It would've made sense: they left from Windows 8, did a 360 with 8.1 and another 360º spin with this Windows 10. VERY little progress. Still looks the same as Windows h8. These people SERIOUSLY need a design team - it applies to quite a lot of their products, not just Windows 8, 8.1 and apparently, 10.
The Microsoft design team is fine. The issue with Microsoft is that they tend to be a company that can't spot the elephant in the room when they see it. They need to see data, and do research first, when in reality all they need sometimes is to hire a couple of "honest talkers" that'll tell 'em straight up that, "Hey, this is a bad idea." Might save them a few billion dollars. Windows 8 was an excellent product, but you can't change the fundamental design of how people have been using their desktops at both home and work over the last 20 years in a single release. Forcing a tablet experience onto a desktop market? Not going to happen .
With Windows 10, the design is what Windows 8 should have been. You offer the same solid, core shell underneath the hood, but you differ the UI depending on the device. This makes sense, and it unifies the operating system across all platforms. I made a prediction years ago back in 2007 when I saw the first iPhone that smartphones would eventually be married into the desktop experience. That is, you walk up to your desktop, place your smartphone in a cradle, and it would power your mouse, keyboard, and monitor. The UI would change to the familiar desktop experience, and the cradle would provide more power to the smartphone device for faster running speeds. True desktops wouldn't be replaced, as there will always be the need for more power, but imagine picking up your "desktop" and taking it straight to your meeting. You'd always have your data with you wherever you go.
With Windows 10, we're starting to see that vision. One OS, all platforms. Finally something smart from Microsoft.
I love how close we are, yet we're still painfully far away. Phones are becoming more and more powerful, but are providing all that power up-front with very little energy management. As a result, the batteries only last a few hours on heavy work
Manufacturers need to be less timid about locking things away. Revealing less of the battery to the user keeps it healthy for years longer, and reducing CPU speeds when heavy loads are detected would help battery life tremendously. Gating RAM might also reduce power usage over the course of a couple days.
I feel like all we need is the proper cultural shift. I had one of those pocket netbooks in 2010, and it was amazing. It was this little blip where the possibilities all converged, right before tablets became 'the thing'. Now there's nothing but half-assed operating systems that hamper one's ability to do real work.
I love posts like this that are so clueless. They fixed nothing.
A start menu? Anyone who really cared about that spent 60 seconds to go install any of the 10 free start menu replacements.
Windowed metro apps? Metro apps are garbage to begin with. Nobody on the desktop even wants to use them, and they're total trash from a productivity standpoint.
The real issues with the OS are the things they reverted and took away from the Win7 experience that cannot be replaced.
Theming was completely butchered - I hate the new metro look and feel. I want aero glass. I want windows with higher contrasting edges. With drop shadows. I want to be able to customize the look and feel of Windows. But guess what? Windows 8 has horrible theming. It's like three steps back from Windows 7. Did you know that you can't use a custom theme that does anything other than having a completely solid color titlebar, because they "optimized" the title bar text rendering by rendering it on an opaque background?
The next big problem is the push for metro and their touch first goals. They want touch to be "a first class citizen" in Windows. This is stupid on a desktop. I don't need, or want a touch based UI on a PC that I will NEVER have touch on. Never ever in a million years. Metro apps are designed so incredibly poorly it's not even funny, The metro design language works almost exclusively only for touch first content-consumption based apps. Trying to do anything productive is just a waste of time.
Windows 10 looks to solve none of the actual fundamental issues with the OS with that. The biggest complaint was metro, so their solution? Push the metro look and feel to the desktop! Windows now have 1px thin window borders - what a terrible idea. Now none of my applications can have contrast with one another. Oh, and let's make the title bar of metro apps look different! Cool, now there's yet one more thing completely inconsistent with the rest of the system UI. Let's not forget that Microsoft's OWN PRODUCTS (Office, VS) do the same and are inconsistent with their OWN OS.
I use windows to get work done, and because it used to be highly customizable. Now it's just garbage. They decided for me that I wanted metro and a flat UI. I don't. I want a UI that I choose, and I want productive Win32 apps. And don't even get me started on the huge joke that the WinRT runtime is for developers. Half the power of the Win32 library, and with twice as many security restrictions. Did you know you can't even open a file handle to a file on the disk if it's outside of the user folders unless you go through the File Picker interface? God what a disaster.
fine, they took away your beloved aero look. Rest of what you're saying is just metro this metro that. I don't get it, is anyone forcing you to use metro apps? I'm on windows 8.1 and with boot to desktop i practically never see any metro app.
That's the entire issue! Metro is a theme! As it progresses, Windows is moving more and more components to the metro look and feel. Standard desktop components are slowly moving to metro. Settings in control panel are moving to PC settings. Live tiles in the start menu - yes I can remove them, but now I'm completely wasting the right side of my start menu. Window borders are being removed to make applications "more immersive" and in-line with metro guidelines. Cortana, based on screenshots, is now a metro app built directly into the taskbar. Oh joyous me!
This is only an alpha release and they've already pushed metro into the desktop more than I'd like it to be. My request is not really all that big - I want the ability to customize my UI. Why is that an unreasonable request? I've been a life-long diehard windows fan. I've used every version of Windows as they're released, including betas. Every release up through 7 was a major step forward and provided massive customization to use old styles for those who didn't like it. Starting with Win8, Microsoft suddenly decided they new better than everyone and are forcing people to use what they came up with.
And don't try to just write me off as some user allergic to change. I love new OS features. In fact I absolutely LOVE the idea of universal apps and stuff. The actual technology behind a lot of this is astounding and amazing. As a developer I'd love to hardness a lot of it. I just think the UI and access to the features completely cripples its effectiveness.
I'm sure you'd "love to hardness" it, verbally at least. Anyway how is a Modern app running in a window a problem exactly? Because it uh... came from the Store? How is a winrt program running in a window functionally crippled compared to a win32 program running in a window? Why would having access to Cortana be an issue? Why couldn't you just use the live tiles on the new start menu as they're intended, quick info and/or shortcuts to your commonly used stuff?
You're prejudgemental, and definitely allergic to change - or perhaps you've just got an axe to grind. All your arguments can be summed up "Boo hiss Modern theme". If you don't like the theme, I'm sure you can change it or download software that does it for you. They fixed things and you still somehow think it's "crippled".
Your post implies you don't actually understand limitations of a lot of this stuff, and you definitely didn't understand my post.
For example - How are WinRT apps in windows crippled compared to Win32 programs in windows? Easy. If you were a developer you'd immediately know that the WinRT based applications have an enormous amount of limitations and restrictions based on them that Win32 apps have complete access to.
How is having access to Cortana bad? It's not, never said it was. But the way it's exposed through the UI is suboptimal. That's the problem, not Cortana.
"Why couldn't you just use the live tiles on the new start menu as they're intended, quick info and/or shortcuts to your commonly used stuff?" Because live tiles don't have the functionality I want or need. Instead they take up useful realestate space that more important things can go. Can I make a live tile into a cascadable menu to a directory on my file system? no? I also frown upon solid blocks of color, since I want my UI to remain professional looking. Can I disable the background coloring of live tiles? Nope. And what exactly are you referring to by shortcuts?
"You're prejudgemental, and definitely allergic to change" That might be the case had it not been for: 1) I use Windows 8 as my primary OS on both my desktop and laptop, and have used it for 2 years now. 2) I have tried the Tech preview. 3) The fact that it doesn't fit AT ALL with the fact that I've eagerly anticipated every version of Windows up until Windows 8.
"If you don't like the theme, I'm sure you can change it or download software that does it for you" Some stuff can be fixed, others cannot. For example, even with extensive addons, Windows 8 cannot be themed to look like Windows 7. Functionality has literally be changed or removed from core components of the OS that nobody has yet to implement, and may never be able to. For example: the desktop compositor now renders title bar text over a solid color background, since ti assumes there is no transparency and that the border frame is a solid color. Guess what? That means you cannot install ANY custom visual style that has anything other than a 100% transparent windows frame, because otherwise the text background doesn't match at all. The number of custom visual styles released since that change has dropped dramatically.
"They fixed things and you still somehow think it's "crippled"." No, they fixed SOME things - things I didn't even care about - and made other things - things I did care about - even worse.
I mean, maybe your brain works differently than mine. Cool, you like or aren't affected by certain changes in the UI. Maybe you have different usage patterns or use things in a different way than I do. That's great. That doesn't mean that I'm whining and throwing a tantrum because I have issue with the way something is done. I just happen to knwo the most efficient ways to accomplish my tasks. I know how I work best. I know what I prefer, what visual styles and aesthetics I prefer. To me, Win10 is not solving these problems.
See, we can accept that Win10 will not fit with your very specific needs, as you're implying in this post (never encountered someone with such hatred for solid colours btw). But look at the first sentence of your reply to Da W: "I love posts like this that are so clueless, they fixed nothing". When in reality they fixed nearly everything for the vast majority of people, but as expected not enough for extreme cases like yours.
What "Da W" means is that Windows 10 is catering more to Metro and that Metro is not useful to anyone. I agree, Microsoft has completely neglected the desktop user. There is little to no enhancement to the desktop. Task view is unpolished, 3rd party alternatives do a much better job. I use Dexpot for virtual desktop. Search and Cortana don't work properly yet, maybe they will fix that. The Live Tiles only work in the start menu. It would have been so much better if the Live tiles could be pinned to the desktop.
I gather that you haven't used the technical preview yet? You can remove all of the 'Modern UI' apps and be left with a standard looking Start Menu.
Everything else you said is pointless as all I hear is the same tired excuses not to like something. You don't like it, fine, good, ok. While you're over there people like myself are working without issue with Windows 8 as a re plenty of people where I work.
Yet another user who sees "I like it and he doesn't, he just must be whining"
Maybe a little background: I have Windows 8.1 on two computers. A desktop and a touch enabled laptop. I use both every day. I live with it because it has a number of advantages I can't get on Windows 7, like Storage spaces, and proper High DPI support for my laptop. I still hate it compared to Windows 7.
And yes, I have tried the Tech Preview. IMO, it is even worse than Windows 8. It doesn't solve any of the issues I had with the OS. Who cares about a start menu? I was able to replace that in 60 seconds with a third party solution. Anyone claiming they didn't want to use Windows 8 because of a lack of a start menu is lying through their teeth. Windowed metro apps feely tacky at best. They're not even properly resizable - their vertical height is restricted. The window UI is inconsistent with the rest of the system and feels very unpolished, and doesn't take advantage of any of the existing theming or infrastructure in the OS. The new Alt+Tab has the exact same issue as the start screen did. It doesn't display any of your workspace behind the new view, so it translates to a context switch which is rather jarring when you quickly switch through apps. Virtual desktops are nice, but their usefulness is limited since it doesn't actually filter the taskbar, so people like myself who use taskbar buttons with labels don't enjoy any savings in taskbar realestate. Maybe once they fix that it'll actually be useful. The notification center is kind of a joke... It's just a list of things that have popped up through toast notifications. Nothing else. I guess there's nothing to complain about for the command prompt improvements. That one is a welcome change, nothing at fault there.
Maybe things will be better once they actually polish it up (I understand it's a preview), but currently it feels way too rough edged, inconsistent, and still focuses too much on being touch friendly instead of optimizing for actual desktop use. I want metro apps to be useful, I do. But currently they're just not. They just feel like less functional touch versions of Win32 apps. But I want to see the power of the OS shine. I want those apps to be more than what they are. But if they continue down the road they're heading down now, that's not happening. Metro apps will remain nothing more than large phones apps ported to PC.
You're wasting your time. Some people seem to be in love with FrankensteinOS and no argument is ever going to change their minds. If they don't see it why Windows 8 and now Windows 10, which, as you've put it changes absolutely nothing, then they don't see it.
Well I'm not impressed either. As I described it to my coworker, this might be the lamest release of windows ever. What are we getting?
Unless the actual version comes with a new version of hyper-v (with meaningful improvements) or fixes one-drive sync so it doesn't suck so bad with big libraries or something of that nature... I don't know what to say about it. We got a new(old/hybrid) start menu? And they skipped 9 for that? And we can run metro apps in more of a window than the 8.1 version? Well give me a metro app I actually want to run alongside a desktop app and maybe we can talk.
I installed the preview into a vm, I guess I'll have to try it again and see if there is anything to like about it.
I'm sure it'll be a fine version of windows, but as far as I can tell it doesn't add anything meaningful. Maybe the virtual desktops feature, but I didn't really use it in linux so I'm not sure if I'll use it much in windows either. Unless you can configure them with different screen layout/configurations so I can have just my primary monitor enabled for gaming but all of my monitors enabled for work, or something similar.
That's not even bad stuff. You forgot about how now you can't configure wireless networks unless you're connected to them, and how they're taking options out all over the place and leaving people with no choice but to use weird ancient command line tools or the registry. I had a fun time setting my desktop icon spacing and such.
They took all those mundane items to make Windows work on light devices. Now you can have the same Windows on a tablet as a desktop. It was not possible with the GPU requirements of Aero.
All you are complaining about is the look which is very simple minded. They did so much under the GUI that makes Windows 8 far better than 7, never mind what 10 will bring. New file system, new recovery options, apps that update during sleep, and many more.
But hey, keep complaining about the most useless aspects of the OS.
"It was not possible with the GPU requirements of Aero." Even in Windows 7, aero glass could be turned off with the click of a button. In fact, it turns out that's basically all they did with Windows 8 - It was disabled and couldn't be turned on. Unfortunately 8.1 later removed it entirely.
You're also making it seem like my only reason for complaining about the UI is that I "think it's ugly". That is not true. I've explained this multiple times. There are actual objectively poor choices made in the visual style of Window s8 that can lower productivity, including, but not limited to, color choices, contrast around edges, drop shadows, etc.
And I also never shamed Windows 8 for under the hood changes. They're great. But I'm referring specifically to UI issues. The problem is that the shell of an OS is the #1 reason, by far, for whether or not people choose to adopt a platform. Despite my complaining, I use Windows 8. I us eit every day, I don't have any Win7 machines. I use it because I'm able to look past my complaints for those under the hood changes and improvements. That doesn't, for a second, mean that I'm happy with my experience with the OS. It means that I TOLERATE it - mostly on the presumption that it would be fixed in the next version (Win10) but it looks like they are going even further in the opposite direction, and so I feel it necessary to note my opinion.
I'm glad you don't think it's important, but *I DO*. For an OS that is advertised as "personalized to you" they did an awful job at allowing me to personalize it.
"They took all those mundane items to make Windows work on light devices. Now you can have the same Windows on a tablet as a desktop. It was not possible with the GPU requirements of Aero."
Is that why the taskbar is still using transparent effects?
I'm sorry that you've swallowed Microsoft's bullshit. The reason they removed Aero is because the dullness of Metro clashed too much with it. There's still a huge clash between both types of applications, but Aero made it even worse.
This. You are totally right. Especially regarding THEMING. They screwed up so hard it's actually hard to believe Windows h8 came AFTER Vista & 7. It is UNACCEPTABLE for a company such as Microsoft to push Windows 95 copies in 2014. Unacceptable.
Even worse: they state it is much better performing than the previous editions of Windows: well guess what: use Windows Vista / 7 and disable Aero / enable classic themes and Voilà! Your computer is much faster. THAT's not engineering - that's tricking people into thinking they actually did something to improve the experience, when in fact they did nothing.
AGAIN: Why do we have more and more powerful GPUs? In order for Windows not to take advantage of them, RIGHT. RIGHT....dumb designers.
I use Win 8.1 and have a start menu replacement installed.. i tried a few different ones and this current one is most stable.. problem is a a couple times over a day working with adobe/ms apps etc i run into issues.. language bar gets flaky, task bar doesnt disappear and throws off indesign/ps.. doesnt crash just makes me shift thru open windows, close/reduce some, etc to gets things back.
at these times i really am upset i am forced to use wonky addons to fix what should be a basic o/s stability...
i try running os x, but i prefer 17+" laptop screens, even tho with 8.1 we are stuck at 1080p until things get a bit more settled .. and apple doesnt have what i would like...
i just wonder what the heck was MS thinking? slowing me down while i work on my pc is not appreciated
If Windows 10 offers a desktop experience like 7, but improves on it, then offers a tablet experience like 8.1, but improves on it, then offers a phone experience like WP, but improves on it... there's not much else that they need to do. Works for me, anyway.
Good thing the desktop doesn't look or feel like Windows 7. It's flat and ugly and Microsoft decided to push the ugly flat metro interface on the desktop where I don't want anything to do with it. Windows customization has gone downhill so quickly it's not even funny. They removed beloved user options like aero glass without asking anyone if they wanted it. Themes are basically impossible now due to little tweaks they made.
Why would I use Windows 8/10 when I can customize Windows 7 to not only look identical to it, but also have most of the new functionality in both on the desktop with a handful of free third party utilities. It'll take 10 minutes to hunt down third party software that does everything they showed in Windows 10, and it'll be free or cheaper than a Windows 10 license.
Underlying improvements to the OS itself, such as the kernel. The complaining has mostly been about the shell. I do think that there's no reason why they couldn't maintain two shells, one with full aero for desktop users who couldn't care less about using an additional 20W or even 50W, while even a few watts savings on battery powered devices is a huge deal for battery life.
The gesture control, the inbuilt Apps, and the design of full Windows is sooo much better than the phone side. All those little round buttons on the phone need to die a gruesome death. The status bar needs to go to. Swipe in charm bar, swipe down to close, and swipe up settings menu all the way.
Gestures can be nice, swiping offscreen from the left to right to switch to the previous application for example would be quite nice. But most of the other gestures are redundant and simply built into either the persistent action bar and buttons at the bottom of the UI or in the action center. There is also a usability issue, off-screen swiping is awkward on phones because they're held one handed frequently. The current system works and is intuitive, gestures heavy UIs have so far proven not to be. With respect to the applications I wholly disagree. WP has many guidelines for the UI related to colouring, fonts and design to keep the UX clean, usable and consistent across the board. With Windows on the desktop it's basically shortened to "make your UI flat and boxy". Colours are just splashed across the screen without a care in the world, elements are often just square boxes with generic looking text in them, designs are inconsistent between applications. There are some diamonds in the rough, Mail works well and MetroTube too is excellent, but too many others are just bad or uninspiring.
I have, and I've seen others use them for the first time (BB anyway), which is why I have the opinion that it's not a very intuitive or discoverable model. People get confused by gestures that aren't obvious, so specifically ones that start or end off-screen.
Ever opened Windows Media Center? If you have you'll know what I'm trying to say. (Just in case you don't... WMC seems to be where the Windows team grabbed their ideas for the Modern UI)
yep windows phone will be my next phone as well. I have had S3 note2 and now note3. and I'm not seeing a lot in terms of OS maturity. so as soon as I see a phablet style in windows O/S ill be grabbing it!! looking really good as a phone OS
You've only used Samsung phones which have arguably the worst skin of any Android device and has barely changed in years. It doesn't surprise me you find TouchWiz phones stagnating. Stock Android, specifically the upcoming Android L release is a whole different story.
As for WP phablets, they already exist from Nokia and Huawei.
I'd hope so but it seems the old gesture based OS navigation is going down the drain, which has me very sad as a hybrid device user (Surface Pro 2) and ex-Windows Phone user.
The charms bar has died (it's now a ... bar on the app itself), and the left bezel swipe which was used to "pull in" the last used app or show a drawer of fullscreen ModernUI apps has gone, too, instead this gesture now invokes the desktop's task switcher but with bigger icons to touch.
Furthermore, the way touch is handled on hybrids through Continuum certainly sacrifices the UX when using the device casually as a tablet or touch-only device on the table: gone is the Metro environment to house apps, everything is fullscreen but on the desktop, and in its place is something decidedly more pedestrian and less elegant.
You now get a quasi-start screen superimposed above the desktop when you switch to tablet mode, but also a persistent taskbar shows up now for all your app switching needs, complete with (and here's where it gets ugly) a back button and a start button.
These changes are great for the majority of Microsoft's audience on traditional devices like laptops and desktops, but it really is sad to see all the innovative, and frankly excellent OS navigation features fall to the side. I guess bezel gestures were never intuitive to begin with, but moving all the navigation tasks to the taskbar pretty much violates the whole "content-first" approach to fullscreen Metro apps, and is just far less elegant. I hope swipe down from the top bezel to close and snap stuff is still there though.
It had a rocky start mainly due to OEMs not having drivers ready in time. Vista (1st NT6 release) significantly changed a lot of the driver models for critical but crash prone devices, like graphics, sound and moved them to user space instead of kernel space. They said this was to make Windows more stable, but at the start, it made it more unstable and also created a much larger memory footprint.
The other major problem with Vista was it released at a time where OEMs still weren't ready to move to a 64-bit OS, so a lot of capable machines (Core 2 and 1st gen i7) machines were handcuffed on the 32-bit version of the OS and limited to ~3GB of addressable VRAM. So, coupled with Vista's admittedly larger memory footprint, it resulted in a slow/bloated user experience. The 64-bit version on the other hand was amazing, basically Win7 2 years before Win7 released. I remember putting 8GB in my Q6600 rig and it flew!
Wait....why did they skip 9?? MS. You are no Winamp. They had a 3+2 thus making Winamp 5 but skipping 9? That just brings more attention to 8 if anything.
The Von Matrices: That's the kernel version. Have you checked the kernel versions of other major OSes to see how they line up with the software's "version number"?
I think that's because NT is the "core" of the operating system, which hasn't been completely overhauled since vista (which almost entirely rewrote the audio and networking stacks, among other things). They've just incremented from there towards more stability and faster boot times, for the most part.
I believe someone else pointed out "Windows Nine" translated to German would be "Windows Nein", or "Windows NO." It would be like the Chevy Nova, "No va" = "does not go" in spanish.
I wish people would stop repeating that stupid meme. It's only true if you selectively edit Window's version history. Also, just because they've skipped a number doesn't make it two versions after 8 in reality. It's still the next version of Windows after 8.
I think skipping 9 was silly. It's sillier the way people are reacting to it, though. It's just a damn version number. After the versioning of Chrome and Firefox you'd think people have understood that it just really does not matter.
no, even for home users it isn't true. The only bad ones were ME and 8 for desktop users. 95, 98, 2000, xp, vista and 7 were all good operating systems for home users.
i'm probably in the minority, but besides the UI, windows 8 is at least same and most likely faster than windows 7 as far as i'm concerned. Memory usage went down too.
I'm with you... I barely use the Start menu, never mind Metro apps, so it was easy to ignore either. Win 8 still had a whole raft of improvements over 7.
"besides the UI" - well, they fucked up really bad with the stupid UI. I'm not talking about Metro - I'm talking about the way those stupid themes look like in Windows 8. Vista looked a gazillion times better, then we got 7 which looked worse than Vista and better than 8.1...at least 10 is not going to look any worse than 8.1. Microsoft is stopping their fall on the design side.
Same here. I definitely pefer Win 8.1 over 7. It feels faster, more modern and polished for my desktop usage. I almost never see the home screen, and why should I? Sometimes the Metro apps are even a nice bonus. Not important yet, but they don't hurt either.
They need to distribute desktop apps on the Store too (like OS X). It would stop the malware and crapware waitin to be installed at every clicked link. On the convertible devices, installing an app from the store should install both the Metro version and desktop version (if it exists).
This is interesting, but I do wonder how they are segregating "desktop only" from "other" and what "other" entails.
I have a "hybrid" (Asus T100) and honestly, I really like the two interface approach. In some ways, if the traditional start screen (or new I guess, but with 10 it'll be "old" from 8/8.1) were built out and more modern UI (or whatever the heck it is called now) utilities/abilities were added in, maybe I could live within it.
For one, the control panel and what is accessible through the start screen are VASTLY different. So if that is neutred on a tablet...no thank you. I have no issues launching desktop applications from the start screen, especially if MS fixes the fact that it drops you to the desktop, and then launches the application, it would be nicer/more seamless.
Also...give us a modern UI file explorer please fro cripes sake!!!
Anyway, hybrid tablets are really where my concern from "lets make it so you can only have on UI with Windows 10" concerns me. My laptop and desktop, yes please. The new stuff looks nice...for touch AND Keyboard and Mouse maybe not as much just with a desktop and also maybe not so much only with modern UI.
Huh? No it's not. Modern UI is their design language, and it just so happens that they've adopted their Modern UI design language for "Store apps" since that's the way they want to go moving forward. Modern UI can be applied anywhere to anything. Desktop, metro, web pages, etc.
My only concern is for full x86 Windows tablets like my DV8P. It's not clear how it'll work on that when I want to use legacy applications. Do we still have access to the desktop?
From what I've seen it looks like you can enable the touch mode at any time and revert back to more of a Windows 8.1 feel. We'll know more when we get the bits.
As far as a modern file explorer, I agree even though the OneDrive app is used for this now - that's not obvious at all and should be fixed.
Plus Android actually has a design language for everything from phones to chromebooks in Material.
Industry will still probably be limited to embedded versions for x86/x86-64 if they don't want to use the phone version. So companies like QNX/Blackberry as well as Android/Linux-variants will continue to win contracts on stuff like automotive/cars and various STB stuff. Stuff that Windows CE often ran before.
Much of this was rumoured before the lunch and I'm glad it's proven to be more than just rumours. What has also been rumoured was that the price for upgrade to Windows 10 would either be free (at least for Windows 8/8.1) or relatively cheap in comparison to previous versions of Windows. Any news on that front?
Most propably you get it free for win 8 8.1 is you do buy it one to two months before the release of win10. Just like always. The MS has normally promised free upgrade to those who buy machine just before the os update, to ensure that there is not decline in computer sales because the new os is coming "soon". Everyone else should be prepared to pay full price or some discount for short period of time.
well I hope they fix some of the bugs, along with prettying it up. ( bring back aeroshell modern tablets have enough horsepower to run it) but I want them to fix files you can't delete with getting a tool like unlocker, I want them to finally fix the usb 3.0 sleep problem, I want them to fix being unable to get into a gpt protected volume to AT LEAST be able to copy the data off before reformatting the drive, M$ won't even address the problem on their website and the work arounds are problematic and complicated, I wanrt them to fix fil history where win.exe expands to fill that puny 100MB and effectively kill shadow volume so no file history. These are just some of the bugs that really annoy me and should be fixed along with the one UI to rule them all.
A lot of the issues you're complaining about are simple to "fix" mainly as they are by design.
Power users simply need to take ownership of files to delete them (so long as they aren't in use, of course). It's been like this since Vista enacted greater ACL's for files. GPT Protected volume is a term only ever used when trying to access a GPT volume from an operating system that doesn't support GPT. It has nothing to do with Microsoft as GPT is part of the UEFI standard and Microsoft simply supports this standard to allow access to larger volumes than 2TB. If you're referring to OEM or MSR partitions which are often included in GPT formatted drives, then you can access data by mounting it with diskpart (assuming the volume has a proper filesystem), again, so long as the operating system you're using physically supports it. There are no standard executables within Windows called win.exe. The only references I could find for it relate to trojans and viruses. I had issues with sleep on my x58 system that uses a non-intel usb3 controller. The issue was related to the fact that the controller I had (a realtek one) didn't support the standard properly, and hence the Windows 8 usb3 driver from Microsoft doesn't actually work properly with it. Using the manufacturer drivers sorted this. Again, not a Microsoft problem.
Literally the only valid thing you typed was your preference for getting Aero back... Which I personally agree with, since at the very least Windows should allow people to choose it. I doubt the addition of a minor change to uxtheme.dll and the 5MB theme will hurt their installed size much.
Nope, I have to mirror Hruodgars comment on "un-deletable" files. I "stumbled" across unlocker after many hours of searching. The 500GB drive in my desktop is a secondary (tertiary?) drive that USED to be my system drive a build ago with Win7. I didn't format it, just ported it. Win 8.1 won't let me delete most of the files/folders on that drive even after taking ownership. I have to use unlocker to do it.
Been really annoying, but at least I found a solution to clean up the drive (after mostly throwing up my hands months and months ago).
Wow... As I was reading this, I kept waiting for the good news... And then I hit the end of the article... I am no expert. I do not work in an electronics retail store, nor do I work for a major corporation. But I know a fair number of people. None of the people I know use Windows Phone, and pretty much, we have all agreed that we will never own a Windows phone that has that big, ugly, kaleidoscope of colored blocks. And apparently, nothing changes in Windows 10 along these lines. Next, a lot of us use tablets. Guess how many of those tablets use Windows. Thats right. None. Why? Well, we are mostly on Samsung Android tablets, and there are a small number of Apple tablets as well. Many of the Samsung tablet users are former Apple table users. But it seems that today, Apple is 2 years behind on features, and Microsoft isnt even in the ballpark. Many of us looked at Surface, and like the rest of the world, we decided not to buy it. And again, I really do not see much in this article that makes me want to wait for a year (or more), on a Windows 10 tablet. And finally, desktops... I will admit to seriously hating Metro. Anything that gets rid of Metro just has a be a big, big positive. However, taking Metro, putting it into a window, and slapping that window on the desktop.... Meh. I don't see a lot of benefit for users there. I think we have made it pretty clear in the past 2 years that we do not like Metro apps. I use a grand total of 1. The weather app. I admit that is cool. I use it almost every day. Beyond that, no. I do not like metro apps. I don't think sticking them in a window is going to make me like them any more than I do now. Most of my friends seem to agree with me. Maybe Microsoft will find a way to make sure we don't even know that the Metro apps are Metro apps. I think that would be a better trick than Houdini was able to pull off, but Microsoft has a year (or more), to try to do this. Getting a functional Start menu back would be nice, but thats not what I really hated about 8.1... So I will sit on the sidelines and hope there is something substantial in this Windows 9 that they are going to call WIndows 10 that will make me want to spent anything on it. Can I hope that it might be free? After all, I did pay for this Windows 8.1 Pro that cant even do DVD's... Pathetic right? 1 year... Y.A.W.N. ... Goodnight....
there's not much substance in what you're saying. So you and your friends don't like windows phone designs. Cool. Other people like it a lot. Then you go on about Microsoft tablets being well behind on features, yet you don't give one example. Last i checked a full windows tablet has a huge amount of legacy apps that no other tablet can come close to. And finally you don't like metro apps..here's a thought: don't use them.
It looks like windows 10 won't be half bad. After the Windows 8 UI mess, i'm really rooting for windows 10. I'm glad they went back to enterprise customers for input this time.
Great updates, thanks for the detailed write-up. Very excited as both a normal end-user and an enterprise stakeholder/decision-maker. There was simply no way we could ever deploy Win8 in its launch format in my work environment, and even after a few passes with Windows 8.1, it wouldn't have worked with the desktop as users would have freaked out.
Now that Start is back with a small dose of Modern along with built-in SmartCard authentication (no need for 3rd party like ActivClient is what I am reading here), it should be an easy win for IT decision-makers.
On the user side of things, I'm looking forward to DX12, virtual desktops, snap, and all the previous improvements from Windows 8.1's underpinnings.
The decision to jump to a designation of "10" however indicates to me Microsoft will charge Win8 buyers for the upgrade to 10, despite early rumors Threshold might show up as 8.2 or be offered as a free upgrade to Windows 9. Sounds like they are going to take their time to polish 10 and create enough distance to justify the cost to upgrade. Here's to hoping they reward their Windows 8 licensees with a free/reduced price upgrade.
"Even though Windows 8 did not light the world on fire as far as unit sales, it is still on hundreds of millions of devices."
That seems a bit like hyperbole...
A year ago, Patrick Moorhead, who is principal analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy, estimated the total number of actual Windows 8 devices right around 58M. (A tremendous number of the PC market users with Windows 8 devices have exercised downgrade rights to Windows 7...) Even if sales have held steady, I doubt there's much more than 100M actual Windows 8 machines out there today. The enterprise has all but wholesale rejected the OS...
Does anyone know what the actual "installed and using" Windows 8 count is?
The enterprise market has never embraced the most recent version of Windows. They're always at least a version behind, usually more. Saying it's been "rejected" as though the option has even come up for most of that market is a bit misleading.
No, around now is when enterprises would be deploying a new OS (around 2 years after launch) after completing validation and placing orders for new machines and spec'ing the OS. Many enterprises, including the one I work in, did not get out of the validation process (last year) when we decided to reject it. We have approved it in limited capacity on primary touch-enabled devices only.
I also know for a fact, we will be moving to 10 faster than usual, and this tech preview (waiting for the MSDN approved and not the public version) will certainly give us a head start on validation.
I hope the whole 4k high DPI scaling thing is sorted out in Windows 10 and for all MS apps. Hopefully they make it easy for other software devs to update their products for high DPI as well.
By the time this is released 4k displays might be the norm.
Scaling has been sorted for the OS and first-party and metro apps for quite a while now. It's only third-party apps whose developers can't or won't properly support scaling that have issues.
Not for setups that involve multiple monitors of different DPIs - 8.x improved on that from 7, but only by rendering at the DPI of the primary display and raster resizing for the others. OS X manages to do this better - not sure how, but text on other monitors doesn't look blurry even if you're running off an rMBP.
I like some of the proposed changes, but for the most part Windows 8.1 is already, by far, the best Windows OS that I've ever used for the desktop. I suspect that many detractors haven't spent enough time with it to offer an educated opinion.
" For multitasking, it was certainly better than other mobile operating systems from 2012, but it was a long way from Windows 7." - Considering that Windows 8 lost none of Windows 7's desktop features except for Aero Flip, this is a disingenuous statement at best.
Yeah I found that statement pretty odd as well. I can only assume he was referring to the metro environment's multi-tasking as compared to the desktop (though of course Win8 has the same multi-tasking on the desktop as Win7 so the statement is still inaccurate). That's a silly comparison to make, though. And Win8's metro multi-tasking was and still is superior to any other touch-centric environment that I'm aware of.
Sorry, author, but "disaster" doesn't command more market share then every other non-Windows together. "Disaster" is usually wrong label, when new product lunches after extremely well received previous product. ( And relatively shortly after) Only few companies successfully pushes their base to buy new product so often. Also "disaster" is usually not sued when sales of relevant product is slowing down, because of "good enough". Alias sales of completed PCs.
As for claims about "trying to win back enterprise". That's downright nonsense. Enterprise is on much longer upgrade time scale then is just one version. (Or have anybody missed how many companies are still moving from XP?) Reminder: Usual upgrade cycle is 5-7 years at best.
And lastly, problems of W8 are vastly exaggerated by dinosaurs and press. (for nice click bate articles) They did same with Vista. Couldn't do with 95 or XP. (too soon), but I suggest some people take look back there to see W8 was not an anomaly in general. Just this time dinosaurs won. (Instead of being relegated to history like several times before - MS is no Apple, Apple would get away with is and everybody would praise that)
Difference between 95,XP and 8? Internet. It made much easier for vocal group to be heard much louder then it used to.
"a suitable UI for each system...." - I hope it's a suitable UI for each usage mode, not tailored for the system. If I plug a tablet or phone into a monitor, I want Windows to switch to desktop mode.
The thing I don't like about Windows 10 is that we need another year or so to get it.
Reading on another site, Windows 10 will include Continuum, a technology specifically designed to adapt the UI to what the user connects to the device. This makes me happy.
Given that the use of the app store is an administrative nightmare if you have to deal with more than 5 clients, what to expect next? IT departments have to test and re-test every new client build for inhouse compatibility, can you imagine how much more internal cost a quarterly "feature update" will bring?
As long as we have no real news of how MS will handle enterprise builds, the new Windows wont make it into the big companies.
Remember the disaster when 8.1 was published exclusivly through the update channel? Might be an inconvenience for the home user, but it turned out a PITA for all those who had to administrate more than 3 clients?
Enterprise OS is mostly about keeping cost and necessary man power in check. Haven't heard anything about that part up to now.
Solution is simple, use Group Policy to white/black list approved apps. I know for a fact we will not be allowing free reign on the Windows Store for users, we will pre-install and pre-configure the basics:
Office Acrobat Handful of other whitelisted apps they can pull from SCCM.
Windows 10, eh? If they deliver what they're promising in a stable package that can at least tie with Win7 in the benches, I might finally decide to go for the OS upgrade. On the other hand, knowing MS, it will most probably just be Windows 8.2 that may nearly be purchase-worthy by SP1.
For me, it is not a matter of some misplaced snobbery, or getting on the "let's hate win8 'cause it's popular" bandwagon. I just don't like to, or want to spend months to get back to the productivity level of the previous OS. I don't want to spend hours on online forums asking questions and doing meaningless research, just so I can RE-learn to do something that I could easily do before, or worse, find out that it can't be done any more. An OS is not a game, where learning how to play well is half the fun. An OS is just an interface between me and the things that are fun for me. So I want the OS transition to be as smooth as possible, and the new OS to be as familiar as possible. So I can just boot up and start doing the things that I want to do, or like to do, as fast, and as efficiently as possible.
Now I'm sure people at MS understand that just as well, if not better. But unless there is genuine competition in the OS market, MS marketing will keep trying to convince us that they know our individual needs better than us, and MS will keep giving us what is most profitable to them, rather than what we actually need,
Months to get back to productivity? I got used to it in two days. Right now, the problem is going back to W7 and finding it lacking in many aspects, like the task manager, poweruser contextual menus and stuff like that.
If you need months to get back to your previous productivity level, the problem is in yourself, not the OS. Even my technologically inept sister got used to it in a few days.
It isn't very prudent of you to assume that you understand what my productivity standards and requirements are without having a complete access to my home and office networks' usage data.
Perhaps the above reply was far too concise for its own good. Let me put it this way... you could move a bank manager, who's a part time gun hobbyist, from an M14 to an M16 and he would walk down to the firing range and empty a few mags after two minutes of orientation. If OTOH, the USMC issues a squad of marines with the same replacement, the marines may have to go through weeks of training before they're allowed to carry the new weapon in a combat situation. The aforementioned doesn't mean that the bank manager is necessarily better with guns than every marine in the squad.
For a casual user, the switchover may be trivial, but for someone who has been neck-deep in computing for nearly 20 years, it may entail a far bigger commitment.
That interface, God damn it, THAT INTERFACE! Do something about it, Microsoft! It looks worse than Windows 98, for fks sake! Bring back Windows with a theme worthy of Windows 10 and 2014. Ever since Vista you've gone the wrong way - 7 is acceptable but this is pushing it too far - I want a NEW OS, not one from 1990! Who's "designing" the Windows theme for Windows 8 and 10? Fire him / her / the whole team immediately. You keep going backwards, while hardware capabilities are going forward. What in the actual fuck?
From the article: "With Windows 10 though, the concept of a Universal App allows a developer to target a phone, Xbox, tablet, and desktop. If anything is the killer feature of Windows 10, this could be it."
I don't get it, how is that different from the universal apps in the windows store right now?
So far Threshold looks like minor tweaks, in the right direction but worthy to be Windows 8.2 not Windows 10 so far. If they make an app store for desktop apps (not just tablet apps running on the desktop) that will be worthy to call Windows 9.
At the beginning you say "To say that Windows 8 was unsuccessful would be an understatement, and from both Microsoft’s and user’s perspectives, it was certainly a failure."
Which is certainly true. Then why all reviews were so favorable?If you read your own ( i mean anandtech website ) Windows RT review, it seems like a fantastic product. http://www.anandtech.com/show/6412/microsoft-relea...
How is it possible that reviews and user base are so disconnected? I know Semiaccurate put it simply as "Microsoft is paying", which is probably true in indirect ways, but I think it's a little more ocmplex than that. You could give a favorable review but with less enthusiasm, or well, taking some distance, but after having seen one of the worst Operating System rated from 9 to 10, how can someone still believe a OS review?
It is because corporate marketing reps deploy considerable resources to favourably slant the opinions of professional reviewer beforehand. It is often not because the reviewers are corrupt, but because they're human, and the top-tier marketing knows how to mess with the human mind.
Author is probably referring to Desktop, Laptop (non-touch) and Enterprise (again mainly Desktop), where Windows 8/.1 failed because it failed to spur adoption with downgrade options exercised reminiscent of Vista to XP. Those good reviews were written in the context of a touch/tablet device so of course the tone of the reviews are going to be different.
Considering Desktop and Enterprise OS sales are still the biggest portion of overall Windows revenue, any success or failure of an OS on the Desktop is largely going to dictate the fate of a Windows OS. I don't see this situation changing anytime soon, and it's obviously why Microsoft is making such a focused effort on winning back the trust of the Enterprise stakeholders.
Windows 8 is a failure in the same way Vista was a failure. People aren't buying it, and it has a bad reputation. Normal people think it's bad without even trying it. Sales have not been good, adoption has not been good, and because of that it is certainly a failure.
I think it's a great OS, and I think the updates they have made over the past two years have really helped it. I use it every single day, and I have no major problems with it. I was never a person that was put off by the start screen, or Metro apps. I don't ALWAYS like Metro apps - for instance I installed Adobe Reader on the desktop and removed the Metro version because I was tired of every time I opened a PDF I got kicked off the desktop, but overall I like it a lot.
So, yes, I can understand why it reviewed favorably. There are certainly a lot of rough edges, especially when it first came out, but there were a lot of advantages as well.
That being said, I can understand why others do not like some of the changes. Some of that boils down to people don't like change, but a lot of them are legit complaints and I feel that Windows 10 is addressing the majority of those, without throwing everything away.
Hey, all, I know why they skipped Windows 9. If you say it out loud, it means No in German. Seeing as German is the language of business, you don't want businesses to say 9 when they see the new version of Windows, it might introduce confusion.
So this is all UI changes basicly. What under the hood changes make it worth the upgrade? Because that stuff can be done with third party apps already.
Random things: -Actually the desktop DOES work great with touch…at least on a 10” tablet. I know we’ve been told for years that touch wouldn’t work with a traditional desktop, but that’s just wrong…it’s fantastic. In fact I still find it a better interface for a lot of things than anything else, even with touch.
-I *DO* want the same interface (and program compatibility) on as many devices as possible. At this point there’s no reason not to have your tablet just run real Windows, given the performance and power issues are solved, as are interface issues.
-Never knew what “Windows RT” stood for…obviously it’s “Windows RunTime”!
-Otherwise Windows 8 (and even more 8.1) is a great OS, and 10 looks to be better still.
Given 10 isn't supposed to ship until H2 2015 I guess this means my tablet plans are back on...though I wish Microsoft would do a fanless Atom or Core M Surface Pro!
ReFS is the new filesystem you are looking for. Along with Storage Spaces (for making parity/mirror sets) it's actually been fully integrated since Windows 8 - I doubt there's a reason they would be removed in 10! Hopefully some of the setup GUI issues with Storage Spaces are fixed though.
Ganesh has said he'll be doing an article on ReFS soon. Write speeds for parity sets are (by design) slow, but reads should be fine for typical home archival Write-Once-Read-Many storage, ie. media arrays, where bit-scrubbing and repair are needed. This is MS's answer to ZFS for Windows.
I just want an OS that is small, and stripped bare, thus having minimal overhead, so I can run my chosen programs as fast as possible.
My Win 7 runs 'Basic theme', black solid desktop and a mere 52 processes (I just checked). I almost had a heart attack when I saw how many procs Win 8 used, but what made me SO angry, was that some of it I couldn't disable - Metro theme I'm looking at you.
I read (somewhere, God knows), that Android has a 1/4 of the overhead as Windows, and I can still play games, send email, and browse the web with Android too. I just don't see why Windows has to be so BIG, and resource hungry. Ever tried an old version of Windows on a new system - it flys..
I can just imagine Windows 15, 250GB install space required, minimum RAM 1TB (2TB recommended), CPU 32 core min (64 core reccomended), credit card required for activation, and so on. It pains me to say it, but Linux is looking more attractive year by year.
Would anybody like to comment on running MS Office and games under WINE? I've not tried.
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hughlle - Tuesday, September 30, 2014 - link
The name kind of makes sense, although maybe they didnt go far enough. Anything to distance themselves as far as possible from windows 8 as they can.mmrezaie - Tuesday, September 30, 2014 - link
Yes thats why they called it 10! [sarcasm]Byte - Tuesday, September 30, 2014 - link
i really don't understand, why they didn't just call it Windows 720.Death666Angel - Wednesday, October 1, 2014 - link
Windows One was the name I would have expected! :D3ogdy - Wednesday, October 1, 2014 - link
It would've made sense: they left from Windows 8, did a 360 with 8.1 and another 360º spin with this Windows 10. VERY little progress. Still looks the same as Windows h8. These people SERIOUSLY need a design team - it applies to quite a lot of their products, not just Windows 8, 8.1 and apparently, 10.Ranari - Wednesday, October 1, 2014 - link
The Microsoft design team is fine. The issue with Microsoft is that they tend to be a company that can't spot the elephant in the room when they see it. They need to see data, and do research first, when in reality all they need sometimes is to hire a couple of "honest talkers" that'll tell 'em straight up that, "Hey, this is a bad idea." Might save them a few billion dollars. Windows 8 was an excellent product, but you can't change the fundamental design of how people have been using their desktops at both home and work over the last 20 years in a single release. Forcing a tablet experience onto a desktop market? Not going to happen .With Windows 10, the design is what Windows 8 should have been. You offer the same solid, core shell underneath the hood, but you differ the UI depending on the device. This makes sense, and it unifies the operating system across all platforms. I made a prediction years ago back in 2007 when I saw the first iPhone that smartphones would eventually be married into the desktop experience. That is, you walk up to your desktop, place your smartphone in a cradle, and it would power your mouse, keyboard, and monitor. The UI would change to the familiar desktop experience, and the cradle would provide more power to the smartphone device for faster running speeds. True desktops wouldn't be replaced, as there will always be the need for more power, but imagine picking up your "desktop" and taking it straight to your meeting. You'd always have your data with you wherever you go.
With Windows 10, we're starting to see that vision. One OS, all platforms. Finally something smart from Microsoft.
mkozakewich - Thursday, October 2, 2014 - link
I love how close we are, yet we're still painfully far away. Phones are becoming more and more powerful, but are providing all that power up-front with very little energy management. As a result, the batteries only last a few hours on heavy workManufacturers need to be less timid about locking things away. Revealing less of the battery to the user keeps it healthy for years longer, and reducing CPU speeds when heavy loads are detected would help battery life tremendously. Gating RAM might also reduce power usage over the course of a couple days.
I feel like all we need is the proper cultural shift. I had one of those pocket netbooks in 2010, and it was amazing. It was this little blip where the possibilities all converged, right before tablets became 'the thing'. Now there's nothing but half-assed operating systems that hamper one's ability to do real work.
Da W - Wednesday, October 1, 2014 - link
What is it you don't like? They fix all that people complained about, and you still complain? Get a life.inighthawki - Wednesday, October 1, 2014 - link
I love posts like this that are so clueless. They fixed nothing.A start menu? Anyone who really cared about that spent 60 seconds to go install any of the 10 free start menu replacements.
Windowed metro apps? Metro apps are garbage to begin with. Nobody on the desktop even wants to use them, and they're total trash from a productivity standpoint.
The real issues with the OS are the things they reverted and took away from the Win7 experience that cannot be replaced.
Theming was completely butchered - I hate the new metro look and feel. I want aero glass. I want windows with higher contrasting edges. With drop shadows. I want to be able to customize the look and feel of Windows. But guess what? Windows 8 has horrible theming. It's like three steps back from Windows 7. Did you know that you can't use a custom theme that does anything other than having a completely solid color titlebar, because they "optimized" the title bar text rendering by rendering it on an opaque background?
The next big problem is the push for metro and their touch first goals. They want touch to be "a first class citizen" in Windows. This is stupid on a desktop. I don't need, or want a touch based UI on a PC that I will NEVER have touch on. Never ever in a million years. Metro apps are designed so incredibly poorly it's not even funny, The metro design language works almost exclusively only for touch first content-consumption based apps. Trying to do anything productive is just a waste of time.
Windows 10 looks to solve none of the actual fundamental issues with the OS with that. The biggest complaint was metro, so their solution? Push the metro look and feel to the desktop! Windows now have 1px thin window borders - what a terrible idea. Now none of my applications can have contrast with one another. Oh, and let's make the title bar of metro apps look different! Cool, now there's yet one more thing completely inconsistent with the rest of the system UI. Let's not forget that Microsoft's OWN PRODUCTS (Office, VS) do the same and are inconsistent with their OWN OS.
I use windows to get work done, and because it used to be highly customizable. Now it's just garbage. They decided for me that I wanted metro and a flat UI. I don't. I want a UI that I choose, and I want productive Win32 apps. And don't even get me started on the huge joke that the WinRT runtime is for developers. Half the power of the Win32 library, and with twice as many security restrictions. Did you know you can't even open a file handle to a file on the disk if it's outside of the user folders unless you go through the File Picker interface? God what a disaster.
maximumGPU - Wednesday, October 1, 2014 - link
fine, they took away your beloved aero look.Rest of what you're saying is just metro this metro that. I don't get it, is anyone forcing you to use metro apps? I'm on windows 8.1 and with boot to desktop i practically never see any metro app.
inighthawki - Wednesday, October 1, 2014 - link
That's the entire issue! Metro is a theme! As it progresses, Windows is moving more and more components to the metro look and feel. Standard desktop components are slowly moving to metro. Settings in control panel are moving to PC settings. Live tiles in the start menu - yes I can remove them, but now I'm completely wasting the right side of my start menu. Window borders are being removed to make applications "more immersive" and in-line with metro guidelines. Cortana, based on screenshots, is now a metro app built directly into the taskbar. Oh joyous me!This is only an alpha release and they've already pushed metro into the desktop more than I'd like it to be. My request is not really all that big - I want the ability to customize my UI. Why is that an unreasonable request? I've been a life-long diehard windows fan. I've used every version of Windows as they're released, including betas. Every release up through 7 was a major step forward and provided massive customization to use old styles for those who didn't like it. Starting with Win8, Microsoft suddenly decided they new better than everyone and are forcing people to use what they came up with.
And don't try to just write me off as some user allergic to change. I love new OS features. In fact I absolutely LOVE the idea of universal apps and stuff. The actual technology behind a lot of this is astounding and amazing. As a developer I'd love to hardness a lot of it. I just think the UI and access to the features completely cripples its effectiveness.
Alexvrb - Wednesday, October 1, 2014 - link
I'm sure you'd "love to hardness" it, verbally at least. Anyway how is a Modern app running in a window a problem exactly? Because it uh... came from the Store? How is a winrt program running in a window functionally crippled compared to a win32 program running in a window? Why would having access to Cortana be an issue? Why couldn't you just use the live tiles on the new start menu as they're intended, quick info and/or shortcuts to your commonly used stuff?You're prejudgemental, and definitely allergic to change - or perhaps you've just got an axe to grind. All your arguments can be summed up "Boo hiss Modern theme". If you don't like the theme, I'm sure you can change it or download software that does it for you. They fixed things and you still somehow think it's "crippled".
inighthawki - Thursday, October 2, 2014 - link
Alexvrb,Your post implies you don't actually understand limitations of a lot of this stuff, and you definitely didn't understand my post.
For example - How are WinRT apps in windows crippled compared to Win32 programs in windows? Easy. If you were a developer you'd immediately know that the WinRT based applications have an enormous amount of limitations and restrictions based on them that Win32 apps have complete access to.
How is having access to Cortana bad? It's not, never said it was. But the way it's exposed through the UI is suboptimal. That's the problem, not Cortana.
"Why couldn't you just use the live tiles on the new start menu as they're intended, quick info and/or shortcuts to your commonly used stuff?"
Because live tiles don't have the functionality I want or need. Instead they take up useful realestate space that more important things can go. Can I make a live tile into a cascadable menu to a directory on my file system? no? I also frown upon solid blocks of color, since I want my UI to remain professional looking. Can I disable the background coloring of live tiles? Nope.
And what exactly are you referring to by shortcuts?
"You're prejudgemental, and definitely allergic to change"
That might be the case had it not been for:
1) I use Windows 8 as my primary OS on both my desktop and laptop, and have used it for 2 years now.
2) I have tried the Tech preview.
3) The fact that it doesn't fit AT ALL with the fact that I've eagerly anticipated every version of Windows up until Windows 8.
"If you don't like the theme, I'm sure you can change it or download software that does it for you"
Some stuff can be fixed, others cannot. For example, even with extensive addons, Windows 8 cannot be themed to look like Windows 7. Functionality has literally be changed or removed from core components of the OS that nobody has yet to implement, and may never be able to. For example: the desktop compositor now renders title bar text over a solid color background, since ti assumes there is no transparency and that the border frame is a solid color. Guess what? That means you cannot install ANY custom visual style that has anything other than a 100% transparent windows frame, because otherwise the text background doesn't match at all. The number of custom visual styles released since that change has dropped dramatically.
"They fixed things and you still somehow think it's "crippled"."
No, they fixed SOME things - things I didn't even care about - and made other things - things I did care about - even worse.
I mean, maybe your brain works differently than mine. Cool, you like or aren't affected by certain changes in the UI. Maybe you have different usage patterns or use things in a different way than I do. That's great. That doesn't mean that I'm whining and throwing a tantrum because I have issue with the way something is done. I just happen to knwo the most efficient ways to accomplish my tasks. I know how I work best. I know what I prefer, what visual styles and aesthetics I prefer. To me, Win10 is not solving these problems.
maximumGPU - Thursday, October 2, 2014 - link
See, we can accept that Win10 will not fit with your very specific needs, as you're implying in this post (never encountered someone with such hatred for solid colours btw).But look at the first sentence of your reply to Da W: "I love posts like this that are so clueless, they fixed nothing". When in reality they fixed nearly everything for the vast majority of people, but as expected not enough for extreme cases like yours.
girishp - Tuesday, October 14, 2014 - link
What "Da W" means is that Windows 10 is catering more to Metro and that Metro is not useful to anyone. I agree, Microsoft has completely neglected the desktop user. There is little to no enhancement to the desktop. Task view is unpolished, 3rd party alternatives do a much better job. I use Dexpot for virtual desktop. Search and Cortana don't work properly yet, maybe they will fix that. The Live Tiles only work in the start menu. It would have been so much better if the Live tiles could be pinned to the desktop.damianrobertjones - Wednesday, October 1, 2014 - link
I gather that you haven't used the technical preview yet? You can remove all of the 'Modern UI' apps and be left with a standard looking Start Menu.Everything else you said is pointless as all I hear is the same tired excuses not to like something. You don't like it, fine, good, ok. While you're over there people like myself are working without issue with Windows 8 as a re plenty of people where I work.
inighthawki - Wednesday, October 1, 2014 - link
Yet another user who sees "I like it and he doesn't, he just must be whining"Maybe a little background:
I have Windows 8.1 on two computers. A desktop and a touch enabled laptop. I use both every day. I live with it because it has a number of advantages I can't get on Windows 7, like Storage spaces, and proper High DPI support for my laptop. I still hate it compared to Windows 7.
And yes, I have tried the Tech Preview. IMO, it is even worse than Windows 8. It doesn't solve any of the issues I had with the OS. Who cares about a start menu? I was able to replace that in 60 seconds with a third party solution. Anyone claiming they didn't want to use Windows 8 because of a lack of a start menu is lying through their teeth. Windowed metro apps feely tacky at best. They're not even properly resizable - their vertical height is restricted. The window UI is inconsistent with the rest of the system and feels very unpolished, and doesn't take advantage of any of the existing theming or infrastructure in the OS. The new Alt+Tab has the exact same issue as the start screen did. It doesn't display any of your workspace behind the new view, so it translates to a context switch which is rather jarring when you quickly switch through apps. Virtual desktops are nice, but their usefulness is limited since it doesn't actually filter the taskbar, so people like myself who use taskbar buttons with labels don't enjoy any savings in taskbar realestate. Maybe once they fix that it'll actually be useful. The notification center is kind of a joke... It's just a list of things that have popped up through toast notifications. Nothing else. I guess there's nothing to complain about for the command prompt improvements. That one is a welcome change, nothing at fault there.
Maybe things will be better once they actually polish it up (I understand it's a preview), but currently it feels way too rough edged, inconsistent, and still focuses too much on being touch friendly instead of optimizing for actual desktop use. I want metro apps to be useful, I do. But currently they're just not. They just feel like less functional touch versions of Win32 apps. But I want to see the power of the OS shine. I want those apps to be more than what they are. But if they continue down the road they're heading down now, that's not happening. Metro apps will remain nothing more than large phones apps ported to PC.
R. Hunt - Thursday, October 2, 2014 - link
You're wasting your time. Some people seem to be in love with FrankensteinOS and no argument is ever going to change their minds. If they don't see it why Windows 8 and now Windows 10, which, as you've put it changes absolutely nothing, then they don't see it.andrewaggb - Thursday, October 2, 2014 - link
Well I'm not impressed either. As I described it to my coworker, this might be the lamest release of windows ever. What are we getting?Unless the actual version comes with a new version of hyper-v (with meaningful improvements) or fixes one-drive sync so it doesn't suck so bad with big libraries or something of that nature... I don't know what to say about it. We got a new(old/hybrid) start menu? And they skipped 9 for that? And we can run metro apps in more of a window than the 8.1 version? Well give me a metro app I actually want to run alongside a desktop app and maybe we can talk.
I installed the preview into a vm, I guess I'll have to try it again and see if there is anything to like about it.
I'm sure it'll be a fine version of windows, but as far as I can tell it doesn't add anything meaningful. Maybe the virtual desktops feature, but I didn't really use it in linux so I'm not sure if I'll use it much in windows either. Unless you can configure them with different screen layout/configurations so I can have just my primary monitor enabled for gaming but all of my monitors enabled for work, or something similar.
mkozakewich - Thursday, October 2, 2014 - link
That's not even bad stuff. You forgot about how now you can't configure wireless networks unless you're connected to them, and how they're taking options out all over the place and leaving people with no choice but to use weird ancient command line tools or the registry. I had a fun time setting my desktop icon spacing and such.sigmatau - Thursday, October 2, 2014 - link
They took all those mundane items to make Windows work on light devices. Now you can have the same Windows on a tablet as a desktop. It was not possible with the GPU requirements of Aero.All you are complaining about is the look which is very simple minded. They did so much under the GUI that makes Windows 8 far better than 7, never mind what 10 will bring. New file system, new recovery options, apps that update during sleep, and many more.
But hey, keep complaining about the most useless aspects of the OS.
inighthawki - Thursday, October 2, 2014 - link
"It was not possible with the GPU requirements of Aero."Even in Windows 7, aero glass could be turned off with the click of a button. In fact, it turns out that's basically all they did with Windows 8 - It was disabled and couldn't be turned on. Unfortunately 8.1 later removed it entirely.
You're also making it seem like my only reason for complaining about the UI is that I "think it's ugly". That is not true. I've explained this multiple times. There are actual objectively poor choices made in the visual style of Window s8 that can lower productivity, including, but not limited to, color choices, contrast around edges, drop shadows, etc.
And I also never shamed Windows 8 for under the hood changes. They're great. But I'm referring specifically to UI issues. The problem is that the shell of an OS is the #1 reason, by far, for whether or not people choose to adopt a platform. Despite my complaining, I use Windows 8. I us eit every day, I don't have any Win7 machines. I use it because I'm able to look past my complaints for those under the hood changes and improvements. That doesn't, for a second, mean that I'm happy with my experience with the OS. It means that I TOLERATE it - mostly on the presumption that it would be fixed in the next version (Win10) but it looks like they are going even further in the opposite direction, and so I feel it necessary to note my opinion.
I'm glad you don't think it's important, but *I DO*. For an OS that is advertised as "personalized to you" they did an awful job at allowing me to personalize it.
R. Hunt - Monday, October 6, 2014 - link
"They took all those mundane items to make Windows work on light devices. Now you can have the same Windows on a tablet as a desktop. It was not possible with the GPU requirements of Aero."Is that why the taskbar is still using transparent effects?
I'm sorry that you've swallowed Microsoft's bullshit. The reason they removed Aero is because the dullness of Metro clashed too much with it. There's still a huge clash between both types of applications, but Aero made it even worse.
3ogdy - Thursday, October 2, 2014 - link
This. You are totally right. Especially regarding THEMING. They screwed up so hard it's actually hard to believe Windows h8 came AFTER Vista & 7. It is UNACCEPTABLE for a company such as Microsoft to push Windows 95 copies in 2014. Unacceptable.Even worse: they state it is much better performing than the previous editions of Windows: well guess what: use Windows Vista / 7 and disable Aero / enable classic themes and Voilà! Your computer is much faster. THAT's not engineering - that's tricking people into thinking they actually did something to improve the experience, when in fact they did nothing.
AGAIN: Why do we have more and more powerful GPUs? In order for Windows not to take advantage of them, RIGHT. RIGHT....dumb designers.
peterlobl - Saturday, October 4, 2014 - link
I use Win 8.1 and have a start menu replacement installed.. i tried a few different ones and this current one is most stable..problem is a a couple times over a day working with adobe/ms apps etc i run into issues.. language bar gets flaky, task bar doesnt disappear and throws off indesign/ps..
doesnt crash just makes me shift thru open windows, close/reduce some, etc to gets things back.
at these times i really am upset i am forced to use wonky addons to fix what should be a basic o/s stability...
i try running os x, but i prefer 17+" laptop screens, even tho with 8.1 we are stuck at 1080p until things get a bit more settled .. and apple doesnt have what i would like...
i just wonder what the heck was MS thinking? slowing me down while i work on my pc is not appreciated
nathanddrews - Wednesday, October 1, 2014 - link
http://youtu.be/AiCF1QdyxhMIf Windows 10 offers a desktop experience like 7, but improves on it, then offers a tablet experience like 8.1, but improves on it, then offers a phone experience like WP, but improves on it... there's not much else that they need to do. Works for me, anyway.
kamm2 - Wednesday, October 1, 2014 - link
Make it look better.inighthawki - Wednesday, October 1, 2014 - link
Good thing the desktop doesn't look or feel like Windows 7. It's flat and ugly and Microsoft decided to push the ugly flat metro interface on the desktop where I don't want anything to do with it. Windows customization has gone downhill so quickly it's not even funny. They removed beloved user options like aero glass without asking anyone if they wanted it. Themes are basically impossible now due to little tweaks they made.Why would I use Windows 8/10 when I can customize Windows 7 to not only look identical to it, but also have most of the new functionality in both on the desktop with a handful of free third party utilities. It'll take 10 minutes to hunt down third party software that does everything they showed in Windows 10, and it'll be free or cheaper than a Windows 10 license.
Zoomer - Thursday, October 9, 2014 - link
Underlying improvements to the OS itself, such as the kernel. The complaining has mostly been about the shell. I do think that there's no reason why they couldn't maintain two shells, one with full aero for desktop users who couldn't care less about using an additional 20W or even 50W, while even a few watts savings on battery powered devices is a huge deal for battery life.futrtrubl - Wednesday, October 1, 2014 - link
I don't think they would have gone with Windows 9 even if 8 had been a runaway success. What would the Germans say to "Windows Nine"?coburn_c - Tuesday, September 30, 2014 - link
Do those Windows Phones actually show the full windows UI? Does that mean they will finally get the gestures? Hallelujah. I might buy a Windows Phone.Laxaa - Tuesday, September 30, 2014 - link
I'm guessing their just mock-ups and that the next phone UI will be pretty similar to the one that exists today.That said, Build 2015 can't come fast enough.
frostyfiredude - Tuesday, September 30, 2014 - link
I sure hope so, the Windows 8.X UI is a bad knock off of the WP UI in many ways.coburn_c - Tuesday, September 30, 2014 - link
The gesture control, the inbuilt Apps, and the design of full Windows is sooo much better than the phone side. All those little round buttons on the phone need to die a gruesome death. The status bar needs to go to. Swipe in charm bar, swipe down to close, and swipe up settings menu all the way.frostyfiredude - Wednesday, October 1, 2014 - link
Gestures can be nice, swiping offscreen from the left to right to switch to the previous application for example would be quite nice. But most of the other gestures are redundant and simply built into either the persistent action bar and buttons at the bottom of the UI or in the action center. There is also a usability issue, off-screen swiping is awkward on phones because they're held one handed frequently. The current system works and is intuitive, gestures heavy UIs have so far proven not to be.With respect to the applications I wholly disagree. WP has many guidelines for the UI related to colouring, fonts and design to keep the UX clean, usable and consistent across the board. With Windows on the desktop it's basically shortened to "make your UI flat and boxy". Colours are just splashed across the screen without a care in the world, elements are often just square boxes with generic looking text in them, designs are inconsistent between applications. There are some diamonds in the rough, Mail works well and MetroTube too is excellent, but too many others are just bad or uninspiring.
sonicmerlin - Wednesday, October 1, 2014 - link
If you think gesture heavy UIs have proven to be unituitive, then you've obviously never used MeeGo or BB10.frostyfiredude - Wednesday, October 1, 2014 - link
I have, and I've seen others use them for the first time (BB anyway), which is why I have the opinion that it's not a very intuitive or discoverable model. People get confused by gestures that aren't obvious, so specifically ones that start or end off-screen.damianrobertjones - Wednesday, October 1, 2014 - link
Ever opened Windows Media Center? If you have you'll know what I'm trying to say. (Just in case you don't... WMC seems to be where the Windows team grabbed their ideas for the Modern UI)nunya112 - Tuesday, September 30, 2014 - link
yep windows phone will be my next phone as well. I have had S3 note2 and now note3. and I'm not seeing a lot in terms of OS maturity. so as soon as I see a phablet style in windows O/S ill be grabbing it!! looking really good as a phone OSblzd - Sunday, October 5, 2014 - link
You've only used Samsung phones which have arguably the worst skin of any Android device and has barely changed in years. It doesn't surprise me you find TouchWiz phones stagnating. Stock Android, specifically the upcoming Android L release is a whole different story.As for WP phablets, they already exist from Nokia and Huawei.
fronkhead - Wednesday, October 1, 2014 - link
I'd hope so but it seems the old gesture based OS navigation is going down the drain, which has me very sad as a hybrid device user (Surface Pro 2) and ex-Windows Phone user.The charms bar has died (it's now a ... bar on the app itself), and the left bezel swipe which was used to "pull in" the last used app or show a drawer of fullscreen ModernUI apps has gone, too, instead this gesture now invokes the desktop's task switcher but with bigger icons to touch.
From this liveblog: http://live.theverge.com/microsoft-windows-9-event...
"In Windows 10, when you swipe in from the left, you get a task view."
http://d35lb3dl296zwu.cloudfront.net/uploads/photo...
"The way we're going to evolve this touch UI, I expect that Charms bar to change."
Furthermore, the way touch is handled on hybrids through Continuum certainly sacrifices the UX when using the device casually as a tablet or touch-only device on the table: gone is the Metro environment to house apps, everything is fullscreen but on the desktop, and in its place is something decidedly more pedestrian and less elegant.
Watch the video on how Continuum works here: http://www.theverge.com/2014/9/30/6873963/windows-...
You now get a quasi-start screen superimposed above the desktop when you switch to tablet mode, but also a persistent taskbar shows up now for all your app switching needs, complete with (and here's where it gets ugly) a back button and a start button.
These changes are great for the majority of Microsoft's audience on traditional devices like laptops and desktops, but it really is sad to see all the innovative, and frankly excellent OS navigation features fall to the side. I guess bezel gestures were never intuitive to begin with, but moving all the navigation tasks to the taskbar pretty much violates the whole "content-first" approach to fullscreen Metro apps, and is just far less elegant. I hope swipe down from the top bezel to close and snap stuff is still there though.
Metroid - Tuesday, September 30, 2014 - link
Windows Vista and 8 were a Microsoft scam!!Homeles - Tuesday, September 30, 2014 - link
It was what, $40 dollars to upgrade to Win8 if you did it in the first couple of months?mkozakewich - Thursday, October 2, 2014 - link
$25, I think.NA1NSXR - Wednesday, October 1, 2014 - link
What was wrong with Vista?SunLord - Wednesday, October 1, 2014 - link
Crappy initial driver support and memory manger issues. Most of the issues were fixed by the service packs and time.Death666Angel - Wednesday, October 1, 2014 - link
XP was dead on arrival as well in those terms. It became usable with the first SP and great with the 3rd SP. People seem to forget that.3ogdy - Wednesday, October 1, 2014 - link
Wrong. XP SP2 was amazing already. XP without SPs was considerably slower, indeed.D. Lister - Wednesday, October 1, 2014 - link
It was still exponentially better than Windows ME.chizow - Wednesday, October 1, 2014 - link
It had a rocky start mainly due to OEMs not having drivers ready in time. Vista (1st NT6 release) significantly changed a lot of the driver models for critical but crash prone devices, like graphics, sound and moved them to user space instead of kernel space. They said this was to make Windows more stable, but at the start, it made it more unstable and also created a much larger memory footprint.The other major problem with Vista was it released at a time where OEMs still weren't ready to move to a 64-bit OS, so a lot of capable machines (Core 2 and 1st gen i7) machines were handcuffed on the 32-bit version of the OS and limited to ~3GB of addressable VRAM. So, coupled with Vista's admittedly larger memory footprint, it resulted in a slow/bloated user experience. The 64-bit version on the other hand was amazing, basically Win7 2 years before Win7 released. I remember putting 8GB in my Q6600 rig and it flew!
devildahusky - Tuesday, September 30, 2014 - link
Wait....why did they skip 9?? MS. You are no Winamp. They had a 3+2 thus making Winamp 5 but skipping 9? That just brings more attention to 8 if anything.The Von Matrices - Tuesday, September 30, 2014 - link
None of the versions of Windows released in the past decade have had reasonable names.Windows Vista was NT 6.0, so what did Microsoft name its successor - NT 6.1? Windows 7, of course. Windows 8.1 is still NT 6.3.
boozed - Tuesday, September 30, 2014 - link
The Von Matrices: That's the kernel version. Have you checked the kernel versions of other major OSes to see how they line up with the software's "version number"?And what defines "reasonable" naming anyway?
slomobob - Tuesday, September 30, 2014 - link
I think that's because NT is the "core" of the operating system, which hasn't been completely overhauled since vista (which almost entirely rewrote the audio and networking stacks, among other things). They've just incremented from there towards more stability and faster boot times, for the most part.That's what I recall, anyway
Iketh - Tuesday, September 30, 2014 - link
LOL WHAT???lunatics....
mischlep - Wednesday, October 1, 2014 - link
I believe someone else pointed out "Windows Nine" translated to German would be "Windows Nein", or "Windows NO." It would be like the Chevy Nova, "No va" = "does not go" in spanish.Deders - Tuesday, September 30, 2014 - link
this doesn't bode well if they decided to skip 9, seeing as every other version of windows is a bad one.kyuu - Tuesday, September 30, 2014 - link
I wish people would stop repeating that stupid meme. It's only true if you selectively edit Window's version history. Also, just because they've skipped a number doesn't make it two versions after 8 in reality. It's still the next version of Windows after 8.I think skipping 9 was silly. It's sillier the way people are reacting to it, though. It's just a damn version number. After the versioning of Chrome and Firefox you'd think people have understood that it just really does not matter.
Cygni - Tuesday, September 30, 2014 - link
Actually for the home consumer its completely true, regardless of how often its repeated. And no, Win 2000 was not a home operating system.kyuu - Wednesday, October 1, 2014 - link
Funny, since I now of a lot of people, including myself, who used Win2000 on home computers.But no, even for the "home consumer" it's still not true.
Margalus - Wednesday, October 1, 2014 - link
no, even for home users it isn't true. The only bad ones were ME and 8 for desktop users. 95, 98, 2000, xp, vista and 7 were all good operating systems for home users.menting - Tuesday, September 30, 2014 - link
i'm probably in the minority, but besides the UI, windows 8 is at least same and most likely faster than windows 7 as far as i'm concerned. Memory usage went down too.savagemike - Tuesday, September 30, 2014 - link
No. I'm with you. Win 8 underneath was pretty solid. But nobody compliments the bagel when the cream cheese has gone off.Impulses - Tuesday, September 30, 2014 - link
I'm with you... I barely use the Start menu, never mind Metro apps, so it was easy to ignore either. Win 8 still had a whole raft of improvements over 7.3ogdy - Wednesday, October 1, 2014 - link
"besides the UI" - well, they fucked up really bad with the stupid UI. I'm not talking about Metro - I'm talking about the way those stupid themes look like in Windows 8. Vista looked a gazillion times better, then we got 7 which looked worse than Vista and better than 8.1...at least 10 is not going to look any worse than 8.1. Microsoft is stopping their fall on the design side.MrSpadge - Wednesday, October 1, 2014 - link
Same here. I definitely pefer Win 8.1 over 7. It feels faster, more modern and polished for my desktop usage. I almost never see the home screen, and why should I? Sometimes the Metro apps are even a nice bonus. Not important yet, but they don't hurt either.masimilianzo - Tuesday, September 30, 2014 - link
They need to distribute desktop apps on the Store too (like OS X). It would stop the malware and crapware waitin to be installed at every clicked link. On the convertible devices, installing an app from the store should install both the Metro version and desktop version (if it exists).Gigaplex - Tuesday, September 30, 2014 - link
I've seen quite a few desktop apps distributed via the store.masimilianzo - Wednesday, October 1, 2014 - link
for istance?edzieba - Tuesday, September 30, 2014 - link
Hopefully fullscreen apps will still be an option for desktop. It'd be really annoying to be stuck with UI cruft surrounding useful area again.bountygiver - Tuesday, September 30, 2014 - link
Ya hope the maximised for modern UI apps = full screen (with bars still can be called out like windows 8.1)Brett Howse - Thursday, October 2, 2014 - link
I can confirm this you can set an app to full screen through the "charms" which are in the top left corner of the app now.azazel1024 - Tuesday, September 30, 2014 - link
This is interesting, but I do wonder how they are segregating "desktop only" from "other" and what "other" entails.I have a "hybrid" (Asus T100) and honestly, I really like the two interface approach. In some ways, if the traditional start screen (or new I guess, but with 10 it'll be "old" from 8/8.1) were built out and more modern UI (or whatever the heck it is called now) utilities/abilities were added in, maybe I could live within it.
For one, the control panel and what is accessible through the start screen are VASTLY different. So if that is neutred on a tablet...no thank you. I have no issues launching desktop applications from the start screen, especially if MS fixes the fact that it drops you to the desktop, and then launches the application, it would be nicer/more seamless.
Also...give us a modern UI file explorer please fro cripes sake!!!
Anyway, hybrid tablets are really where my concern from "lets make it so you can only have on UI with Windows 10" concerns me. My laptop and desktop, yes please. The new stuff looks nice...for touch AND Keyboard and Mouse maybe not as much just with a desktop and also maybe not so much only with modern UI.
Harnser - Tuesday, September 30, 2014 - link
> Also...give us a modern UI file explorer please fro cripes sake!!!What would "a modern UI file explorer" look like? I find Windows 7's to be much more useful than Finder on OSX Mavericks...
Sm0kes - Tuesday, September 30, 2014 - link
I haven't used Finder in years. For OSX users, Forklift is all you need.Gigaplex - Tuesday, September 30, 2014 - link
Modern UI is the official name for Metro applications. They're asking for a file explorer for the Metro interface.inighthawki - Tuesday, September 30, 2014 - link
Huh? No it's not. Modern UI is their design language, and it just so happens that they've adopted their Modern UI design language for "Store apps" since that's the way they want to go moving forward. Modern UI can be applied anywhere to anything. Desktop, metro, web pages, etc.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metro_%28design_langu...
kyuu - Tuesday, September 30, 2014 - link
My only concern is for full x86 Windows tablets like my DV8P. It's not clear how it'll work on that when I want to use legacy applications. Do we still have access to the desktop?Brett Howse - Tuesday, September 30, 2014 - link
From what I've seen it looks like you can enable the touch mode at any time and revert back to more of a Windows 8.1 feel. We'll know more when we get the bits.As far as a modern file explorer, I agree even though the OneDrive app is used for this now - that's not obvious at all and should be fixed.
Stephen Barrett - Tuesday, September 30, 2014 - link
Microsoft just posted this video that shows going between modes:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_O-LrGL-YQ&fe...
Clears up a lot
inighthawki - Tuesday, September 30, 2014 - link
"Also...give us a modern UI file explorer please fro cripes sake!!!"Oh god, please no.
ruthan - Tuesday, September 30, 2014 - link
Still probably not unified all compatible OS for all devices, Android + its 86 port will smash this in long term.Penti - Tuesday, September 30, 2014 - link
Plus Android actually has a design language for everything from phones to chromebooks in Material.Industry will still probably be limited to embedded versions for x86/x86-64 if they don't want to use the phone version. So companies like QNX/Blackberry as well as Android/Linux-variants will continue to win contracts on stuff like automotive/cars and various STB stuff. Stuff that Windows CE often ran before.
kyuu - Wednesday, October 1, 2014 - link
Yeah, Android is totally making inroads in the desktop and enterprise markets.K_Space - Tuesday, September 30, 2014 - link
Much of this was rumoured before the lunch and I'm glad it's proven to be more than just rumours.What has also been rumoured was that the price for upgrade to Windows 10 would either be free (at least for Windows 8/8.1) or relatively cheap in comparison to previous versions of Windows. Any news on that front?
haukionkannel - Wednesday, October 1, 2014 - link
Most propably you get it free for win 8 8.1 is you do buy it one to two months before the release of win10. Just like always. The MS has normally promised free upgrade to those who buy machine just before the os update, to ensure that there is not decline in computer sales because the new os is coming "soon". Everyone else should be prepared to pay full price or some discount for short period of time.Hruodgar - Tuesday, September 30, 2014 - link
well I hope they fix some of the bugs, along with prettying it up. ( bring back aeroshell modern tablets have enough horsepower to run it) but I want them to fix files you can't delete with getting a tool like unlocker, I want them to finally fix the usb 3.0 sleep problem, I want them to fix being unable to get into a gpt protected volume to AT LEAST be able to copy the data off before reformatting the drive, M$ won't even address the problem on their website and the work arounds are problematic and complicated, I wanrt them to fix fil history where win.exe expands to fill that puny 100MB and effectively kill shadow volume so no file history. These are just some of the bugs that really annoy me and should be fixed along with the one UI to rule them all.Omoronovo - Tuesday, September 30, 2014 - link
A lot of the issues you're complaining about are simple to "fix" mainly as they are by design.Power users simply need to take ownership of files to delete them (so long as they aren't in use, of course). It's been like this since Vista enacted greater ACL's for files.
GPT Protected volume is a term only ever used when trying to access a GPT volume from an operating system that doesn't support GPT. It has nothing to do with Microsoft as GPT is part of the UEFI standard and Microsoft simply supports this standard to allow access to larger volumes than 2TB. If you're referring to OEM or MSR partitions which are often included in GPT formatted drives, then you can access data by mounting it with diskpart (assuming the volume has a proper filesystem), again, so long as the operating system you're using physically supports it.
There are no standard executables within Windows called win.exe. The only references I could find for it relate to trojans and viruses.
I had issues with sleep on my x58 system that uses a non-intel usb3 controller. The issue was related to the fact that the controller I had (a realtek one) didn't support the standard properly, and hence the Windows 8 usb3 driver from Microsoft doesn't actually work properly with it. Using the manufacturer drivers sorted this. Again, not a Microsoft problem.
Literally the only valid thing you typed was your preference for getting Aero back... Which I personally agree with, since at the very least Windows should allow people to choose it. I doubt the addition of a minor change to uxtheme.dll and the 5MB theme will hurt their installed size much.
azazel1024 - Wednesday, October 1, 2014 - link
Nope, I have to mirror Hruodgars comment on "un-deletable" files. I "stumbled" across unlocker after many hours of searching. The 500GB drive in my desktop is a secondary (tertiary?) drive that USED to be my system drive a build ago with Win7. I didn't format it, just ported it. Win 8.1 won't let me delete most of the files/folders on that drive even after taking ownership. I have to use unlocker to do it.Been really annoying, but at least I found a solution to clean up the drive (after mostly throwing up my hands months and months ago).
Mark_gb - Tuesday, September 30, 2014 - link
Wow... As I was reading this, I kept waiting for the good news... And then I hit the end of the article...I am no expert. I do not work in an electronics retail store, nor do I work for a major corporation.
But I know a fair number of people. None of the people I know use Windows Phone, and pretty much, we have all agreed that we will never own a Windows phone that has that big, ugly, kaleidoscope of colored blocks. And apparently, nothing changes in Windows 10 along these lines.
Next, a lot of us use tablets. Guess how many of those tablets use Windows. Thats right. None. Why? Well, we are mostly on Samsung Android tablets, and there are a small number of Apple tablets as well. Many of the Samsung tablet users are former Apple table users. But it seems that today, Apple is 2 years behind on features, and Microsoft isnt even in the ballpark. Many of us looked at Surface, and like the rest of the world, we decided not to buy it. And again, I really do not see much in this article that makes me want to wait for a year (or more), on a Windows 10 tablet.
And finally, desktops... I will admit to seriously hating Metro. Anything that gets rid of Metro just has a be a big, big positive. However, taking Metro, putting it into a window, and slapping that window on the desktop.... Meh. I don't see a lot of benefit for users there. I think we have made it pretty clear in the past 2 years that we do not like Metro apps. I use a grand total of 1. The weather app. I admit that is cool. I use it almost every day. Beyond that, no. I do not like metro apps. I don't think sticking them in a window is going to make me like them any more than I do now. Most of my friends seem to agree with me. Maybe Microsoft will find a way to make sure we don't even know that the Metro apps are Metro apps. I think that would be a better trick than Houdini was able to pull off, but Microsoft has a year (or more), to try to do this. Getting a functional Start menu back would be nice, but thats not what I really hated about 8.1...
So I will sit on the sidelines and hope there is something substantial in this Windows 9 that they are going to call WIndows 10 that will make me want to spent anything on it. Can I hope that it might be free? After all, I did pay for this Windows 8.1 Pro that cant even do DVD's... Pathetic right?
1 year... Y.A.W.N. ... Goodnight....
maximumGPU - Wednesday, October 1, 2014 - link
there's not much substance in what you're saying.So you and your friends don't like windows phone designs. Cool. Other people like it a lot.
Then you go on about Microsoft tablets being well behind on features, yet you don't give one example. Last i checked a full windows tablet has a huge amount of legacy apps that no other tablet can come close to.
And finally you don't like metro apps..here's a thought: don't use them.
Divide Overflow - Tuesday, September 30, 2014 - link
They can't count. Why should we expect they can code?kyuu - Wednesday, October 1, 2014 - link
I hope that's sarcasm. That can't possibly be a serious thought.nunya112 - Tuesday, September 30, 2014 - link
NICE. looks good. that means I won't be buying windows 8.1 then. ill just keep windows 7 until next year then grab this. looks sweetLordConrad - Tuesday, September 30, 2014 - link
It looks like windows 10 won't be half bad. After the Windows 8 UI mess, i'm really rooting for windows 10. I'm glad they went back to enterprise customers for input this time.chizow - Tuesday, September 30, 2014 - link
Great updates, thanks for the detailed write-up. Very excited as both a normal end-user and an enterprise stakeholder/decision-maker. There was simply no way we could ever deploy Win8 in its launch format in my work environment, and even after a few passes with Windows 8.1, it wouldn't have worked with the desktop as users would have freaked out.Now that Start is back with a small dose of Modern along with built-in SmartCard authentication (no need for 3rd party like ActivClient is what I am reading here), it should be an easy win for IT decision-makers.
On the user side of things, I'm looking forward to DX12, virtual desktops, snap, and all the previous improvements from Windows 8.1's underpinnings.
The decision to jump to a designation of "10" however indicates to me Microsoft will charge Win8 buyers for the upgrade to 10, despite early rumors Threshold might show up as 8.2 or be offered as a free upgrade to Windows 9. Sounds like they are going to take their time to polish 10 and create enough distance to justify the cost to upgrade. Here's to hoping they reward their Windows 8 licensees with a free/reduced price upgrade.
[SCTRY]Nightmare - Tuesday, September 30, 2014 - link
"Even though Windows 8 did not light the world on fire as far as unit sales, it is still on hundreds of millions of devices."That seems a bit like hyperbole...
A year ago, Patrick Moorhead, who is principal analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy, estimated the total number of actual Windows 8 devices right around 58M. (A tremendous number of the PC market users with Windows 8 devices have exercised downgrade rights to Windows 7...) Even if sales have held steady, I doubt there's much more than 100M actual Windows 8 machines out there today. The enterprise has all but wholesale rejected the OS...
Does anyone know what the actual "installed and using" Windows 8 count is?
kyuu - Wednesday, October 1, 2014 - link
The enterprise market has never embraced the most recent version of Windows. They're always at least a version behind, usually more. Saying it's been "rejected" as though the option has even come up for most of that market is a bit misleading.chizow - Wednesday, October 1, 2014 - link
No, around now is when enterprises would be deploying a new OS (around 2 years after launch) after completing validation and placing orders for new machines and spec'ing the OS. Many enterprises, including the one I work in, did not get out of the validation process (last year) when we decided to reject it. We have approved it in limited capacity on primary touch-enabled devices only.I also know for a fact, we will be moving to 10 faster than usual, and this tech preview (waiting for the MSDN approved and not the public version) will certainly give us a head start on validation.
ayejay_nz - Tuesday, September 30, 2014 - link
I hope the whole 4k high DPI scaling thing is sorted out in Windows 10 and for all MS apps. Hopefully they make it easy for other software devs to update their products for high DPI as well.By the time this is released 4k displays might be the norm.
sorten - Tuesday, September 30, 2014 - link
4K won't be the norm until video cards can handle a mid-range game at that resolution.kyuu - Wednesday, October 1, 2014 - link
Scaling has been sorted for the OS and first-party and metro apps for quite a while now. It's only third-party apps whose developers can't or won't properly support scaling that have issues.localhostrulez - Saturday, October 4, 2014 - link
Not for setups that involve multiple monitors of different DPIs - 8.x improved on that from 7, but only by rendering at the DPI of the primary display and raster resizing for the others. OS X manages to do this better - not sure how, but text on other monitors doesn't look blurry even if you're running off an rMBP.sorten - Tuesday, September 30, 2014 - link
I like some of the proposed changes, but for the most part Windows 8.1 is already, by far, the best Windows OS that I've ever used for the desktop. I suspect that many detractors haven't spent enough time with it to offer an educated opinion.jdrch - Tuesday, September 30, 2014 - link
" For multitasking, it was certainly better than other mobile operating systems from 2012, but it was a long way from Windows 7."- Considering that Windows 8 lost none of Windows 7's desktop features except for Aero Flip, this is a disingenuous statement at best.
kyuu - Wednesday, October 1, 2014 - link
Yeah I found that statement pretty odd as well. I can only assume he was referring to the metro environment's multi-tasking as compared to the desktop (though of course Win8 has the same multi-tasking on the desktop as Win7 so the statement is still inaccurate). That's a silly comparison to make, though. And Win8's metro multi-tasking was and still is superior to any other touch-centric environment that I'm aware of.Klimax - Wednesday, October 1, 2014 - link
Sorry, author, but "disaster" doesn't command more market share then every other non-Windows together. "Disaster" is usually wrong label, when new product lunches after extremely well received previous product. ( And relatively shortly after) Only few companies successfully pushes their base to buy new product so often. Also "disaster" is usually not sued when sales of relevant product is slowing down, because of "good enough". Alias sales of completed PCs.As for claims about "trying to win back enterprise". That's downright nonsense. Enterprise is on much longer upgrade time scale then is just one version. (Or have anybody missed how many companies are still moving from XP?) Reminder: Usual upgrade cycle is 5-7 years at best.
And lastly, problems of W8 are vastly exaggerated by dinosaurs and press. (for nice click bate articles) They did same with Vista. Couldn't do with 95 or XP. (too soon), but I suggest some people take look back there to see W8 was not an anomaly in general. Just this time dinosaurs won. (Instead of being relegated to history like several times before - MS is no Apple, Apple would get away with is and everybody would praise that)
Difference between 95,XP and 8? Internet. It made much easier for vocal group to be heard much louder then it used to.
ET - Wednesday, October 1, 2014 - link
"a suitable UI for each system...." - I hope it's a suitable UI for each usage mode, not tailored for the system. If I plug a tablet or phone into a monitor, I want Windows to switch to desktop mode.The thing I don't like about Windows 10 is that we need another year or so to get it.
ET - Wednesday, October 1, 2014 - link
Reading on another site, Windows 10 will include Continuum, a technology specifically designed to adapt the UI to what the user connects to the device. This makes me happy.Pappnaas - Wednesday, October 1, 2014 - link
More Enterprise friendly?Given that the use of the app store is an administrative nightmare if you have to deal with more than 5 clients, what to expect next? IT departments have to test and re-test every new client build for inhouse compatibility, can you imagine how much more internal cost a quarterly "feature update" will bring?
As long as we have no real news of how MS will handle enterprise builds, the new Windows wont make it into the big companies.
Remember the disaster when 8.1 was published exclusivly through the update channel? Might be an inconvenience for the home user, but it turned out a PITA for all those who had to administrate more than 3 clients?
Enterprise OS is mostly about keeping cost and necessary man power in check. Haven't heard anything about that part up to now.
But i might have missed something.
chizow - Wednesday, October 1, 2014 - link
Solution is simple, use Group Policy to white/black list approved apps. I know for a fact we will not be allowing free reign on the Windows Store for users, we will pre-install and pre-configure the basics:Office
Acrobat
Handful of other whitelisted apps they can pull from SCCM.
Everything else will be on a per request basis.
D. Lister - Wednesday, October 1, 2014 - link
Windows 10, eh? If they deliver what they're promising in a stable package that can at least tie with Win7 in the benches, I might finally decide to go for the OS upgrade. On the other hand, knowing MS, it will most probably just be Windows 8.2 that may nearly be purchase-worthy by SP1.For me, it is not a matter of some misplaced snobbery, or getting on the "let's hate win8 'cause it's popular" bandwagon. I just don't like to, or want to spend months to get back to the productivity level of the previous OS. I don't want to spend hours on online forums asking questions and doing meaningless research, just so I can RE-learn to do something that I could easily do before, or worse, find out that it can't be done any more. An OS is not a game, where learning how to play well is half the fun. An OS is just an interface between me and the things that are fun for me. So I want the OS transition to be as smooth as possible, and the new OS to be as familiar as possible. So I can just boot up and start doing the things that I want to do, or like to do, as fast, and as efficiently as possible.
Now I'm sure people at MS understand that just as well, if not better. But unless there is genuine competition in the OS market, MS marketing will keep trying to convince us that they know our individual needs better than us, and MS will keep giving us what is most profitable to them, rather than what we actually need,
Nuno Simões - Thursday, October 2, 2014 - link
Months to get back to productivity? I got used to it in two days. Right now, the problem is going back to W7 and finding it lacking in many aspects, like the task manager, poweruser contextual menus and stuff like that.If you need months to get back to your previous productivity level, the problem is in yourself, not the OS. Even my technologically inept sister got used to it in a few days.
D. Lister - Thursday, October 2, 2014 - link
It isn't very prudent of you to assume that you understand what my productivity standards and requirements are without having a complete access to my home and office networks' usage data.D. Lister - Thursday, October 2, 2014 - link
Perhaps the above reply was far too concise for its own good. Let me put it this way... you could move a bank manager, who's a part time gun hobbyist, from an M14 to an M16 and he would walk down to the firing range and empty a few mags after two minutes of orientation. If OTOH, the USMC issues a squad of marines with the same replacement, the marines may have to go through weeks of training before they're allowed to carry the new weapon in a combat situation. The aforementioned doesn't mean that the bank manager is necessarily better with guns than every marine in the squad.For a casual user, the switchover may be trivial, but for someone who has been neck-deep in computing for nearly 20 years, it may entail a far bigger commitment.
3ogdy - Wednesday, October 1, 2014 - link
That interface, God damn it, THAT INTERFACE! Do something about it, Microsoft! It looks worse than Windows 98, for fks sake! Bring back Windows with a theme worthy of Windows 10 and 2014. Ever since Vista you've gone the wrong way - 7 is acceptable but this is pushing it too far - I want a NEW OS, not one from 1990! Who's "designing" the Windows theme for Windows 8 and 10? Fire him / her / the whole team immediately. You keep going backwards, while hardware capabilities are going forward. What in the actual fuck?thana - Wednesday, October 1, 2014 - link
From the article:"With Windows 10 though, the concept of a Universal App allows a developer to target a phone, Xbox, tablet, and desktop. If anything is the killer feature of Windows 10, this could be it."
I don't get it, how is that different from the universal apps in the windows store right now?
Brett Howse - Wednesday, October 1, 2014 - link
Because you can't use them on the desktop.CSMR - Wednesday, October 1, 2014 - link
So far Threshold looks like minor tweaks, in the right direction but worthy to be Windows 8.2 not Windows 10 so far.If they make an app store for desktop apps (not just tablet apps running on the desktop) that will be worthy to call Windows 9.
nicolapeluchetti - Wednesday, October 1, 2014 - link
At the beginning you say "To say that Windows 8 was unsuccessful would be an understatement, and from both Microsoft’s and user’s perspectives, it was certainly a failure."Which is certainly true. Then why all reviews were so favorable?If you read your own ( i mean anandtech website ) Windows RT review, it seems like a fantastic product. http://www.anandtech.com/show/6412/microsoft-relea...
How is it possible that reviews and user base are so disconnected?
I know Semiaccurate put it simply as "Microsoft is paying", which is probably true in indirect ways, but I think it's a little more ocmplex than that. You could give a favorable review but with less enthusiasm, or well, taking some distance, but after having seen one of the worst Operating System rated from 9 to 10, how can someone still believe a OS review?
D. Lister - Wednesday, October 1, 2014 - link
It is because corporate marketing reps deploy considerable resources to favourably slant the opinions of professional reviewer beforehand. It is often not because the reviewers are corrupt, but because they're human, and the top-tier marketing knows how to mess with the human mind.chizow - Wednesday, October 1, 2014 - link
Author is probably referring to Desktop, Laptop (non-touch) and Enterprise (again mainly Desktop), where Windows 8/.1 failed because it failed to spur adoption with downgrade options exercised reminiscent of Vista to XP. Those good reviews were written in the context of a touch/tablet device so of course the tone of the reviews are going to be different.Considering Desktop and Enterprise OS sales are still the biggest portion of overall Windows revenue, any success or failure of an OS on the Desktop is largely going to dictate the fate of a Windows OS. I don't see this situation changing anytime soon, and it's obviously why Microsoft is making such a focused effort on winning back the trust of the Enterprise stakeholders.
Brett Howse - Wednesday, October 1, 2014 - link
Hi. Let me explain what I said I guess.Windows 8 is a failure in the same way Vista was a failure. People aren't buying it, and it has a bad reputation. Normal people think it's bad without even trying it. Sales have not been good, adoption has not been good, and because of that it is certainly a failure.
I think it's a great OS, and I think the updates they have made over the past two years have really helped it. I use it every single day, and I have no major problems with it. I was never a person that was put off by the start screen, or Metro apps. I don't ALWAYS like Metro apps - for instance I installed Adobe Reader on the desktop and removed the Metro version because I was tired of every time I opened a PDF I got kicked off the desktop, but overall I like it a lot.
So, yes, I can understand why it reviewed favorably. There are certainly a lot of rough edges, especially when it first came out, but there were a lot of advantages as well.
That being said, I can understand why others do not like some of the changes. Some of that boils down to people don't like change, but a lot of them are legit complaints and I feel that Windows 10 is addressing the majority of those, without throwing everything away.
As always - thanks for reading!
pavlindrom - Wednesday, October 1, 2014 - link
Hey, all, I know why they skipped Windows 9. If you say it out loud, it means No in German. Seeing as German is the language of business, you don't want businesses to say 9 when they see the new version of Windows, it might introduce confusion.Zak - Wednesday, October 1, 2014 - link
"start menu can now also be populated with Live Tiles from the Windows Store apps" -- no, thanks. I don't want my OS to try to sell me stuff.Stephen Barrett - Wednesday, October 1, 2014 - link
They mean live tiles from applications that you acquired through the windows store. Like a VLC app or Twitter. These aren't selling you anything.Khenglish - Wednesday, October 1, 2014 - link
So what happened to Windows 9?Windows 7 8 9...
effingterrible - Wednesday, October 1, 2014 - link
Kinda hoping they improve Hyper-V to include some sort of RemoteFX for the desktop OS (Not just Server)imaheadcase - Wednesday, October 1, 2014 - link
So this is all UI changes basicly. What under the hood changes make it worth the upgrade? Because that stuff can be done with third party apps already.Wolfpup - Wednesday, October 1, 2014 - link
Random things:-Actually the desktop DOES work great with touch…at least on a 10” tablet. I know we’ve been told for years that touch wouldn’t work with a traditional desktop, but that’s just wrong…it’s fantastic. In fact I still find it a better interface for a lot of things than anything else, even with touch.
-I *DO* want the same interface (and program compatibility) on as many devices as possible. At this point there’s no reason not to have your tablet just run real Windows, given the performance and power issues are solved, as are interface issues.
-Never knew what “Windows RT” stood for…obviously it’s “Windows RunTime”!
-Otherwise Windows 8 (and even more 8.1) is a great OS, and 10 looks to be better still.
Given 10 isn't supposed to ship until H2 2015 I guess this means my tablet plans are back on...though I wish Microsoft would do a fanless Atom or Core M Surface Pro!
Mr Perfect - Wednesday, October 1, 2014 - link
So I'm guessing this is still on NTFS then? I was hoping there would be some sort of filesystem update to deal with bitrot.asmian - Wednesday, October 1, 2014 - link
ReFS is the new filesystem you are looking for. Along with Storage Spaces (for making parity/mirror sets) it's actually been fully integrated since Windows 8 - I doubt there's a reason they would be removed in 10! Hopefully some of the setup GUI issues with Storage Spaces are fixed though.Ganesh has said he'll be doing an article on ReFS soon. Write speeds for parity sets are (by design) slow, but reads should be fine for typical home archival Write-Once-Read-Many storage, ie. media arrays, where bit-scrubbing and repair are needed. This is MS's answer to ZFS for Windows.
Mr Perfect - Thursday, October 2, 2014 - link
Except you can't boot from it. :\ And have they implemented all of the NTFS features that didn't initially come in ReFS?Notmyusualid - Friday, October 3, 2014 - link
I just see more 'bloat'.I just want an OS that is small, and stripped bare, thus having minimal overhead, so I can run my chosen programs as fast as possible.
My Win 7 runs 'Basic theme', black solid desktop and a mere 52 processes (I just checked). I almost had a heart attack when I saw how many procs Win 8 used, but what made me SO angry, was that some of it I couldn't disable - Metro theme I'm looking at you.
I read (somewhere, God knows), that Android has a 1/4 of the overhead as Windows, and I can still play games, send email, and browse the web with Android too. I just don't see why Windows has to be so BIG, and resource hungry. Ever tried an old version of Windows on a new system - it flys..
I can just imagine Windows 15, 250GB install space required, minimum RAM 1TB (2TB recommended), CPU 32 core min (64 core reccomended), credit card required for activation, and so on. It pains me to say it, but Linux is looking more attractive year by year.
Would anybody like to comment on running MS Office and games under WINE? I've not tried.