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Windows 10 - First Impressions


dencorso

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To be fair, it takes especially well engineered software to be able to run properly in an environment where some things change, and some other changes are blocked.  That's a ticking time bomb in all practical senses.

 

I sense not a lot of especially well engineered software in Windows.

 

What's funny is at the same time Microsoft has been SAYING that they're embarking on a new approach to OS functionality where things are purely modular, so they can be updated independently from other things, and this constant roll out of small changes can be accomplished.

 

Isn't it clear that Microsoft doesn't think they're going to lose any business?  They firmly believe everyone's alternative to running the new Windows is to run the old Windows, which they will make more and more difficult.  Monopoly mentality trumps all.

 

Edit:  I find it interesting that right at this time - the first time in history that *I've* chosen to hide several optional updates (the ones that will shill upgrading to Win 10) - Microsoft is embarking on making doing just that impossible going forward.

 

I'm reminded of the ancient show, "The Outer Limits".  "Do not attempt to adjust your set.  We have control..."

 

-Noel

Edited by NoelC
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Screen-Shot-2015-04-03-at-10.54.58-AM.pn

 

... Is this an April Fool's joke? I hate it. It sucks. Looks like it was redesigned by the My Little Pony crew. It is too light, the pastel colors are awful, icons are too big, the menu items are grayed out, this must be a joke.

 

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The crazy new Windows Update could bomb harder than metro did. It will only take a few f***-ups and it will explode, given that they are now non-declinable. And MS is notorious for faulty patches.

 

Even if they will fix it by the time the pro and enterprise users will get the patches; the damage done on home-versions will be enough for a major backlash. They don't seem to realize this.

Edited by Formfiller
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To be fair, Candy Crush Saga is an addictive, popular game, the only little drawback is that it only makes sense (because it is designed for that) on a fairly smallish touch enabled screen, you wouldn't go anywhere with a mouse :ph34r: and on (say ) a 27" (vertical) touch screen :w00t: it would be an excellent way to work out, as your arm will travel kilometers while playing.

 

LOL

 

It's amazing the number of irrelevant "features" they're putting on my laptop with Windows 10. A look at the Notifications flyout is enough: pray tell, o wise and bountiful Gods of Redmond, why on earth would my laptop need to be put in "airplane mode"?? Let me whisper a little secret in your infallible ears: IT'S NOT A PHONE, IT CANNOT RECEIVE PHONE CALLS!!!

 

Why does my laptop need "rotation lock" -- do you know anybody who turns their laptop screen to view it sideways?

 

Hey, given that my computer lacks touch capability, if I put it "tablet mode" will that render it completely useless?

 

We were told that one of the cool new features of Windows 10 was that it would select the interface depending on the type of hardware. So why are all of these options shown for PC users? They are bound to confuse and perplex some users and to annoy many more. Meanwhile, they are taking up space on the Notifications popup and claiming a piece of our attention every time we open it.

 

--JorgeA

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Screen-Shot-2015-04-03-at-10.54.58-AM.pn

 

... Is this an April Fool's joke? I hate it. It sucks. Looks like it was redesigned by the My Little Pony crew. It is too light, the pastel colors are awful, icons are too big, the menu items are grayed out, this must be a joke.

 

 

Thanks for showing an example of Acrobat's new UI. What, do they think it's mainly pre-schoolers who'll be using that software? Or perhaps they think that people will be editing PDF files on their phones. :crazy:

 

I'm glad that @Formfiller gave us the heads-up on this "improved" UI. At least in the case of Acrobat, customers have an easier time avoiding the company's declining products compared to Windows users.

 

Here are a couple more choice comments from the Adobe thread:

 

The UI is terrible. All the options in a dropdown menu look grayed out. How could anyone think making it this light could be a good thing? The changes that Adobe has incorporated with DC are terrible with no feedback from customers. Seems like some software engineers just trying to justify their jobs by fixing something that didn't need fixing. Well... now it needs fixing.

 

Sorry Acrobat team. If this was a TV show it would be cancelled after the pilot.

 

 

--JorgeA

Edited by JorgeA
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Paul Thurrott weighs in on this "Windows as a Service" idea, with some skepticism:

 

I want to believe this is going to work. I’m not a conspiracy theorist, nor do I believe that everyone needs to hand-curate which updates get installed on their PCs. But it’s fair to say that Microsoft’s track record updating its own software is spotty at best, and that larger businesses in particular are right to want to manage updating accordingly.

 

--JorgeA

 

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Hey, given that my computer lacks touch capability, if I put it "tablet mode" will that render it completely useless?

 

Clearly you need a Surface tablet that just happens to be able to replace your laptop.

 

Windows USED to be about multitasking using multiple windows.  The name is "Windows".  But now it's best to do just one thing at a time.

 

Microsoft USED to be a software company.  Their name has "soft" in it.

 

That reminds me...  Does Microsoft sell cell phone service?  I'm sure they will...

 

-Noel

Edited by NoelC
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Edit:  I find it interesting that right at this time - the first time in history that *I've* chosen to hide several optional updates (the ones that will shill upgrading to Win 10) - Microsoft is embarking on making doing just that impossible going forward.

 

I'm reminded of the ancient show, "The Outer Limits".  "Do not attempt to adjust your set.  We have control..."

 

I have a complete set of the episodes from that series.  :)  It was recorded in Windows Media Center, a capability that users who go with the flow and let Microsoft have its way with them will lose when it pulls them into the Win10 vortex.

 

--JorgeA

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Hey, given that my computer lacks touch capability, if I put it "tablet mode" will that render it completely useless?

 

Clearly you need a Surface tablet that just happens to be able to replace your laptop.

 

Microsoft USED to be a software company.  Their name has "soft" in it.

 

Yeah, I can't wait to replace my laptop with a 750GB HDD and a Core i7 processor that I paid less than $600 for, with a $1549 Surface Pro 3 sporting a 256GB SSD and a slower Core i7 processor. EDIT: and that doesn't even include a keyboard, for which I'd have to shell out an extra $129.99, bringing the price to $1679. :w00t:

 

 

Windows USED to be about multitasking using multiple windows.  The name is "Windows".  But now it's best to do just one thing at a time.

 

You know, I've been thinking and reading and arguing about this whole thing -- including multi- versus single-tasking -- for more than three years now. But it just now struck me that, after three decades of OS development, we are in effect being herded back into the DOS model (single-tasking).

 

--JorgeA

Edited by JorgeA
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While researching my previous post, I got the little pop-up that you can see at the bottom right corner of the image below:

 

post-287775-0-77606200-1431881986_thumb.

 

WTF?? You mean that if I had a webcam on this computer (say, if it were a laptop), some stranger at a store would be able to see me???

 

Presumably one would have to agree to this explicitly first? :unsure:  One more reason to disable webcam functionality.

 

--JorgeA

 

P.S. Turns out to be a case of poor wording. The explanation is given by clicking on "What's this?" What they mean is that while you can see the store associate during the chat, the store associate can't see you. But the way it's written, it sounded to me like a complaint that, because they couldn't see me, I should enable (or get) a camera in order to conduct the chat.

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Possibly old news, but info straight from the horse's...  mouth that Windows 10 will not wipe the slate clean for folks who do not have a legitimate Windows 8.x or 7 license...

 

http://www.windows10update.com/2015/05/microsoft-emphasize-the-need-to-have-a-genuine-windows-license/

 

One thing I find interesting is this bit of speculation...

 


...if you want to discard that fake Windows license and pay for a Genuine version of Windows, you will probably get a ridiculously cheap offer to buy Windows 10 within the first year.

 

So here I am...  I never, ever upgrade, I always buy a full new license for each new Windows release (e.g. for the advantages of being able to install afresh from media, for being able to reinstall without jumping through hoops). 

 

Will I be paying more than someone who's currently got a pirated copy of Windows?

 

-Noel

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Here's how I use the Start menu in Windows 10 Insider Preview

 

 

post-287775-0-03865400-1431924371_thumb.

 

I have removed all the tiles from the Start menu and shrunk the menu to make it even smaller so it only displays the power options, All apps menu, recent programs list, and a few other options.

 

The writer never says how exactly he managed to remove the tile panel, and remarkably no one in the comments section thinks to ask. Am I missing something?  :huh:   I don't remember Microsoft adding the ability to remove the right panel in the TP.

 

And, curiously, there is no watermark down on the right to indicate what version of the TP this is supposed to be, nor does the writer say.

 

What gives?!

 

--JorgeA

 

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After reading the following article and the comments --

 

Windows Insiders will need a valid license to upgrade to Windows 10 RTM

 

-- I am actually less clear on the situation than when I started reading. I thought that I'd seen somewhere that people helping Microsoft with the beta test were going to get a free copy of Win10 RTM. But now it sounds like they are going to get the exact same thing that Microsoft is trying to push on Win7/8.1 users, which is a free "upgrade" from their current OS. In other words, nothing special for all the effort they've put in.

 

Mind you, I'd never install this POS standalone on a computer, but if I could get the license in exchange for my testing time I probably would dual-boot Win10 just to see how it continued to degenerate develop.

 

--JorgeA

 

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Here's how I use the Start menu in Windows 10 Insider Preview

 

Am I missing something?  :huh:   I don't remember Microsoft adding the ability to remove the right panel in the TP.

 

 

 

He's cropped off the right side of the screen grab.  Note that there's no system tray or clock showing.  If you resize the image to the 1440 vertical pixel count he touts for the LG 34 inch ultrawide monitor, the image is only 2455 x 1440 - it's missing nearly 1000 pixels.

 

It might be a leaked version that he's not supposed to be running and writing about (but of course he wants the scoop), and what's over there in those deleted pixels is the message that someone will be drawn and quartered for leaking it.

 

I can't quite make out what the two icons he's got up in the trees near the upper right say.  One might say "Microsoft"

 

EDIT:  I developed a forensic image enhancer that employs anisotropic filtering some time back and just tried it...  That worked well. The two icons quite clearly say IMG_7790 and IMG_7788.  The thumbnails resemble images of phones or tablets.

 

-Noel

Edited by NoelC
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-- I am actually less clear on the situation than when I started reading. I thought that I'd seen somewhere that people helping Microsoft with the beta test were going to get a free copy of Win10 RTM.

 

Like you I had read that insiders who had installed the pre-releases would be granted a full, licensed copy when it comes out.

 

Seems to me they're getting away with a lot by vaguely implying things, then later "clarifying" them.  That's modern Marketing.  Those people are evil.

 

I recently took the opportunity to install Win 10 on a brand new standalone system, a Dell PowerEdge T20, as at the time I had only the internal backup HDD and not yet the main SSDs I was going to ultimately run it from, so to do initial testing I figured what the heck and installed Win 10 build 10074 from a thumb drive made from an 10074 ISO, which in turn was made from the WIM file provided by Microsoft.

 

By the way, I've since gotten the SSDs and installed the OS I had intended for it to run - Win 7 x64.  I did comparative Passmark benchmarks and in almost every way Win 7 came out significantly more efficient.  One of the very few things Win 10 did better was the "Graphics 2D Image Rendering" test - by scores of 742 (Win 10) to 702 (Win 7).  But other important things, such as "Graphics 2D - Windows Interface" it did worse - by scores of 95.6 (Win 10) to 116.0 (Win 7).  This says that Win 10 should feel more sluggish, and in fact it does.  This system uses the Intel HD Graphics GPU that comes in the Haswell Pentium G3220 CPU.

 

-Noel

 

 

 

P.S., Jorge, do you have enough computer power to run a virtual machine?  Virtualization is a great way to test Windows 10.  I like VMware Workstation for the job, but I believe you can actually run Win 10 under VMware Player, which is free.

Edited by NoelC
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