Windows 10 Creators Update preview: Lovin' for Edge and pen users, nowt much else Microsoft has released a new preview of Windows 10's Fall Creators Update, showing off elements of its new Fluent Design System and introducing a host of features. At the Build developer event last month, the company announced the Fluent Design System as a move away from the flat design language which characterised the "Metro …
I'm quite happy with the 'broken abortion' (how quaint), especially as I never used 7.
I hear moans and whines but never any detail, not that it would bother me.
It doesn't matter in M$ came out with a flawless, faultless O/S there would be a huge queue of people ready to diss it as it doesn't exactly fit like an old pair of slippers . Yeah ,like you buy a new car that is exactly the same as the old one?
Here's some details:
Flat (no 3D) UI style
No transparency or other relational cues
Horrible default color options
Excessive amounts of empty space
Touch sized objects in a desktop environment
Poor organization in the start panel
Missing features that were there for years
Advertising in the OS
Mixed UI styles depending on the framework used to build the program
Two different control panels, with options spread across both of them
There's also the perennial favorites of the ribbon and telemetry.
I'll give you that there will always be someone who hates it, no matter how perfect, but this is far from perfect. It's still fundamentally a phone and tablet UI and it doesn't look or feel good on the desktops and laptops where it's actually being used.
The quote "only the strong will survive" is actually a misquote regarding natural selection. Natural selection will select out those of a species least capable of adapting to the changes in their environment. One might suggest that as the world evolves, people who can't figure out how to become comfortable with a new version of Windows after 10 years might be headed down the same road as the dodo.
"One might suggest that as the world evolves, people who can't figure out how to become comfortable with a new version of Windows after 10 years might be headed down the same road as the dodo."
The evolutionary error in your post is that Windows 10 is also part of the ecosystem, so the other possibility is that it will become extinct due to a lack of competitiveness.
It's like this: take the edge of a wood surrounded by parkland. Pretty, isn't it? It is actually a battleground between trees and grass. Trees crap dead leaves or resin on the grass and deny it sunlight; grass removes surface water and slows tree growth.
But there are other factors like climate. This affects the relative competitiveness of trees and grass. Hence savanna, pampas, and various types of rainforest.
Sometimes adaptation isn't needed, you just wait for the climate to change. And the climate is made neither by ordinary users nor by Microsoft; they influence it but they don't make it.
> ... as the world evolves, people who can't figure out how to become comfortable with a new version of Windows after 10 years might be headed down the same road as the dodo.
... as the world evolves, versions of Windows that users aren't comfortable with might be headed down the same road as the dodo.
People (paid by MS or just stupid? Maybe both) were saying exactly the same thing a few years ago about the fantastic new Windows 8.
I hope they're not missing their world-changing brilliant new UI too much, now that's a minor footnote in the history of IT blunders... I expect they're too busy getting excited about the new design language in the "Fall Creators Update" to remember though.
One might suggest that as the world evolves, people who can't figure out how to become comfortable with a new version of Windows after 10 years might be headed down the same road as the dodo.
That only works if Windows 10 is the only way to survive. It may be that if enough people switch to alternatives, it'll be the ones who stuck with the evolutionary dead-end of Windows 10 that will go join the dodo. All it would take is for some of the major software houses to produce full-featured Linux versions of their packages and a lot of small business would seriously consider a switch. Windows still seems to be better for managing and controlling large numbers of devices centrally though, so one might expect large organisations to persist.
"All it would take is for some of the major software houses to produce full-featured Linux versions of their packages and a lot of small business would seriously consider a switch."
What do you even need that still requires a local install? SAP, Oracle, Salesforce... all the business software is browser based and generally SaaS. There are a few outliers like Photoshop and IDEs, but they are working on it.
Also, why go through the trouble of managing local fat OSs in the first place?
I think the way that people go is to Google Chromebooks. That gives them enterprise support from a massive company (if they want it), a free OS, an OS which is easy to manage individually and as a fleet. I wouldn't be opposed to a Linux OS... but I think companies would more likely move to the next thing. The next thing is a laptop OS that works like a mobile OS.
What do you even need that still requires a local install? SAP, Oracle, Salesforce... all the business software is browser based and generally SaaS. There are a few outliers like Photoshop and IDEs, but they are working on it.
The performance of some of this stuff is dire, especially if someone has failed to put in enough bandwidth and someone in the office decides to download some large files (or puts a bunch of stuff on to Google Drive or Dropbox and everyone else's machine decides to synchronise content). A lot of technical stuff is still local, electrical tools such as OrCAD/Altium/Allegro, plus the mechanical stuff (Solidworks/Pro-E) because it's highly graphical and a browser is not going to cut it.
I've worked in a place which used SalesForce and it was hilarious watching the panic when it went down for a day a while back. I've worked in places which use on-line stuff that is painfully slow. I much prefer to run stuff locally, where outages and security breaches are entirely of local making.
That's right, I have never really embraced the cloud. My software is owned by me, in that I can keep using it (without upgrades, admittedly) without having to pay anyone else any more money, unlike all this SaaS stuff.
"One might suggest that as the world evolves, people who can't figure out how to become comfortable with a new version of Windows after 10 years might be headed down the same road as the dodo."
Yeah, that... or companies still riding high on the 1990s model of fat, proprietary, paid OSs are headed down the same road as the dodo.
It doesn't matter in M$ came out with a flawless, faultless O/S there would be a huge queue of people ready to diss it as it doesn't exactly fit like an old pair of slippers
That is not true. Not because there would not be people seeking to diss it, but because M$ has not managed to EVER make a flawless, faultless bit of software in its +40 years of existence. I suspect initially this was stumbled upon as an excellent tactic to keep flogging upgrades, but it soon became a cost saving habit as the cost of quality eats into profits and people bought it anyway.
The likelihood of M$ ever making something that is even halfway decent is thus remote. M$ knows that its buyers are as gullible as out of work miners voting for Trump.
Just get rid of the Microsoft billboard of flipping flashing tiles that are advertising Xbox, candy crush, Microsoft products and services I don't want, distracting flip animations, crap that doesn't uninstall, or worse still, silently reinstalls after you uninstall it.
Windows 10 and metro is basically an advertisement platform.
Yeah ,like you buy a new car that is exactly the same as the old one?
I did once, upgraded because at the time the monthly payments required were cheaper than not doing so, assuming I wanted to keep owning a car. Old and new cars parked next to each other at handover, the sales chap said that at this point he was supposed to go over the controls on the new vehicle to make sure I knew where they all were. I just asked if they were all the same as the old one, he said yes and we agreed that he'd done the job.
"Just give us a fucking Windows 7 user interface you morons"
Yeah, that is what people want... probably won't get it though. Why? Desktop OS is a commodity. For the vast majority of people, it is a useless piece of software which you need to boot to run a browser (generally Chrome browser). Microsoft doesn't like that... that Windows has become that thing that makes it take longer for Chrome to boot. They are going to keep throwing stuff at people in hopes of stumbling across something which makes them realize they really need an old school fat OS... and that they want to pay for it.
The update has a selling point that means you can pin websites to the start bar? And smoother scrolling between different monitor sizes to name a few of the ones listed.
I can do that in Windows 7, I could do that in XP I think. Fairly sure I had smooth scrolling between laptop monitor and main desktop monitor. Seamless in fact.
They do seem to be racing to reach first gear in a lot of ways.
Still Linux support is nice.
You cannot believe how hard I facepalmed when the Win10 machine I was setting up for a friend refused to let me pin Chrome (used for addblock, I'd not want phishing attacks on them) bookmarks to the start menu.
No problem, I can use the desktop. But the entire idea of the new start menu was for fancy options and live content and... oh, works fine only for Edge content. Yeah, I see their priorities there. But I'm not foisting it on others (gui change from windowed content the main thing "where is the X?" and "Oh, you have to grab it and throw/drag the window from the top... yeah it's a bit buggy at times").
Chrome spies on what you search. Possibly what sites you visit. I can turn it off or run a fork (Iron etc).
10 spies on everything. I cannot turn it off, I can only choose a Linus option.
I can live with one, the other I cannot (well, I can live with Linux, but others may not have that choice).
Wait till SatNad monetizes Windows-as-a-service, and you need to buy a subscription to unlock 'freemium' features on Windows, to receive patches, drivers etc.
It's like people have already forgotten what SatNad had done to the Solitaire game in Windows 10.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3180657/Microsoft-fire-Windows-10-users-playing-Solitaire-costs-10-year-unless-want-sit-video-ads.html
That was a sneak preview of what is to come.
>That was a sneak preview of what is to come.
Err that just confirmed that MS were still following Apple iOS.
Years back 'free' app's on iOS generally had relatively discrete ad's in a static bar across the bottom of the screen.
Then we got the full screen ad's which pop'd up between runs of games, but were easily dismissed. In the last year (since circa the launch of Mobile Strike?) the pop up ads now run for a minimum (not user controlled) time before they can be dismissed; which seems to be getting longer, plus they will change the location of the 'X' close button, between ad plays so that you have to look to find it.
So for a sneak preview of what is over the horizon for Windows, just look at other more advanced platforms - remember one of the patented features of iOS is it's ad hooks.
The difference though is that IOS is a mobile operating system. Windows 10 shouldn't be trying to be a mobile OS when installed on a PC. We're also talking about the OS pushing advertisements, not an app. I have a choice of installing free apps on my phone but if I buy a new PC then I have less to no choice about the OS. Remember Windows 10 is no longer free but costs real money.
>The difference though is that IOS is a mobile operating system.
And Windows 10 isn't trying to be a mobile operating system with its tablet and phone platform variants?
>We're also talking about the OS pushing advertisements, not an app.
The AC explicitly exampled Solitaire, which is just an app bundled with the OS.
But the differences are irrelevant, it is the direction of travel that is being discussed.
iOS is an operating system and Apple has patents for the OS level integration of ad's. Yes presently the Apple hooks are only used by "non-OS" app's but there is nothing - other than market image and some degree of respect for their customers - that is preventing Apple shipping an ad pusher as part of the OS release. As has been noted MS follows Apple, albeit with a lot less finesse...
>Remember Windows 10 is no longer free but costs real money.
It never was 'free' - the 'free' giveaway was to selected existing Windows licence holders only.
http://winaero.com/blog/windows-7-games-for-windows-10-anniversary-update-and-above/
You can get the wonderful vibrant coloured Windows 7 free games to add to Windows 10. I have a test install on one PC and 10 is rock solid so far. I had to use Classic Shell for the classic start menu and a lot of registry hacks from tenforums.com tutorials to get it under control. A shoutout to tweakhound.com for the tutorial and tweaks which helped a lot. Uninstalled most of the apps, deleted crap from start menu I am never going to use and also used WinAero tweaker to turn off telemetry etc. Windows 7 which I love is on all of my PC's and just works although I tweak it to my liking. Tweaking 10 to my liking has taken copious amounts of reading and effort for a UI that looks worse than 7. Is 10 more secure than 7? Doubt it has the same core engine win32 and 10 has the new metro stuff too. Now M$ does not have a mobile phone how about a real desktop OS? Or is this what the Window 10 Workstation is at $300 + a copy. Probably a Windows 7 Ultimate OS with the 7 x out and 10 written in its place. Really should not have to spend about 5 days installing my programs and setting stuff up and fighting the OS to get Windows the way I would like it rather than M$ defaults.
Every windows 10 update has been a complete fuck about with gpos. Each ipdate breaks something that worked in previous builds. Be it lock screens, start menu XML, default program assignments, per user apps. The list goes on.
10 is a horrid experience every 6 months.
"If it makes that unusable flat 2D design more like the UI in Windows 7"
that would be nice, of course, but the millennial CHILDREN running the show in the Halls of Redmond aren't about to let THAT happen... they *MUST* *CRAM* the 2D FLATSO FLUGLY up our collective orifices! For our own good!
"The rest of us" indeed. Like in the article's title. Totally abandoned, as usual.
Does anyone else see the remarkable similarity between this new "Acrylic material" and Aero?
Seems like reinventing the wheel and claiming it's a brand new thing...
I'm pretty sure the skeuomorphic inspiration for Aero was glass. This new approach is inspired by Acrylic. It isn't like they just re-patented 'Aero, with rounded corners'
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
