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Windows 10 Free Upgrade Available in 190 Countries Today

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Re: Windows 10 Free Upgrade Available in 190 Countries Today

#361

Post by frik »

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.

I meant resizing the startmenu with the mouse by grabbing the border and moving the mouse.

It's not that kind of "responsive design" we know from HTML. The startmenu only snaps to at least three sizes (vertical) and doing so with little UX feedback animation. It could be done better even with XAML (and it would be trivial with CSS3), but it was probably a design choice - it's something for Raymond Chen to write about in ten years.

(And changing back from tablet-mode startmenu to desktop-mode startmenu is a bit hidden in the icon next to the clock and takes some time to locate the setting.)

Re: Windows 10 Free Upgrade Available in 190 Countries Today

#362

Post by 72deluxe »

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.

I understand backwards compatibility being a benefit, but why keep introducing new frameworks and ways of doing things if the old ones never get truly deprecated or cleaned up? Why highlight all the wonderful new Metro features and Universal apps if Win32/AFX/MFC/COM/COM+/DCOM/.NET/.NET not compatible with that other .NET/Silverlight/Metro never gets tidied up or moved on? It just leads to more bloat.

They've made a clean break with IE, why not do the same with Windows APIs one day? I like being able to run my ancient Win32 app and Windows API app as much as the next guy but there comes a point when they should tidy up, surely? Else why move to the new frameworks and APIs if I can still just write something in the ancient frameworks, replete with security issues?? Why bother moving to .Net?

If you love COM as much as I don't, try writing an MMC plugin in the C++ MMC API 2.0 (not the .net 3.0) one and see how well you get on with the joy of undecipherable COM messages and debugging.

Re: Windows 10 Free Upgrade Available in 190 Countries Today

#364

Post by frik »

WorldWideWayne wrote: post #337
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 unfortuna…

One can have all his freedom with Android, iOS and Windows And there hopefully will be an public outcry and/or tools to remove the telemetry logging, cloud lock-in, etc from Win10 too. In the end an OS upgrade should have a benefit, in the worst case Win7 is supported until 2020.

Re: Windows 10 Free Upgrade Available in 190 Countries Today

#365

Post by tdicola »

k-mcgrady wrote: post #190
tdicola wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because for years Microsoft built up a reputation for supporting old software and old APIs. Read Raymond Chen's Old New Thing blog for some anecdotes about the amazing lengths they would go internally to keep old software working. Like with the classic game Sim City they realized its code was buggy and using uninitialized memory, so the Windows team wrote a special case to detect when Sim City runs and emulate an old…

>> "Because for years Microsoft built up a reputation for supporting old software and old APIs." That's a reputation they need to lose. It was important at one time but has been holding them back for years.

Just like the start menu was holding them back and had to be removed in Windows 8...

Re: Windows 10 Free Upgrade Available in 190 Countries Today

#366

Post by norea-armozel »

frik wrote: post #320
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.

XAML is much better at solving the UI issue on the desktop. Notably, it allows you to use binding logic to ensure your data model for your application doesn't carry all the weight of the UI logic (such as coloring, resizing, en/dis-abling controls, and etc). So, your XAML contains all the logic that deals with UI and your data model (view-model) contains all the values to be displayed (and possibly some of the business logic tied to those values).

Re: Windows 10 Free Upgrade Available in 190 Countries Today

#367

Post by MzHN »

I can't believe there is still no clear official statement on how the licensing works. From some sources[1] they seem to imply that retail licenses (Win7/8) turn into what is basically an OEM license, but then there are some sources that state the exact opposite[2][3].

I don't want to lose my retail Win8 license, as they say that it will be "consumed" by the upgrade (wth is that supposed to mean), so I'm going to sit and wait on this, maybe try to get an answer from their helpdesk.

They try so hard to make this easy for people, to make windows popular again, and they still fucked it up. I am disappointed.

[1] http://windows.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows-10/media-creation...

"If you upgraded to Windows 10 on this PC by taking advantage of the free upgrade offer and successfully activated Windows 10 on this PC in the past, you won't have a Windows 10 product key, and you can skip the product key page by selecting the Skip button. Your PC will activate online automatically so long as the same edition of Windows 10 was successfully activated on this PC by using the free Windows 10 upgrade offer."

[2] http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_10-...

"From the Windows 10 end user license agreement:

b. Stand-alone software.

If you acquired the software as stand-alone software (and also if you upgraded from software you acquired as stand-alone software), you may transfer the software to another device that belongs to you. You may also transfer the software to a device owned by someone else if (i) you are the first licensed user of the software and (ii) the new user agrees to the terms of this agreement. You may use the backup copy we allow you to make or the media that the software came on to transfer the software. Every time you transfer the software to a new device, you must remove the software from the prior device. You may not transfer the software to share licenses between devices."

[3] http://www.expertreviews.co.uk/software/operating-systems/14...

"After your computer has upgraded to Windows 10 it will have a new licence key. You'll need this if you want to perform a clean installation of Windows 10, as you can input your existing Windows 7 or 8 code into the installation routine. To get your key fire up the Magical Jelly Bean KeyFinder app and you'll see your Windows 10 key at the top of the list."

Re: Windows 10 Free Upgrade Available in 190 Countries Today

#368

Post by antaviana »

dhess wrote: post #85

Anyone here know much about Windows licensing? This seems like a good opportunity to ask. I never run Windows on bare metal. I only run Windows on virtual machines on my Mac desktop and Mac laptop; only for personal use; and only on the rare occasion when I need to run the odd Windows-only application. I would like to go legit this time around, but it's nigh-impossible to find any specific documentation from Microsof…

For this particular use case (i.e. "rare occasion when I need to run the off Windows-only application") I use a 4GB Windows instance in AWS.

I only run it when I need it, in my case cost is negligible (in the $1/month range, Windows license inclided), launches a lot faster than VMware Fusion and best of all, my Mac is not slowed down considerably by VMWare Fusion VM image running.

Re: Windows 10 Free Upgrade Available in 190 Countries Today

#369

Post by LocalPCGuy »

melling wrote: post #357
LocalPCGuy wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Netmarketshare is a horrible source for real browser stats. Except when you want to inflate IE usage numbers, of course.

Whatever the numbers are, developers are still sweating blood supporting old versions of IE. Let's get Windows users on 10. https://h4labs.wordpress.com/2015/07/29/why-everyone-should-...

Meh...it's not really sweating blood to support IE compared to the IE6/7 days.

But we agree that the quicker users are on W10 and Edge, the better.

Re: Windows 10 Free Upgrade Available in 190 Countries Today

#370

Post by WorldWideWayne »

WCityMike wrote: post #283
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…

I'd be curious as to your reaction to Ars Technica's review, in which they complained about what they perceived as a "debilitating" Start Menu issue: "This database is (inexplicably) maintained by a system service running as the super-privileged SYSTEM identity. And at the time of writing, this database has the oh-so convenient feature of being limited to around 500 entries. [...] The All apps view didn't show all my…

I'm a Microsoft fan and I love Windows, but this is the worst Windows yet in my opinion because they removed features and useful screens just to replace them with bland UWP style screens that don't have half as much functionality.

- Start menu keyboard acceleration is poor. I used to be able to hit the Windows key and then just hit ENTER to run the first app on the Start screen. Now, you have to hit tab or use an arrow key before you can do anything.

- The Start screen/menu/whatever doesn't let you operate in bulk anymore. WTF? Now I have to click three times as much to disable live tiles for a bunch of apps.

- Why can I not middle-click task-bar items to close the app yet? This seems like an obvious feature since that's how you close tabs on a tabbed window. 7+ Taskbar Tweaker fixed this glaring omission in Windows 8, but it's not on 10 yet. (I don't combine taskbar items. I know you can click the preview window after waiting a second for it to show up, but that's too slow.)

- They removed titlebar colors from all Windows so now you can't even tell which window is active or where the titlebar can be dragged. (This is an anti-pattern obviously copied from OS X, but the reason that I don't use OS X is because I don't like most of Apple's design decisions either.)

- I can't stand all of the thick borders and focus lines in the Metro/UWP style apps. At least in Windows 8, I could avoid them most of the time but there are even more of these screens in Windows 10. Win32 apps are so much better looking than this.

In short, I'm uninstalling this and going back to Windows 8.1 Pro, which I actually liked because it was easy to avoid Metro.

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