State of the OS: Windows 10 Edition
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In my company, just the new bought notebooks get it. Most PCs are still running Win7.
I'm using Win10 at home. Since Surface Pro 3 is one of the Microsoft product, there's no serious issue experienced yet.
Just that the touchscreen sometimes will not function after idled for a long time, need press power button once and then again to make it work again. However since that needs less than 1 second so I wouldn't count that as serious.
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My dad immediately demanded to revert to Windows 7 because his dental management program (which is skinned to look like Office 2007 on the window frame and the Windows 95 disk defrag tool for the actual content) refused to run because the OS was "too old".
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dental management program
Two dentists walk into a bar. One of them chips his tooth. The other one fixes that tooth.
JOKE OVER CONTINUE COMPUTER DISCUSSION.
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I think the "Compatiblity" tab in EXE's properties dialog still exist on Win10.
That's how I'd solved a Bible reading program that cannot run on WinXP because it insist SP4+ needs to be installed.
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I think the menu is a step back from the Windows 7 menu.
Why, because the text isn't tiny, hard to select, and prone to scrolling if you get too close to the edges?
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Windows 8 always had a start menu. It might have been bikeshedded beyond recognition for some people, but it was always a start menu.
No, it had a Start screen.
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Just because the menu took up 100% of the screen's available pixel capacity doesn't mean it wasn't a menu.
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Just because the menu took up 100% of the screen's available pixel capacity doesn't mean it wasn't a menu.
No, it does mean it was a shit menu though.
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They know it isn't used in any scripts
I wouldn't be surprised if there was a business app somewhere that relied on Windows Calculator to do its math...
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Anyone have news from the trenches?
It's actually fairly decent... for a beta.
There are so many subtle bugs; the one that hit within minutes of use was setting up a VPN connection. It's no longer possible to go to the properties dialog of a network protocol used by the connection; this has worked in every version since XP. This dialog is important so you can set TCP/IP properties, and especially so you can enable split tunneling (i.e. don't use remote gateway) as not to route all traffic thru the VPN. Microsoft's official response: just use this powershell script.
It's unknowable when it will actually be fixed, because they don't tell you what updates contain. So, maybe some day, it will work.
Another thing: I also thought the CALCULATOR button my keyboard wasn't working. It turns out, the boot time on the "Calculator App" is measurable in seconds. It even has a splash screen. So glad that vision of Steven Sniofsky hasn't been completely discarded.
Anyone roll it out and then decide to downgrade?
I can deal with all the bugs, but ultimately I had to roll back to Windows Sniofsky.1 because my battery life went from 8-10 hours down to 2-3 hours. It's a result of either Intel or Microsoft not properly throttling something at the CPU. In theory, it will be fixed, but again, who knows what update will have it.
Is it better than
8Sniofsky in factThe one and only thing I actually liked about it was the "grace period" between the screen shutting off and the screen lock. In Windows Sniosfsky/Sniosfsky.1, they simplified the distinction between "shut off" and "lock", because apparently if you are be giving a presentation, looking at your screen, and just want to flick the mouse without having to log in again, you are... ehhh ... how do they say it @CodingHorrorBot?
brings back the start menu
It's ok, but not nearly as functional as Windows 7's start. I don't want to search the internet when I press the WINDOWS KEY, I want to run a goddamn program on my computer. Easy fix: I ended up buying Start10.
All in all, Windows 10 is really just a slightly less shitty Windows Sniofsky.1, but with a bunch of minor bugs that aren't too bad. Unless they are. In which case, you should rollback.
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@apapadimoulis Is Doing It Wrong™
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Yeah, that seems like quite the oversight... let's move stuff to the store and then make a version of Windows where you can't install stuff from the store.
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It turns out, the boot time on the "Calculator App" is measurable in seconds. It even has a splash screen.
Talking about this, you reminded me that yesterday, I read that the current Windows Insider users cannot open files using notepad from commandline directly. If they use it to open files they'll be greeted with some access permission error. They can open files with ".\filename.ext" way though.This will be fixed on the next insider update.
Just I'm amused that something like notepad.exe can be one of the things that is broken.
On the other news, the next insider update will contain fixes that released features (I can't remember which one, see if I can find it) previously withholded to Microsoft account user only (local users currently do not have them), so if you're using Win10 with local account, you should be long for the next update.
EDIT: it seems this is the blog post I'm talking about.
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I have windows 10 on my new pc. I like it well enough but it has crashed completely (as in blue screen + restart) a couple of times playing Europa Universalis 4 ( I play that a lot).
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I'm less than impressed with W10 to be honest.
- The forced driver updates continually break everything and there is no workaround. Laptops lose microphone support, WiFi + Bluetooth dongles get Bluetooth only drivers needing someone else to download the right drivers to a pen drive, just for Windows Update to install the wrong ones again the next day.
- The lock screen is terrible on tablets. On 8.1, I would have a couple of minutes after locking in which I could unlock without spending 15 seconds stabbing in a password. This is gone and seemingly never coming back. Additionally, I can only control music playback about 1/4 of the time from this screen - if the status indicators in the bottom right corner is 3x bigger than it should be, the volume controls don't pop up when I press the buttons and so I have to enter my password to pause or change song. Basically makes the tablet unworkable as a music player.
- WiFi, when it works at all, is terrible. There looks to be some kind of DHCP bug specific to WiFi (and no particular router before you ask) in which it hasn't managed to get an IP while 7/8/Linux work just fine on the same hardware, (which spans laptops tablets and desktops) and ipconfig /release ipconfig /renew is a no-op.
- When apps crash, they frequently get "stuck" open and I can't kill them using the task manager or taskkill. They can have windows open and taskkill can't kill the program because it "isn't running".
- The music app, despite being a reskin of that in 8.1, has insane amounts of bugs like no scrolling with the touchpad in the album list on some machines, needing to be reminded to play the last song in an album a few times a day, and frequent freezing.
- The mail app worked just fine in Windows 8.1 and was actually good. Has anyone here had a notification from the Windows 10 app, ever?
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Has anyone here had a notification from the Windows 10 app, ever?
It works fine for me, I've got mail and calendar notifications from my Google account and mail notifications from my Yahoo. They don't cover the screen like other app notifications do, but I see the notification center icon change color so I know they're there.
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Oh yeah calendar notifications work as normal, and now they pop up in games which is a nice touch because I have to alt-tab out to dismiss them and they don't go away themselves. Something else I've noticed is that the mail app doesn't seem to run in the background - it has to be reminded to check for emails when I open it.
Is there also an easier way to get an overview of your accounts? The only way I can see if I have unread emails for my three accounts is to click on Accounts > then each account one by one, then manually sync.
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I'm less than impressed with W10 to be honest
But what did you think of the round avatar that you have to pick when creating a local account? That was kinda neat.
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Almost as ridiculous as the circular cropping of the album covers it uses to identify artists in Groove's artists list, for no benefit. To clarify:
Look at all of the repeating album covers which are tiny because they decided they didn't want to use squares for no good reason
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At least they left the albums themselves square. I guess the new design rule, apropos of nothing, is "people are round, boxes are square"?
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Discoursistency is spreading.
Fuck the whole round avatars thing.
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Seeing the purple bar reminds me; what actually determines the color of the bar down the bottom? I have a synchronized theme and on some machines it uses that theme's color, and on others it's a blinding sky blue. (compared to the dark theme at least)
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what actually determines the color of the bar down the bottom?
This, probably:
I didn't like what it picked from my background so I picked a nice purple shade myself and turned off the auto-pick. The bar in my earlier screenshot looks like it's the secondary color from the preview.
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Yeah on some machines it uses that color. On others it's a really bright blue. Not important just yet another weird hard to reproduce issue on the stack.
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That Abney Park album
I see it.(is awesome, I remember seeing them live in London just as that album was out, gave it a new twist to see it)
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Microsoft's official response: just use this powershell script
You are joking, right ?
Everybody knows that in Windows, you use the GUI. Only us Linux users have to use the command line to do something.
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There's a specific option for that, just offscreen. I don't know why they don't sync the taskbar color with the theme color by default, but they do let you choose to.
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Another thing: I also thought the CALCULATOR button my keyboard wasn't working. It turns out, the boot time on the "Calculator App" is measurable in seconds. It even has a splash screen.
?
On mine it flashed up basically one frame of video after pressing the calculator button. Maybe two frames. Point is, it's virtually instant.
It's ok, but not nearly as functional as Windows 7's start. I don't want to search the internet when I press the WINDOWS KEY, I want to run a goddamn program on my computer. Easy fix: I ended up buying Start10.
I think you have to face the fact that you're a curmudgeon.
The forced driver updates continually break everything and there is no workaround. Laptops lose microphone support, WiFi + Bluetooth dongles get Bluetooth only drivers needing someone else to download the right drivers to a pen drive, just for Windows Update to install the wrong ones again the next day.
What hardware do you have it on? I haven't seen this with my custom-build desktop or my Acer laptop. I want to know what brand to avoid.
WiFi, when it works at all, is terrible. There looks to be some kind of DHCP bug specific to WiFi (and no particular router before you ask) in which it hasn't managed to get an IP while 7/8/Linux work just fine on the same hardware, (which spans laptops tablets and desktops) and ipconfig /release ipconfig /renew is a no-op.
That seems more likely due to the network driver reverting to a bad version.
... you know given the amount of complaints, are you sure your computer doesn't have a bad disk controller or something? Because that's a really high number of problems.
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All the preinstalled apps are just a a big interface to MIcrosoft's cloud services. Don't even think of using it without a MS account.
Yeah... that would be a no. The day I log into my OPERATING SYSTEM with a remote account, is the day I have given up. I will switch to Macs before I do that >_<
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They have this cool Modern tech that they tried to push, they have people with pitchforks demanding the Start menu back, and now they're stuck supporting both in a very awkward way.
They never would have had to face the angry villagers, if they hadn't forced the new tech on everyone regardless of whether or not they were on a mobile device or PC. If they had left the desktop and start menu alone on PC, and simply added the new way of doing things as an option for PC users (with maybe a carrot of free or better stuff in the Windows Store), and only set the new way as the default for mobile (that could be reverted if desired) -- then there would have been no problem.
Our people, and (more often) the managers that direct us, have a bad habit of deciding what is best for users, often because of what we/they want, not what the users have said they want, or need.
Humans are notoriously resistant to change -- even more so when that change is forced on them. Nobody paying attention, who is over age 25, in this industry, doesn't know that.
But, frankly, from what I have heard, Windows 8's start menu debacle, and the XBOX One's all-digital, always-online stuff were all straight from Balmer. From what I understand, he was a sales and marketing guy, and had always wanted to run the company to shut out competition, and to maximize profit from the beginning. But Bill wouldn't let him. So, when he finally got control of the company, he set about doing things the way he had always wanted -- and we have seen the results.
I don't know how much of that is true, but that is what I have heard.
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It's ok, but not nearly as functional as Windows 7's start. I don't want to search the internet when I press the WINDOWS KEY, I want to run a goddamn program on my computer. Easy fix: I ended up buying Start10.
All in all, Windows 10 is really just a slightly less shitty Windows Sniofsky.1, but with a bunch of minor bugs that aren't too bad. Unless they are. In which case, you should rollback.
Hadn't heard about that. Yikes. I am so glad I waited. O_<
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There's very little consistent between the machines unfortunately; I wish I could recommend anything in particular to avoid. The laptops are a Dell and a Lenovo from 2-3 years ago; both Haswell based without anything else remarkable hardware wise, desktops are less than two years old, AMD-based builds around Gigabyte FM2 socket motherboards. Tablets are an Acer Iconia Tab 8 W and a Dell Venue 8 Pro.
At least the people it was really affecting (i.e. their machines were unusable due to bugs) were able to roll back to 7/8. That's something at least.
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then there would have been no problem.
Except for the obvious reason that no one would try their new stuff, and it would be completely ignored.
But sure, believe insane things.
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Except for the obvious reason that no one would try their new stuff, and it would be completely ignored.
But sure, believe insane things.
I fail to see how that would be a problem.
New is not always better.
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Except in this case, where it clearly was. They were launching a new platform people can develop for, and had to hit people in the face with as much as possible in the hope that some of it would stick. And it worked. Even Apple and Google now follow most of the design principles they hashed out for Windows, and there are apps available.
I firmly believe that 10 was always the goal, but they had to get the ideas across and then soften it afterward, or they'd still be stuck with what they had before.
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a carrot to upgrade?
Start Menu; resizeable Metro apps.
But they got rid of the big clock which used to come up with the charms bar. I miss it :(
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I use it without one. I don't use the store, so it makes no difference.
Yeah, a local account works just fine with Chocolatey.
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I don't want to search the internet when I press the WINDOWS KEY, I want to run a goddamn program on my computer
This is really my only complaint about anything past Windows 7. Paint .NET is the WORST offender for this, along with a couple other random programs that always result in useless web searches or send me to unrelated domain names when I just want to launch an application that's already installed on my system.
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Fuck the whole round avatars thing.
I don't know, this trend has some value in that it identifies me-too fad-jumping UX wannabe fuckwits...
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On mine it flashed up basically one frame of video after pressing the calculator button. Maybe two frames. Point is, it's virtually instant.
OK it wasn't "seconds" probably like, half a second. Still, that's noticable compared to before.
Also, I think we just don't have fast computers? They're "just" like quad core laptops with 4GB or something, I have no clue what they rate on the experience scale. Aaaaanyway, all of us had a noticeable delay Especially bad on first load, b/c it's probably the first modern ui application to load?
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Who is "all of us"? I experienced no delay.
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what they rate on the experience scale
Can you even still get to that screen? I'd love to see what BS numbers microsoft comes up with this time.
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I loved that screen! It always said 5.9 on everything everywhere! Kind of like that random number xckd.
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Right, because there's no way to achieve a "Perfect" score, since who knows? Maybe the supercomputers of tomorrow might do it so much better that we can't provide a comparison!
