Don't upgrade to Windows 10 yet.

[Glynn 405]

I am in the process of installing the latest preview, but reading the Windows 10 insider forum the general feeling is that the interface is getting worse with every preview release.

Spartan browser seems to be a basic phone/tablet browser now and the look and feel is getting a real slating on the forum with MS starting to ban beta testers for suggesting the OS is ugly and unfriendly to use.

Good job this is going to be free to all 7 and 8.1 users because it could be a major train crash in the making for MS

 

 

Anyway I will see for myself in a hour or so... 6% gone according to the ugliest install screen I have seen since windows 3.0

[deetee 164]

Windows 10 TP was pretty good back in December when I tried it, but was a dog's breakfast after the January update. Talk about taking a step backwards. I eventually went back to the awkward but familar W8.1. If only we could have the simplicity of Windows 7 with the performance and optimisation of W8.1 !

[Glynn 405]

What I cannot fathom is why MS is so determined in the face of so much critisism and loss of market share for their OS to push such a limited Tablet UI onto desktop users.

Is it really that difficult to have different UI's, Linux has had many different UI's available for years, users there choose how their OS looks and feels.

And where has all the graphic talent gone at MS, if they really have no one left that can draw an icon then just run a contest on the internet, lot of talent out there.

[Guest]

Is it really that difficult to have different UI's

 

Microsoft is very much a company that is "Do as I say, not as I do" ... the UI dependency is a classic example of that.  Here I sit coding away working on an application that I designed to be a true 3 tier ... UI, business logic, back end database ... something Microsoft preach in most of their "best practices" documentation ... basically I'm coding such that my UI can be independent and relatively easy to swap out for some other UI -- benefit is nothing has to change on the business logic and back end.

 

But Microsoft doesn't follow it's own best practices when it comes to their OS and applications.  Microsoft dumped "best practices" for "least amount of work practices" - the "one UI for all" even when it doesn't make sense and consumers don't want it.  Consumer clearly voted a big NO for Win8.x, why repeat it?

 

Cheers, Rob.

 

 

windows 10 is the future, and directx 12 is very promising,

 

Agree with you on DX12 and it's currently the KEY leverage point Microsoft are using to get people to give up WinXP and Win7 (DX12 will NOT be made available for Win7).  However, in this day and age there is no need to produce "one UI for all" ... desktop work/gaming/simulation are very different environments than mobile computing.  At the very least Microsoft should offer some alternative UI OR allow 3rd party to provide an alternative UI ... but they don't practice what they preach ... there will be NO WAY to swap out the Win10 UI for something better.

 

Microsoft can't keep telling developers this is how you must code, but then not do it themselves ... credibility just goes out the window.

 

Cheers, Rob.

[Glynn 405]

It will be interesting how this pans out for MS, Windows 8 bombed and this looks to be even worse in the usability stakes.

It's almost as if they are determined to remove functionality and design an OS for the lowest denomination of hardware. the thing is I can accept my apps having a sparse interface on my android tablet, it has limited screen estate and needs to run for a long time on battery but on a powerful desktop I expect to have a few creature comforts in the way of customisation.

Well at least it is free....

[fogboundturtle 2,708]

even with the latest build 10049 and the latest nvidia drivers. I can't enable HDR or play fullscreen in X-plane 10.

[Glynn 405]

Well I set off on this folly at 10:19, the installer downloaded quickly 2.5 gigs approx which ends up at 8 gigs installed.

It is now 1:58 and the installer is 83% through the "setting up" stage which is 25% of the way throught the install if the crudely drawn install screen is to be believed.

The previous tech preview that I had a look at in december was up and running in 45 mins.

 

Is there anyone left at Redmond that remembers how to code an operating system ?

[fogboundturtle 2,708]

It was HDR Antialiasing causing an issue  I had SSAA + FXAA. Once it was disable. It looks fine.

[Patriot3810 182]

i am on build 10041 with the windows 10 nvidia drivers, hdr and everything works, i am only installing evey other cycle, the next should be from the slow ring with iso images,i have no interest in spartan, and thats what 10049 is targeted for

[Glynn 405]

A whole Tech preview release targeted around a very simple browser ?, they really should leave things like browsers to the third party devs, that's what everyone will end up using anyway.

[Old_As_Dirt 160]

 

 

If only we could have the simplicity of Windows 7 with the performance and optimisation of W8.1 !

 

Try the "Classic Shell" free download.  Makes W8 or 8.1 look like W7.

 

John

[Glynn 405]

An update on my install.

After trying the preview a couple of months ago I felt it was time for a look at the progress MS has made so far.

I started the install around 10pm last night and got up this morning to find it still busy at 30% complete, at the 40% mark which only took a further one hour, and just as I began to think the process was speeding up somewhat the machine rebooted !

Thinking I was now going to boot into the new shiny Windows 10 desktop imagine my surprise when Windows 10 announced it was "restoring my previous operating system".

Good as it's word it did exactly that and I am now back in my perfectly working Win7 system.

 

So the really good news is this thing can uninstall itself really well, which a lot of folks are going to find really useful after they see for themselves what MS thinks a cutting edge desktop environment should look like in 2015.

 

To be perfectly honest I am quite relieved that Windows 10 sensed my misgivings and returned me to my Windows 7 desktop, that was a really clever bit of programming by the MS guys to pull that off.

[mdavis 10]

I'm running 8.1 on everything I have except one older desktop.  Never had a problem with 7 or 8.1 - solid, stable, runs everything.  I'll let you guys beta-test 10.

[darrinward777 0]

Anyway you look at it we are talking Microsoft right?  If we use the past as a base of measure then I might get on board at SP2 or above. Windows 7 is a 64 bit platform and FSX is 32. Seems like time is on my side. ^_^

[Scramjet333 39]

LOL, I agree there Glynn, dreadful icons

You haven't seen OS X Yosemite, have you? What were hand-designed, complex and beautiful icons in Mavericks were ruined in Yosemite. Heck, even the folder icons have this really bad cyan colour - it used to be a nice speckled greyish-blue.

 

A case in point: the Safari icon. In Mavericks, it had a keychain loop, a 'glass front' that had a reflective effect, and a very detailed background. In Yosemite, it's just a blue circle with a gradient and some markings. I recreated the Yosemite icon to a 95% accuracy with Illustrator, in about half an hour. Looks like companies are too lazy to put in the effort to design detailed icons, so they 'remove skeuomorphism' for the sake of doing so.

 

I just looked at the Windows 10 icons. Looks like I will be staying with Windows 8.1 (it has some significant power advantages on a laptop over Windows 7). I haven't upgraded to Yosemite for the same reason: UI. Helvetica is a ridiculous font for UI.