Remember me?
Posted on 01/21/2015 6:27:53 PM PST by smokingfrog
Today’s Windows event was the flashiest to grace Redmond in years. The company pulled a number of projects, like HoloLens, out of its skunk works in an effort to convince finicky geeks it isn’t out of ideas.
Whether this gambit was successful is hard to say (the Twittersphere seems impressed), but in a few weeks it will also be irrelevant. Microsoft’s problem has always been execution, not imagination. Kinect, Courier and even Windows 8.1 are examples of ideas getting ahead of reality.
Yet this event wasn’t entirely about concepts and prototypes. Alongside holograms and room-sized tablets, the company also displayed a number of improvements and innovations that could once again give Windows an edge. Practicality, not pizzazz, will win back the confidence Windows 8 lost.
The Windows 10 Technical Preview is only the latest in a long line of beta builds used to test out new editions, but its rollout has been different than those prior. Built-in feedback tools have helped users direct their concerns to the people in Redmond who can actually fix them.
It’s easy to see the results. At the event, we witnessed a refined Start Menu that works better with tablets, an easy way to switch between tablet and desktop mode, and a blending of the control panel and Metro settings menu that finally resolves a core conflict between the old-fashioned desktop and the modern Windows interface.
(Excerpt) Read more at digitaltrends.com ...
Such situations are well known in the industry. I used to have an oscilloscope that ran on Windows 98; and I used an UV EEPROM programmer that ran under control of MS DOS. I suggest that you look into ways to reanimate your hardware. Pretty much every OS can be ran today, with their native drivers. If it takes a separate PC to operate your studio, a PC today is far cheaper than $3K of probably less than common music equipment.
I hate that too. Hey, who’s in charge here? Windoze doesn’t even have the courtesy to ask, Would now be a convenient time to install the updates?
I don’t like that either, but it usually doesn’t take very long unless there has just been some major patching after a black tuesday. One of the reasons I don’t set my computer to auto-update.
What? Old software won’t work on Yosemite, or what?
I have a Question about the new Windows 10. I understand they will allow a free upgrade from Windows 8 and 8.1 for one year. My question is is there a charge for that after the one year or they basically giving you a free update to Windows 10 in the hopes that solves all the issues with earlier Windows editions?
Thank you in advance.
Freegards LEX
I’m sure it’ll be a 1-time charge for upgrades after the first year. People would revolt if there was some subscription model for an OS. I think it’ll be kinda like how 8 was done. For the first few months it was only $40 for the upgrade. This time it’ll be free so get it while you can. I like fresh installs, so I’m hoping they don’t make that a huge pain from upgrade paths like they’ve done since Vista.
Claim it quickly, or your computer will turn into a pumpkin.
Cortana is simply the next incarnation of Microsoft’s ill-conceived and disastrous attempts to foist a touch-centric cell-phone interface on every PC on earth. That didn’t work, so their next try is a voice-centric interface, and that will be disastrous too. Ever see the scene in “Blade Runner” where Deckerd uses voice commands to perform a simple zoom, crop and print operation on a photo?
For commercial and industrial use and content creation, no interface comes close to a keyboard and mouse-based GRAPHICAL USER INTERFACE for efficiency and speed. Homo sapiens is a creature designed primarily for for 2-eye/10-finger/2-hand interaction and manipulation of our world, and Microsoft STILL doesn’t understand that basic fact!
After all, how many business people has anyone heard lately begging to have Cortana, integrated Bing, integrated Microsoft Store, Metro UI integrated into the Start Menu, universal user interfaces, universal multi-device APIs or Integrated Microsoft Cloud? I’m thinking pretty much exactly zero. The mere fact that the above are the big “improvements” in Windows 10 is absolute proof Microsoft is still not listening to their customers, but is continuing to build the OS that only Microsoft wants.
I don’t think Microsoft has truly learned its lesson yet, since it seems that they’re simply going to careen from their massive UI disaster to new, but different disasters of their own making, including attempts to tightly integrate Microsoft store, cloud and other services into Windows 10 rather than pay any attention whatsoever to what users actually need and want.
And you can also be assured that both consumers and the enterprise will be looking with a severely jaded eye upon the worthiness of Windows 10, particularly since Microsoft hasn’t given anyone enough time to spit the terrible taste of Windows 8 out of their mouths before the hurried introduction of Windows 10.
No one in industry, manufacturing, government, military, business, or the enterprise will care one whit about Windows 10 unless it’s a more productive operating system for the vast majority of their PC users.
That really will be the sole metric of the success of Windows 10: is it compatible with the hundreds of millions of current PC applications and users, and is it substantially more productive than Windows 7? IF not, then there’s no business case for “upgrading” from Windows 7 as there will be no positive return on investment.
Productivity should be Microsoft’s sole focus for Windows 10. If Microsoft persists in making an operating system that meets Microsoft’s needs and not the needs of its industrial and business users, then Windows 10 will be another flop like Windows 8. Never before has Microsoft had two major OS flops in a row, and now that Microsoft has all but lost the war for mobile, they can’t afford to lose their one remaining monopoly.
The bottom line is that Microsoft is facing a headwind of skepticism (and alternatives) like never before in their history of introducing new operating systems, and I wonder if they know that Windows 10 is not just another OS to be introduced to a naive and adoring audience with their typically lame publicity barrage, but may be in fact be the last OS they ever introduce that anyone will actually give a hoot about if turns out to be as bad a bomb as Windows 8.xxx.
I too run Mint with KDE. There’s a token windows laptop around here somewhere I fire up a few times a year to update stuff that can’t be updated any other way. (An old router comes to mind and my old GPS.) I believe the new Garmin GPS I bought the wife can be updated from the Web directly. May be time to upgrade the laptop to Linux.
I will get a free copy of 10 for my windows 7 cd and another for my windows 8 cd that I have. Or is this a download only upgrade?
I hated that for Windows 8 to 8.1
So is Cortana Microsoft’s answer to Siri?
Seriously, I'm on the Beta now and I think it'll do just fine. Zero driver issues so far and it doesn't seem as resource-hogging as, say, Vista was. I'll upgrade my Win7 boxes without hesitation, but I'll be keeping the installation media around, too, just in case.
But Apple has Siri, so MS has to have something similar.
Actually, I think it can come in handy on mobile devices, but don’t see it being that useful on a desktop machine.
I don’t know, but guessing the free upgrade is probably a download and you’ll need to make your own system restore discs.
Work: Windows 7 because I have to use it and because work supplies a worldwide, 24/7/365 IT dept to patch and maintain it.
Home: Xubuntu and Mac. Got no time anymore for that Windoze crap.
I am using 8.1 on an old Compaq (Amd 64-x2 3gig ram) and have Classic Shell installed feels less jarring than even 8.1 “start” button.
when 10 is released I will get the free upgrade and give it a whirl.
I hate “ribbons” and bought 4 copies of Office 2003 (in 2013) from (believe it or not) “Goodwill Computer Store” just so I would not have to go beyond Office 2003...
I LOVE “Presta Valves” on my racing bicycles! Lighter, more accurate, better in every way, for what they are designed to do, be a light springless skinny valve for light skinny racing tires! Do you even know what they are? Why would you know? If you used racing bikes, what valve did you use that is better?
I also LOVE WINDOWS VISTA and am writing on it NOW (my favorite machine) and have Win 8.1 and Win 7+ (and older Windows) and all the newest versions of Mac and several good versions of Linux and understand them all reasonably as a current “power user,” who in the last 10 years was also a programmer. (I have 9 personal computers — and use many others at work.)
My fully updated and constantly stressed FAVORITE Windows Vista 64 bit is a GREAT OS that has not crashed for probably a YEAR. (I have rebooted for certain updates — I have a UPS and it is ALWAYS ON.) Windows 7 is actually DUMBED DOWN from XP. VISTA is only a little dumbed down from XP and it is better than Win 7 except that MS does not support it as well and there are a points where Win 7 has gotten a little better (though still stupidly dumbed down on other issues).
I am SICK of your “party line” that something is wrong with VISTA when it has been updated to SP2 on good hardware.
I am running Vista Ultimate 64 bit SP2 INTENTIONALLY on a “homemade” Intel I7 2600K 3.40 GHz 8 gig system that runs GREAT. I have new Win 7 64 bit Ultimate version sitting shrink-wrapped right beside me that I have NOT applied because of how well this computer runs already right now! YOU no doubt are NOT writing from experience, and if you think you, are I would have questions!
I AGREE WITH YOU, however, that SOCCER SUCKS, UNLESS you are PLAYING IT YOURSELF. We Americans are right about this, of course. If you are playing soccer yourself, it is OK (and despite being old I HAVE PLAYED SOCCER), and (way worse eventually) I have SUFFERED through my kids playing it.... Let them play it if they like it, but forget political correctness and call it a boring and stupid game for 85% of people not playing it themselves. The other 15%, well, let’s just call you “special” and leave it at that...
LOL !
The only place I've seen them promoted lately: the college bookstore.
This is great news—ARM-based Windows NT was just a stand-in until manufacturers could come up with small, fast, inexpensive x86/AMD64-based mobile devices...The whole reason for pushing Windows Ten so hard is because there will no longer need to be compromises.
And in one fell swoop Windows phones will have more available software than the Google Play Store and Apple App store combined.
I like 8.1 too. I installed it on my mother’s computer too! I also do not understand the [new] complaints. It is better than Win 7 (assuming the use of start menu replacements).
(The old complaints I DO understand, as MS has “dumbed down” functionality for power users a LOT after XP, but that hit hardest with Win 7....)
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