Windows 10 Free Upgrade Available in 190 Countries Today • Hacker News Board

Re: Windows 10 Free Upgrade Available in 190 Countries Today

#311

Post by dragonwriter » Wed, Jul 29, 2015, 4:38 PM UTC

shmed wrote: post #302

Retric wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like you’re working in the belly of the beast. If you don't mind me asking what's up with the 'tile' concept that's pasted all over windows UI. I get the fact it makes a cool looking demo, but the usability is terrible. So, who / what’s pushing this internally?

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…

> 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.

Tiles increase the space taken up by each item, which increases the likelihood of needing to scroll or page menu items, which is okay UX on mobile (though moreso on phones than tablets, IMO), but pretty bad on desktop (extra bad if it is side scrolling.)

OTOH, Tiles are a great UX for quick at-a-glance access to information and access to frequently used apps; sort of a dashboard interface. Its actually not a bad thing to have such a configurable dashboard, it just serves a completely different need than the pre-Win8 Start Menu, and doesn't make a good substitute for it. There's probably a good UX design possible for providing desktop and dashboard interfaces on the same device, I just don't think Microsoft has nailed that yet.

Re: Windows 10 Free Upgrade Available in 190 Countries Today

#312

Post by e12e » Wed, Jul 29, 2015, 4:38 PM UTC

sudioStudio64 wrote: post #162

e12e wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 2012 Server Datacenter Edition is a mere ~6000 USD and allows to run unlimited VMs on up to two physical CPUs. Who ever claimed the licensing costs made a real difference between Microsoft and Linux?

They only require a license for VM's that run Windows. You can run as many non-windows VM's as you want on the free hyper-v server on as many procs as it will run on.

Oh, I didn't mean to imply otherwise. But you generally won't have to pay for a licence to run Linux or *bsd in a vm. I'd assume one would want/need to run Windows software on windows (reactos/wine aside).

Re: Windows 10 Free Upgrade Available in 190 Countries Today

#313

Post by mwcampbell » Wed, Jul 29, 2015, 4:39 PM UTC

maxxxxx wrote: post #309

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…

Good! We definitely need a new UI framework that will be abandoned in a few years. Why can't MS improve one of the existing ones like WPF or WinRT (what happened to that anyway?)?

Isn't UWP just the current name for WinRT?

Re: Windows 10 Free Upgrade Available in 190 Countries Today

#314

Post by corin_ » Wed, Jul 29, 2015, 4:41 PM UTC

TuringTest wrote: post #300

nsgi wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why don't you just search for what you're looking for?

Muscle memory is easier on the mind than name recall - it simply wastes less brain cycles.

In my experience muscle memory is just as easy to pick up with typing the name of an app than clicking - apps I use all the time I can open by typing their name without thinking about what the name is, apps I don't use all the time I find myself opening the metro start screen and wondering which will happen first, remembering the name to type or spotting it in my tiles.

Re: Windows 10 Free Upgrade Available in 190 Countries Today

#315

Post by VLM » Wed, Jul 29, 2015, 4:43 PM UTC

KJasper wrote: post #119

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…

Oh as a gamer you can better just get used to it, because of DirectX 12 games that will come in time.

Can't you just put Steam in the equivalent of the startup folder?

I've not used Win10 but all I do with Win7 is act as a bootloader for Steam. I don't really anticipate ever doing anything else with it, either. I assume there is something analogous to the old startup folder.

I mostly seem to spend my time running modded minecraft (FTB) on linux anyway.

Re: Windows 10 Free Upgrade Available in 190 Countries Today

#316

Post by TuringTest » Wed, Jul 29, 2015, 4:45 PM UTC

MrDosu wrote: post #266

72deluxe wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing I noticed from the tech preview I tried the other month was that whilst the press excitedly noticed new "settings" apps in parallel with the control panel and proudly announced new technologies, there is still decades of old cruft lying around. I know they have much work to do but it still feels like an operating system of many parts, all glued together. Some issues I noticed in the preview I tried: 1. The…

Backwards compatibility is a STRONG point of windows, not a drawback. Remember that this is something used by business users. Technologies like COM are without equal in the field (native automation of every major software for example). The only negative points you mention are icons and the pure existence of things you obviously don't and can't use. It's all in all a very silly paragraph you wrote.

Backwards compatibility is a STRONG point of windows, but the GP is right that it doesn't make for a nice, consistent user experience.

The file picker is one of the worst offenders, as the applications that you use the most have a tendency to use the worst version available, and it's impossible to pass your settings from one version of the dialog to others. There are versions of the folder picker that don't even let you paste a path copied from your current open Explorer window.

(Why is it that, in the 21st century, NONE of the major desktop vendors has thought of putting the list of currently open folders in the Save dialog window? Not the "recent" folders, not the "frequent" folders, but the actual folders I'm working with, RIGHT NOW?)

Re: Windows 10 Free Upgrade Available in 190 Countries Today

#317

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Jul 29, 2015, 4:46 PM UTC

s73v3r wrote: post #310

Retric wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like you’re working in the belly of the beast. If you don't mind me asking what's up with the 'tile' concept that's pasted all over windows UI. I get the fact it makes a cool looking demo, but the usability is terrible. So, who / what’s pushing this internally?

I've found a lot of people are using "the usability is terrible" to mean, "It's different and I don't like it." Do you have an empirical evidence to suggest the usability being good or bad, or better or worse than before?

[deleted]

Re: Windows 10 Free Upgrade Available in 190 Countries Today

#318

Post by Retric » Wed, Jul 29, 2015, 4:47 PM UTC

shmed wrote: post #302

Retric wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like you’re working in the belly of the beast. If you don't mind me asking what's up with the 'tile' concept that's pasted all over windows UI. I get the fact it makes a cool looking demo, but the usability is terrible. So, who / what’s pushing this internally?

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

Consider, the screen shots showing the current user's name. Unless I forgot my name I can't think why displaying it is helpful.

PS: Don't get me wrong having a sperate 'tile' menue that's differnt from the start menue like a personal home page might be useful. But, I suspect it would rarely be opened by most people.

Re: Windows 10 Free Upgrade Available in 190 Countries Today

#319

Post by zuck9 » Wed, Jul 29, 2015, 4:47 PM UTC

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…

Weird question but do you use (or have used) VB.NET for anything?

Re: Windows 10 Free Upgrade Available in 190 Countries Today

#320

Post by frik » Wed, Jul 29, 2015, 4:48 PM UTC

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…

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.