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Windows 10 Free Upgrade Available in 190 Countries Today

blogs.windows.com

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Re: Windows 10 Free Upgrade Available in 190 Countries Today

#331

Post by overgryphon »

cm2187 wrote: post #289
ak217 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My experience has been the opposite. To me Windows 10 is the continuation of the 8/8.1 trainwreck, with the ridiculous Metro skins, a broken start menu, the half-assed fragmentation of the UIs into Metro/non-Metro, ham-handed app store/online services integrations, and various new features that do not work. I'll be going back to Windows 7, in which at least the UI works. And really, the only thing keeping me attached…

I would add to that list that it is a mixed bag of various versions of UI. When you go to the control panel you are welcomed by some big grey square. In sub menus you will find some windows 7 style white control panels. And if you keep digging deeper the old grey non-resizable dialog box are never far. The only consistency with the other versions of windows is that the hierarchy in the settings is all changed again t…

I find it interesting that you both complain the settings have stayed the same and change too much. What would you have wanted here?

Re: Windows 10 Free Upgrade Available in 190 Countries Today

#332

Post by zach »

AndrewDucker wrote: post #286
Aleman360 wrote: post #224

I work on the Start menu. It's just a UWP XAML app with Models and ViewModels written in C++/Cx, as are most of the new Shell features and built-in apps--although some of the newer ones, like Maps and Xbox, are in XAML/C#/.Net Native. Even the UI frame of Edge is in XAML, and the new Office UWP apps are too. I encourage everyone here to give UWP apps a shot; we dogfooded the dev platform to ensure it was stable and f…

So, will you be the one fixing this bug? http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/insider/forum/insider_win... :->

512 apps should be enough for anyone.

Re: Windows 10 Free Upgrade Available in 190 Countries Today

#333

Post by OniBait »

Aleman360 wrote: post #324
frik wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why stick with XML? Why not use HTML for UI frames? The startmenu could have a more "responsive design", allowing one to resize it any size would be easy (not just a few predefined sizes that are supported in Win10). HTML would suite itself for the UI of Edge too, similar to Chrome, Firefox (Android), FirefoxOS, WebOS.

XAML is far easier for app layout than HTML/CSS. It's very easy to do responsive design. We do have a full screen layout for those that want it, and it's what you get in Tablet Mode.

Yeah XAML layouts have always seemed so much cleaner than any CSS layout system. Was hoping that css-grid would have gained more traction over flex.

Given the choice, I'd choose XAML over HTML/CSS for app layout/design in a heartbeat.

I think it all goes back to what each language was designed for and people hacking things into HTML/CSS to get it do things it wasn't designed for.

Re: Windows 10 Free Upgrade Available in 190 Countries Today

#334

Post by wtallis »

bakies wrote: post #202
chrisan wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Which makes it sound like the version of Windows 10 you received as a free upgrade from Windows 7/8 will not work on any other machine than the one you first install on. Any idea what defines a 'machine'? I gradually upgrade my PC. New video card here, new SSD there, sometimes new CPU (and possibly motherboard)

Somewhere else in the thread it was mentioned it used the bios to determine if it had been activated on the computer. So I would think a mobo replacement would mess with the activation

And what about when your machine started with a retail motherboard that doesn't have OEM Windows keys embedded in the firmware? What kind of signature does it use for the initial registration?

Re: Windows 10 Free Upgrade Available in 190 Countries Today

#335

Post by OniBait »

currysausage wrote: post #256
tdicola wrote: post #81

Looking at the deprecated features that won't make it to Windows 10 I see: > Solitaire, Minesweeper, and Hearts Games that come pre-installed on Windows 7 will be removed as part of installing the Windows 10 upgrade. Microsoft has released our version of Solitaire and Minesweeper called the “Microsoft Solitaire Collection” and “Microsoft Minesweeper.” Does anyone else find it kind of sad that they killed off the old…

If the "Microsoft Solitaire Collection" only wasn't so slow .

Yeah. I like it better than the "old" Solitaire, but it can make my tablet crawl (is a Yoga2 Pro core i7). Turning off thermal management in the bios seems to have fixed a lot of the weird speed related issues I got in Win8/10 though.

Re: Windows 10 Free Upgrade Available in 190 Countries Today

#336

Post by cm2187 »

overgryphon wrote: post #331
cm2187 wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would add to that list that it is a mixed bag of various versions of UI. When you go to the control panel you are welcomed by some big grey square. In sub menus you will find some windows 7 style white control panels. And if you keep digging deeper the old grey non-resizable dialog box are never far. The only consistency with the other versions of windows is that the hierarchy in the settings is all changed again t…

I find it interesting that you both complain the settings have stayed the same and change too much. What would you have wanted here?

The hierarchy has changed, the UI is completely inconsistent.

Re: Windows 10 Free Upgrade Available in 190 Countries Today

#337

Post by WorldWideWayne »

random_2azkXJ wrote: post #322

The naked truth about this new Windows from user's perspective: http://i.4cdn.org/v/1438148570882.jpg

In my opinion - everybody already gave up their freedoms via Android and iOS, so (someone at) Microsoft feels like there won't be a problem with demanding the same on Windows.

Moves like this always draw ire from us power users, but with enough public outcry, we get what we want. Sometimes we get it through third party software. It's a game that's been played many times with many different companies because unfortunately, greed powers much of the world.

Re: Windows 10 Free Upgrade Available in 190 Countries Today

#338

Post by Bjartr »

Retric wrote: post #318
shmed wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you expand on why you say the usability is terrible? I understand people didn't like the Win8 start menu, since it was only accessible in full screen and would hide your desktop entirely, however I never heard any one give a reason why they would think tiles in general are terrible. I personally love the concept. I spent some time on Windows Phone too and the live tiles were the best thing about the OS. Also, you…

They take up a lot more screen space. Netflix is a clear example of this problem, sure showing pictures is nice, but scrolling 3 pages to the right just to look at a list is annoying. The 'real' advantage is displaying status information, but most applications like calculator / Photoshop / Skyrim don't have status information. Further many things like weather might seem like the current status are useful, but knowing…

>They take up a lot more screen space.

So make them smaller, or remove the tiles you don't use often. Did they remove those options in 10?

>but most applications like calculator / Photoshop / Skyrim don't have status information.

So don't put them on your start page

>scrolling 3 pages to the right just to look at a list is annoying.

From what I've read, this isn't the intended use case. The idea is to set up the start page like, as you put it, a personal home page. That's what it's for. The all apps screen is the one with everything on it (extant 512 app limit bug notwithstanding).

>current temperature outside or a what the stock price was 15 minutes ago is generally fairly useless and wastes screen space.

>Unless I forgot my name I can't think why displaying it is helpful.

In any case it's no worse that the old start menus that did exactly the same thing.

Between icons on the desktop, pinned programs on the taskbar, pinned programs on the start page, the all programs page, and typing to search all programs when on the start page, you'd think everyone would be able to work out a balance that fits their usage pattern.

Re: Windows 10 Free Upgrade Available in 190 Countries Today

#339

Post by s73v3r »

currysausage wrote: post #239
ak217 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My experience has been the opposite. To me Windows 10 is the continuation of the 8/8.1 trainwreck, with the ridiculous Metro skins, a broken start menu, the half-assed fragmentation of the UIs into Metro/non-Metro, ham-handed app store/online services integrations, and various new features that do not work. I'll be going back to Windows 7, in which at least the UI works. And really, the only thing keeping me attached…

> a broken start menu I love Windows 7, but do you honestly think the Windows 7 start menu is not broken? I believe we just got used to it over time. In Windows 7, I can either have an unstructured list of "pinned" programs, or I can manually categorize the real ("All programs") start menu. Option 1 doesn't scale beyond ~15 items (I have 22 pinned programs and it's a mess), and option 2 breaks whenever a program upda…

Why didn't you just use Search?

Re: Windows 10 Free Upgrade Available in 190 Countries Today

#340

Post by ascagnel_ »

tw04 wrote: post #214
acqq wrote: post #6

Note that the upgrade will remove your Windows built-in DVD player. The right to play DVDs must be paid for every computer. You paid it when you bought the Windows 7 or 8 that you'll maybe upgrade to 10. Now the upgrade to Windows 10 takes that feature away from you. They apparently (the twitter message isn't actually the company statement) plan to return it "sometime in the future" and "if it might be free or if it…

Honest question - who cares? Someone actually used the built-in media player? Step 1 for me on any new desktop/workstation install (regardless of OS) is to install VLC. I have to believe the number of people who actually use that can be counted in the tenths of a percent of their user base.

You're correct on the latter point; the Media Center functionality (not to be confused with Media Player) was used by very few.

That said, if you have cable TV in the US, it was the best way to use your own hardware to watch cable TV.

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