticed - the thingy is the result of the work (as a hobby) of a bunch (like "I can count them on the fingers of my left hand") of amateurs, consider what the good MS guys could do (if they wanted to).

 

jaclaz

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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Full control must be a sweet, sweet thing for unpublished reasons.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

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The screenshots for that blackbox thing were too few for me to form a clear impression of how comprehensive their changes are. So the question is whether it's possible for anybody other than Microsoft (and maybe even them) to create a complete, integrated and comprehensive "Windows 7-style shell" that would be interchangeable with the Windows 10 shell, as the ZDNet commenter had suggested. That way, those of us who prefer the Windows 7 model could stay on it while benefiting from whatever security and other improvements have come since then, while Metro and app fans could enjoy their favorite model it its full glory.

 
Is that a practical objective, or pie-in-the-sky? To be sure, I'm talking whether it could be done, given the way Windows is currently structured, and not whether Microsoft wants to do it.
 
Is that really possible, or does the only conceivable approach involve resigning ourselves to bolting together a little from here and a bit from there, just to get near to what we had in Windows 7?
 
We may get a clue as to this, if and when we learn definitively whether it'll be possible to install themes in Windows 10, as has been the case since XP. The last time I tried, it was not (yet) possible.
 
--JorgeA

 

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According to Thurrott, in 10025 Microsoft in Windows Setup seeks to capture your "input data" and location, and offers to automatically connect you to hotspots:

 

 

setup1.jpg

 

How many of those hundreds of millions of PC users who acquiesce to Microsoft downgrading them to Win10, will know to be on the lookout for this sort of thing?

 

I can see enterprising hackers driving up and down the street with a roaming hotspot to see who they can get to connect to them. That can't possibly be good, can it?

 

Things just get worse and worse. :no:

 

--JorgeA

Edited by JorgeA
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Your Windows 10 PC will love all the devices you own

 

 

Whether it’s a 3-year-old printer or projecting to your brand new TV with Miracast, we’re building Windows 10 to be terrific at connecting all your devices. In a multi-device world where you move between your phone, tablet, and PC multiple times a day – you expect your experience to go wherever you do. That’s why we built Windows 10 on a common core and enabled Windows Universal Apps, so people using Windows 10 for both their PC and smartphone experience will get an optimal, seamless experience as they transition devices throughout the day.

 

But, we also realize that many people use iPhones or Android phones, and we want them to enjoy some of their Windows experience and content while away from their Windows 10 PC.  Regardless of the operating systems you choose across your devices – everything important to you should roam across the products you already own – including your phone.

 

A real challenge people face is figuring out how to make everything work together. That’s why we’re announcing a ‘Phone Companion’ app built-in to Windows 10, which will help you connect your Windows PC to whatever phone you own– whether it’s a Windows phone, Android phone, or iPhone.

 

I love how they keep adding in cell phone compatibility but they still can't get their current drivers to be portable between versions. If Windows 10 is really to "love all of my devices" it needs to be able to use drivers from previous versions of Windows.

Edited by rn10950
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Yeah, but that is the whole point of IoT computing.

 

MinWin as it was called running on limited hardware.. headless if you like, accessible only via ethernet port ...

 

No display just hardware doing a job.

 

Now Pi2 and all that is shows -as always- we can do away with the UI.

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According to Thurrott, in 10025 Microsoft in Windows Setup seeks to capture your "input data" and location, and offers to automatically connect you to hotspots:

 

 

setup1.jpg

 

How many of those hundreds of millions of PC users who acquiesce to Microsoft downgrading them to Win10, will know to be on the lookout for this sort of thing?

 

I can see enterprising hackers driving up and down the street with a roaming hotspot to see who they can get to connect to them. That can't possibly be good, can it?

 

Things just get worse and worse. :no:

 

--JorgeA

 

LOL (not funny in reality), between this and Facebook which asks you for your email password when you register so they can "help you find your friends", you've got to wonder what's coming next in the grand spy scheme of those IT behemoths, harvesting everybody's biometric data no doubt.

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The screenshots for that blackbox thing were too few for me to form a clear impression of how comprehensive their changes are. So the question is whether it's possible for anybody other than Microsoft (and maybe even them) to create a complete, integrated and comprehensive "Windows 7-style shell" that would be interchangeable with the Windows 10 shell, as the ZDNet commenter had suggested. That way, those of us who prefer the Windows 7 model could stay on it while benefiting from whatever security and other improvements have come since then, while Metro and app fans could enjoy their favorite model it its full glory.

 
Is that a practical objective, or pie-in-the-sky? To be sure, I'm talking whether it could be done, given the way Windows is currently structured, and not whether Microsoft wants to do it.
 
Is that really possible, or does the only conceivable approach involve resigning ourselves to bolting together a little from here and a bit from there, just to get near to what we had in Windows 7?
 
We may get a clue as to this, if and when we learn definitively whether it'll be possible to install themes in Windows 10, as has been the case since XP. The last time I tried, it was not (yet) possible.
 
--JorgeA

 

I have troubles understanding the questions then. :unsure:

 

We are talking of two different things.

 

You are talking of replacing the current MS shell with one replicating bit by bit the MS Windows 7 one.

 

I am talking about replacing a MS shell with another one, not necessarily similar to the Windows 7 one.

 

I provided the given link only to give you proof that changing the MS shell with another one, which has always been possible, is still possible, the fact that this replacement shell is completely different form the Windows 7 one is another thing..

 

Of course tomorrow the good MS guys may well decide to further lock down the OS and make this impossible or extremely cumbersome.

 

It is as per today possible.

Again, nothing more, nothing less.

 

About the bolting pieces together "a little from here and a bit from there" is basically asking "will the several developers of the currently several different little utilities (either Commercial, Shareware, Nagware or Freeware) join together an provide a single, consistent, shell replacement identical to the Windows 7 one?" or "Will a software house produce a Windows 7 shell replica that can be used to replace in one single pass the stupid NCI?"

 

And the answers to those are of course blowing in the wind. 

 

jaclaz

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Is Windows 10 malware? :lol:  Check out this description on Microsoft's own pages:

 

Evaluation criteria

Microsoft researchers use the following categories to determine whether to add a program to the definition library, and what classification type, risk level, and recommendation to give it:

  • Unwanted behavior: The software runs unwanted processes or programs on your PC, does not display adequate disclosures about its behavior or obtain adequate consent, prevents you from controlling its actions while it runs on your computer, prevents you from uninstalling or removing the program, prevents you from viewing or modifying browser features or settings, makes misleading or inaccurate claims about the state of your PC, or circumvents user consent dialogs from the browser or operating system.

  • Advertising: The software delivers out-of-context advertising that interferes with the quality of your computing experience, regardless of whether you consented to this behavior or not.

  • Advertisements: The advertisement should not mislead you into visiting another site or downloading files.

  • Privacy: The software collects, uses, or communicates your information without your explicit consent.

  • Consumer opinion: Microsoft considers input from individual users as a key factor in helping to identify new unwanted behaviors and programs that might interfere with the quality of your computing experience.

 

From their own definition of the term, Windows 10 would seem to fit at least some of Microsft's criteria for "unwanted software."

 

We maintain a definition library of unwanted software. This library has a database of unwanted software files and settings. When our researchers identify new unwanted software, they create definitions and add them to the library. We release regular definition updates to help protect your PC and personal information.

 

You can participate in our worldwide network by submitting unwanted software for analysis. This network helps identify programs to add to our definition library.

 

So... if I submit Windows 10 to them for analysis, will they add it to the Windows Defender definitions?   ;) 

 

I can just picture some unsuspecting Win7 user starting to download Win10 because he left the update settings on automatic, and then Defender stepping in to intercept it...   :D 

 

--JorgeA

 

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According to Thurrott, in 10025 Microsoft in Windows Setup seeks to capture your "input data" and location, and offers to automatically connect you to hotspots:

 

 

setup1.jpg

 

How many of those hundreds of millions of PC users who acquiesce to Microsoft downgrading them to Win10, will know to be on the lookout for this sort of thing?

 

I can see enterprising hackers driving up and down the street with a roaming hotspot to see who they can get to connect to them. That can't possibly be good, can it?

 

Things just get worse and worse. :no:

 

--JorgeA

 

LOL (not funny in reality), between this and Facebook which asks you for your email password when you register so they can "help you find your friends", you've got to wonder what's coming next in the grand spy scheme of those IT behemoths, harvesting everybody's biometric data no doubt.

 

 

Whoa!! Does Facebook really ask for your e-mail password??   :o   Sheesh. NFW.

 

Top four entries on my Hosts file:

127.0.0.1	localhost::1 		localhost127.0.0.1 	www.facebook.com127.0.0.1 	facebook.com

--JorgeA

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It is as per today possible.

Again, nothing more, nothing less.

 

About the bolting pieces together "a little from here and a bit from there" is basically asking "will the several developers of the currently several different little utilities (either Commercial, Shareware, Nagware or Freeware) join together an provide a single, consistent, shell replacement identical to the Windows 7 one?" or "Will a software house produce a Windows 7 shell replica that can be used to replace in one single pass the stupid NCI?"

 

And the answers to those are of course blowing in the wind. 

 

 

Thanks for the insight, jaclaz.

 

From the blackbox samples, I couldn't form a clear view of how extensive its modifications are, or how thoroughly one could in theory replace the Win10 shell with (say) a Win7 shell. But from your answer it sounds like a determined developer could create something that's fairly comprehensive. A "good enough" replica.

 

Once Windows 10 is officially released and surprises 600 million Win7 users on a late summer day, this could become a market opportunity for Tihiy or the Classic Shell folks or the Stardock people. Unless, as you point out, Microsoft keeps locking things down and making it ever harder to do that.

 

--JorgeA

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Trouble is, the Windows universe isn't just about starting and running applications.  It's about integrating them, and to do that the Windows UI provides a lot of subtle things (the obvious cut/copy/paste, drag/drop, the less obvious shell extensions including right-click context menus, task switching, consistent look and feel, common controls, etc. etc.)

 

What someone would have to do is to replicate ALL those things, and probably even re-implement some of the quirks, in order to have any hope of the various integrating features working as well as they do in Windows itself, however flawed.

 

Applications themselves are designed to work in the integrated environment by providing the hooks into these various features.  Unless a Win 7-like shell were to be immensely popular, attracting virtually everyone to use it, developers will de-focus on making integrated desktop applications and focus on doing whatever it seems that a new system provides.

 

If I were starting a new project right now, I'd be hard pressed to justify funding a big desktop application development.

 

It's a dark time now, since the "new system" doesn't really (yet?) provide anything of obvious merit.  Very few people can think of good things to do with big fonts and auto-rearranging UIs.  And those who ARE embracing it can't really do a very good job (so far) with these things either. 

 

So we continue to use what's already out there.  Legacy applications.  But that's not going to keep.

 

Microsoft clearly is forcing our desktop experiences to degrade to the point where they just fall apart, and nothing can replace the desktop yet.  Maybe it'll take another 20 or 30 years before something else gets mature enough to start bringing the state of the art forward again. 

 

It didn't really have to be like this.  Microsoft could have continued developing the state of the art of the desktop AND push into brave new territory.  They're just too simple and impatient in their thinking to do it.

 

-Noel

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Once Windows 10 is officially released and surprises 600 million Win7 users on a late summer day, this could become a market opportunity for Tihiy or the Classic Shell folks or the Stardock people. Unless, as you point out, Microsoft keeps locking things down and making it ever harder to do that.

 

 

If Microsoft keeps Windows a moving target, essentially breaking the 3rd party integration tools with regular Windows Updates, do you think most people will consider those tools viable to use in the long term?

 

Microsoft is no doubt thinking, "keeping control to ourselves maximizes our profits" and "now that we have our foot in the door, what can we do with tens of thousands of engineers that the world cannot keep pace with?

 

Suddenly the concept of a continuous stream of Windows Updates starts to make sense.

 

-Noel

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If Microsoft keeps Windows a moving target, essentially breaking the 3rd party integration tools with regular Windows Updates, do you think most people will consider those tools viable to use in the long term?

 

Microsoft is no doubt thinking, "keeping control to ourselves maximizes our profits" and "now that we have our foot in the door, what can we do with tens of thousands of engineers that the world cannot keep pace with?

 

Suddenly the concept of a continuous stream of Windows Updates starts to make sense.

 

 

Well, that could be backfiring though.

We have a common example of "continuous updating" with Google Chrome, but essentially at each update nothing "visible" or "relevant" (to the final user) is changed (and surely it is is easier to maintain with continuous updates a browser than a whole OS).

But the day these "continuous updates" will start hosing systems (and they will as they did before) and altering the working of programs or their looks, not only the "technologically advanced" but also the "common user" will start to protest....

 

As a matter of fact in this particular case it would - ad absurdum - be "better" if these (hypothetical) shell replacement would cost good, hard earned money and not be Open Source/Freeware :w00t::ph34r:.

 

I mean, once your average John Doe will have realized how poor is the UI experience and will have paid (say) 50 bucks for a shell replacement of his likings, he will become very vocal with MS when Windows Update will botch its working, over and over, no matter how quickly and effectively the shell software authors will fix the matter.

 

In the case of Freeware, there wouldn't be probably the basis to start the revolution, after all historically all revolutions were born when the King or the Government simply asked too much from their subjects...

 

jaclaz

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As a matter of fact in this particular case it would - ad absurdum - be "better" if these (hypothetical) shell replacement would cost good, hard earned money and not be Open Source/Freeware :w00t::ph34r:.

 

I mean, once your average John Doe will have realized how poor is the UI experience and will have paid (say) 50 bucks for a shell replacement of his likings, he will become very vocal with MS when Windows Update will botch its working, over and over, no matter how quickly and effectively the shell software authors will fix the matter.

 

In the case of Freeware, there wouldn't be probably the basis to start the revolution, after all historically all revolutions were born when the King or the Government simply asked too much from their subjects...

 

That's a great point! To borrow an English saying, with freeware it's pretty much "easy come, easy go." Oh well, shucks, too bad. But when you've made a monetary investment in the product and then suddenly it stops working -- well, there's going to be hell  to pay!!

 

--JorgeA

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