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.
> Is running the same OS across all device factors not a big enough accomplishment?
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...
Microsoft was always the continuity OS company. The fact that they need a concerted effort to get closer to what Apple has maintained is ridiculous. That they had separate and incompatible desktop, gaming, tablet and phone OSes is a monstrous error that puts them behind, again, for years.
I don't understand the Apple comparison. Do iOS apps run on OS-X?
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.
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.
You have to consider that there were six years between XP and Vista (aka Longhorn), compared to an OS X release every year since 2011. Windows has picked up quite a bit of speed as well, though they're not quite at yearly releases yet.
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.
One of the big messages was unification of the OS, right? So presumably there is a lot of work going on under the covers to make Win10 scalable from phones to high performance desktops.
None of that is sexy though; you can't really demo it to a room full of reporters.
That may be a reason why they're offering it for free - it does seem more like a downgrade (somewhere between 7 and 8) than an upgrade (somehow jumping up two major versions for a smaller than average feature set.)
Really? Mavericks seems like it was a substantive upgrade (2013 update) and while Yosemite isn't quite as dramatic they're doing a completely new UI end to end.
I'd be fairly happy if I was an OS X user in terms of upgrades, not least of all as they're free.
I just don't understand anything that Microsoft seems to be doing lately.
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.
NT 3.1 made sense because it was a compliment to Windows 3.x.
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 made sense because it was a compliment to Windows 3.x.
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.)
You're arguing against my points while going on to reiterate exactly what I posted - only less succinctly (I assumed it wasn't worth explaining the basics of each Windows release given that everyone on this forum should already be well versed on that subject).
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)
Pre-95, the (non-NT) windows line was a separate add-on to DOS, from 95 the ttwo were bundled into one product, but while some Windows facilities may have bypassed DOS, there was DOS running underneath, and you could boot directly to DO without the Windows environment.
Which again, describes a bootloader. Windows wasn't a DOS application. DirectX, Win32, etc weren't DOS libraries. Windows and DOS had separate sound drivers, graphics drivers, and so on and so forth.
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.
This makes Microsoft consistent in its inconsistency but that is still not a good thing.
When it comes to Windows, Microsoft appears to have only two values: strict adherence to backwards compatibility and changing everything else as much possible.
That's a funny quip, but a moment's reflection reminds me how shockingly incredible that is. The obsessive need to be backwards compatible combined with the pathological need to change (and by hopeful extension improve) must take a simply astonishing amount of manpower and ingenuity. I mean, usually the two seem mutually exclusive. I have no idea if it's worth it, but it's definitely an awe-inspiring machine.
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.
I really want to know what MS is doing with their app store. They only let you sell metro style apps that are forced onto a far more restricted sdk. If they're continuing to backpedal on metro on the desktop side, does this mean they'll start opening up the app store?
Underwhelming. cmd text selection[1], start+tiles .. come on Microsoft you can do better.
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.
I follow Windows development fairly closely and even do some Windows Phone (phone) development on the side, but this version number thing has me scratching my head. The explanation in the article doesn't help much either.
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...
Oh well thanks for clearing that up then, I took a german class in high school but apparently not a very good one as i remembering them being extremely similar. Maybe my english ears lol
It seems to me that Microsoft committed a faux-pas when it tried to revamp the user interface. The huge installed base of WinXP-Win7 style UI is an asset, not a liability. People have memorized how to use it; they don't want to throw away all that effort.
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.
And I'm not seeing us give up traditional keyboards at least, or mice or trackpads for that matter, trackpads which can also be multi-touch, because they are very efficient for what they do ... writing text + pointing at things without your hand blocking your vision, which is tied to the other advantage of the traditional "PC", which is the ability to use big-ass monitors.
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.
Well, that's actually good to hear. A redesigned command prompt would make me reconsider Windows faster than flashy things that interfere with my ADHD :-)
Personally, the biggest improvement to Windows for me would be the ability to install the same copy of the OS multiple times, personally, for a reasonable price. I have a laptop, desktop, and I'd also love to run a couple of virtual machines as well. I think having multiple personal uses is pretty common, and they need to change their licensing to be more flexible for that type of environment, without needing a separate license for each installation...
Although it looks like Microsoft are trying to appease users with this release, I'm finding myself still leaning towards Android L for quick app development (using a java wrapped Chrome Web View).
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)?
> 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.
It's mesmerizing how a company such as Microsoft keeps shipping user interface incarnations of the Frankenstein's monster. The lack of vision, even identity, is astonishing.
Exactly. The new Start menu looks like something you'd prefer to be blocked by an ad blocker (and I don't even use ad blockers in my browsers!) than like something you'd like to see every time you try to start an application.
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.
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...