Microsoft unveils Windows 10 system with Start Menu
bbc.com
bbc.com
Everyone else is talking about the Start Menu and name. That's all fun and good but it isn't very substantive. The only actual feature which I've read about is Virtual Desktops (which was already obtainable via the "Desktops" TechNet download[0]).
If those are all the improvements Microsoft has to talk about then frankly what the heck have they been doing for the past several years? Windows 8 for all of its problems was a substantial change that likely took a lot of work. The difference between 8.1 and "10" is far from substantive.
[0]http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/cc817881.asp...
The revisions were ambitious and challenging. All OS releases have seem to kind of lost that recently. But that might just be a plateau we have reached.
-The icons look like physical objects. I'm not sure this actually fits the definition, and regardless it's still common practice in 'flat' UIs
-The calendar looks like a physical calendar, again this is still common practice
-Some of the thumbnails (presumably videos?) have borders like physical film. Seems inoffensive.
-The buttons are styled like 3D physical buttons
It's not unexpected; at the rate Microsoft is pushed out new versions there isn't time for them to develop anything substantive. This should really be called Windows 8.5 but because Microsoft wants to distance itself so far from that it's actually 10.
The message Microsoft provides is that the huge version bump seems right given the number of changes but the reality is just the opposite. It's the perfect recipe for being underwhelmed.
I'd be fairly happy if I was an OS X user in terms of upgrades, not least of all as they're free.
Develop a single application, that relies on the same API set and runs across,
PC, Phone, XBOX, Micro... aka Desktop, Mobile, TV, Everything Else...
I would say that's pretty impressive if they pull it off, considering how many customers and scenarios that will span.
[1] http://blogs.windows.com/buildingapps/2014/09/30/universal-w...
The fact that they're consolidating the console, desktop, and tablet/phone OSs is the impressive accomplishment, not the phone/tablet consolidation.
As for consoles, a few years ago, consoles were a whole different beast from what they are now, so it wouldn't have made much sense to have the OS the same.
Apple understands that different devices need different UIs but can share code and core APIs.
Microsoft thinks that different devices should have the same UI but hasn't previously managed to share code and APIs.
Sure, but unification was part of the big pitch for Windows 8. Of course, it wasn't quite what they did, but the fact that it was the pitch for the last major version makes the "this time we really mean it" repetition of the pitch for Windows 10 less overwhelming. Fool me once...
So instead they're bundling services into the OS and calling it a feature. Expect this trend to continue.
None of that is sexy though; you can't really demo it to a room full of reporters.
Random version numbers, a UI full of mismatched colors and a phone OS that has gone so far from its roots its just confusing. I mean sure they seem to be getting more dev friendly, but my god their end products are getting so far off track.
The first version of Windows NT was numbered 3.1, and since then we've had: 3.5, 4.0, 2000, XP, Vista, 7, 8, 10
So "7" and "8" were anomalies in that they actually matched the indices in this sequence.
When it comes to Windows, Microsoft appears to have only two values: strict adherence to backwards compatibility and changing everything else as much possible.
Getting Windows to function across so many platforms can only cubicly raise the difficulty of maintaining compatibility. If that's not the yawning abyss of a long-term tech support hell, I don't know what is.
Microsoft Windows [Version 6.3.9600]
(c) 2013 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
Windows 2000 kind of makes sense too, since we had Windows 95 and 98. Or at least 2000 would have made sense if ME didn't exist.
I always thought XP was an odd name though, but 10 is definitely the worst thus far because, rightly or wrongly, people have certain expectations with version numbering and Windows 10 break that (just look at how damning people were towards KDE because they had high exceptions from version 4.0 despite developers repeatedly warning users that it was still a beta and that the version number wasn't a statement about KDE's stability)
NT 3.1 was the rename of OS/2 NT after MS and IBM couldn't agree on what to do with OS/2. But it was a parallel release to the Windows 3.1.
> Windows 2000 kind of makes sense too, since we had Windows 95 and 98. Or at least 2000 would have made sense if ME didn't exist.
Me was the DOS-based successor to the Win 3.1 -> Win 98 SE line, 2000 was the NT-based successor to the Win NT 3.1 -> Win NT 4.0 line.
Since 2000 wasn't a successor to 95/98, it can't really make sense because of them -- to the extent that the name indicates its the next in that line, that illustrates why it doesn't make sense rather than indicates that it does (though, IIRC, that was part of the intent -- 2000 did support more of the consumer features than NT 4.0 did and there was some initial indication that MS hoped that 2000 would be the convergence OS that XP became, and that Me was a result of MS realizing belated that that wouldn't work and that they needed a new consumer OS as a stopgap before the convergence OS landed.)
And FYI, ME (nor 9x) weren't DOS-based. They used DOS bootloaders, but their drivers bypassed DOS entirely. I'm not sure whether 3.x did the same (architecturally I think it did, but OS/2 could also run Win 3.x inside a DOS emulator)
DOS to Windows 9x was like the read only kernel environment, initramfs, in Linux. Except that DOS is obviously a fully functioning interactive environment in itself (actually, initramfs might be too. I think you can get a Bourne Shell prompt if it goes tits-up)
While it's true that Windows 1 and 2 were literally just front ends to DOS (Windows applications would often call DOS functions) Windows 3.x was an OS in it's own right (albeit still heavily dependant on DOS) and Windows 95+ basically just kept DOS about as a bootloader and for DOS compatibility (games etc)
So it wasn't just "some Windows facilities" in Win95 that bypassed DOS; it was every single Windows application (it had it's own binary executable format, it's own kernel, it's own ABIs and APIs, drivers, memory management, etc.
But it's fun to bash Windows 9x as being "DOS-based" because it's derogatory and, let's be honest, there wasn't a whole lot right with that whole lineage of Windows.
http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/keskitsune/3409956/45220/4522...
They mentioned that the start menu search is now also going to search the web. Please make an option to disable that!
Also no mention of a clipboard manager. Personally I cannot work without a clip history, I don't understand how can you be productive without it.
Snap assist, as simple as it looks might be the nicest thing demoed, dealing with windows is such a time waster, having windows hand a one-click way to do that might prove zen inducing to many many people. First time I feel a sense of workflow in the UI (doing something on one window will make the OS react and fill in with another object). Very valuable.
[1] take a look at babun for nix complete shell, and for windows purists, just use powershell and pipe the result to the Mail app.
If I recall correctly, the number 9 is considered lucky in a wide variety of places, which seems like it would help sales on a subconscious level.
Introspectively, it worries me that I have read three articles about Windows 10 this afternoon and instead of recalling any new features, all I can think about is the version number...
Notice how Apple has resisted drastically revamping their own desktop/laptop UI. It's not a touch/tablet UI, and it shouldn't try to be, as long as we continue to use keyboards and mouse/trackpads to work with it.
I remember the craze of tablets 2 years ago, they were supposed to be the death of PCs. Now sales are declining and many tables turned out to be dust-gathering paper holders, because compared to phones, you can't carry them in your pocket. For Microsoft to try its hand at a laptop/tablet hybrid was the worst mistake ever; instead of making Windows the best PC OS available, they broke it even further than it was. And it's 2014 and that Command Prompt is still retarded, with millions of software developers suffering because of it, with many of them not even realizing it.
I know Android is considered fragmented at the moment, but I would only consider developing for 'L' and above as the new Chrome Web View would suffice.
Does Microsoft offer anything similar which can build apps using free tools (and isn't cloud based)?
http://www.visualstudio.com/en-us/products/visual-studio-exp...
I'm guessing this is because for some reason in Japanese culture 9 is a very bad, unlucky number like how 13 is bad in most Western cultures.
> There are several unlucky numbers in Japanese. Traditionally, 4 and 9 are unlucky. Four is sometimes pronounced shi, which is also the word for death. Nine is also sometimes pronounced ku, which can mean suffering... Because of these unlucky numbers, sometimes levels or rooms with 4 or 9 don't exist in hospitals or hotels, and particularly in the maternity section of a hospital,
I've never heard of 7 being an unlucky number for any culture. Then again someone can prove me wrong.
The reason "start screen" was annoying compared to the "start menu" was that the "screen" removed everything you worked at up to that point. They managed to do nearly the same in the demo screens of the new "start menu." Talented.