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Microsoft Announces Windows 10

D

deltatheta

Member
There are so many companies that rely on custom applications that no one understands or even have the source code for anymore. It's not even a question of compatibility shims. If Windows X can't run some business's dinky little VB6 app that they've been using for 20 years, they're not going to upgrade.

Apple can afford to shrug off compatibility because they don't target business.
 
F

FLAguy954

Junior Member
Question: I want to create a partition for the technical preview on my SSD (or HDD). So, how much space would I need to put aside?

Edit: Also, what kind of partition should it be (GPT etc.)?
 
D

diaspora

Member
If we install this, does anyone know if we can upgrade from the tech preview to the full version rather than doing a full reinstall?
 
S

somuchwater

Member
Sorry if this has been asked, but after upgrading to 8.1, Windows gives me the choice each time I boot of loading Win 7 or Win 8.1. I think it's because WIn 7 is on one hard drive, and Win 8.1 on another.

My question is if I try out technical preview on the Win 7 drive, will the functioning of Win 8.1 be affected?
 
W

whatsinaname

Member
Iced_Eagle said:
Beware of anonymous bullshit on the internet.

For starters, humoring the fact that they even are an MS employee, they even say that is a rumor. They clearly aren't someone in the know so don't treat this like it's true (aka, they don't work on Windows).

Second, that's not even how you check for the version on Windows. When you ask for the version number, you will get the kernel number you are on, for example Windows 10 will return "6.4". Early on in the process, the engineers don't know what the product will be called, which is why you don't bother working with the product name at all. That's why everyone uses the kernel version number, because that won't change even if the product name does.

The only way you can even get the friendly product name as far as I know is to use WMI, which didn't even come installed on Windows machines until Windows 2000. MS did offer WMI for Win95 and Win98, but it was an optional download the user had to install for it to work.

You could obviously work around the problem without WMI by implementing your own logic for "if they are on this major version, and this minor version then I'll assume it's Windows 95", but obviously you can see that uses the version number anyway, and thus isn't an issue.

Finally, even if this were true, and a developer went completely against all of the guidance MS has ever released and supported for how to check the version number, that's why MS has compatibility shims. Considering that to do this sort of check requires an optional download, the amount of software that would even theoretically do this would be tiny, and thus they could add it to a compatibility list and it would be fine. It's silly to think that it's a technical reason they couldn't name it Windows 9. It was clearly a marketing decision.

I call complete bullshit on that rumor.
Click to expand...

I initially thought it was a joke as well. But then you see things like this...

https://searchcode.com/?q=if(version,startswith("windows+9")

http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/2i14ny/if_osnamestartswithwindows_9/

I don't think this is a serious reason
 
I

Iced_Eagle

Member
whatsinaname said:
I initially thought it was a joke as well. But then you see things like this...

https://searchcode.com/?q=if(version,startswith("windows+9")

http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/2i14ny/if_osnamestartswithwindows_9/

I don't think this is a serious reason
Click to expand...

Yeah, I saw that. It hurts my brain man... I would never let anything like that get through a code review I'm on since it goes so far against all guidelines MS puts out.

Also, just got home. Time to install tech preview!

diaspora said:
If we install this, does anyone know if we can upgrade from the tech preview to the full version rather than doing a full reinstall?
Click to expand...

You should be able to, but I dont think there's a written guarantee at this stage.
 
W

Windu

never heard about the cat, apparently
Microsoft had a similar issue with IE11 right? You would get prompts saying you need a higher browser than ie6 because they thought you were running ie1.
 
Jzero

Jzero

Member
Zombie James said:
The font rendering situation pisses me off to no end. DirectWrite is garbage, my eyes hurt trying to read this fuzzy mess.
Click to expand...

Looks fine to me. I tried the MacType font thing but I didn't like how it looked on Windows 8.
Maybe I should try it again.
 
E

Emperor Bohe

Member
I can't change my lock screen image for some reason. I've deleted the SystemData folder and checked RegEdit. don't know what else to do... sigh

edit: also i cant get the charms bar by moving my mouse to the right side of the screen, instead i have to hit win+c
 
Coreda

Coreda

Member
Jzero said:
Looks fine to me. I tried the MacType font thing but I didn't like how it looked. Maybe I should try it again.
Click to expand...

MacType is a great tool, and for me an improvement on the Windows 8 defaults (and Windows' rigid pixel hinting in general). That said it took me a few hours to customize it to something usable, coming from OSX, as the included presets just don't cut it imo. In XP I didn't use ClearType.

mactypescreenshotexamaiikq.png
 
W

Why would you do that?

Member
You know. not that I believe that's the reason why Microsoft calls the OS Windows 10, but the Opera web browser actually had to deal with the problem of programmers comparing version numbers poorly.

When Opera first went to version 10, the alpha version had "Opera 10.00" in the user agent string, but some web sites thought it was Opera 1. As a result, the user agent string in Opera 10 on a Mac is:

Opera/9.80 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X; U; en) Presto/2.2.15 Version/10.00
 
D

Dead Prince

Banned
k. got Windows 10 installed. charm bar doesn't pop up on my laptop?

also. i should try to use the start menu but man, it's so cluttered. let me work on fixing that. if i don't like i'm just going back to the start screen.


but i do like the new animation when you open a window though.

in the process of installing programs i used to see if any issues pop up. gonna try steam tomorrow though.
 
A

Ape

Banned
DMPrince said:
k. got Windows 10 installed. charm bar doesn't pop up on my laptop?

also. i should try to use the start menu but man, it's so cluttered. let me work on fixing that. if i don't like i'm just going back to the start screen.


but i do like the new animation when you open a window though.
Click to expand...

That might have pushed me over the edge.
 
B

BrokenEchelon

Banned
Coreda said:
MacType is a great tool, and for me an improvement on the Windows 8 defaults (and Windows' rigid pixel hinting in general). That said it took me a few hours to customize it to something usable, coming from OSX, as the included presets just don't cut it imo. In XP I didn't use ClearType.

mactypescreenshotexamaiikq.png
Click to expand...

I can see that whoever is in charge of designing the font for the window titlebars is still a complete imbecile.

Outerglow in 2014. Fucking disgusting.
 
B

Barkley's Justice

Member
Why would you do that? said:
You know. not that I believe that's the reason why Microsoft calls the OS Windows 10, but the Opera web browser actually had to deal with the problem of programmers comparing version numbers poorly.

When Opera first went to version 10, the alpha version had "Opera 10.00" in the user agent string, but some web sites thought it was Opera 1. As a result, the user agent string in Opera 10 on a Mac is:

Opera/9.80 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X; U; en) Presto/2.2.15 Version/10.00
Click to expand...

It's called Windows 10 because Apple has 10.10. Double the 10's. 10.10 is 1010 in binary. That's more than just "10" in binary. Microsoft can't have 9 cause 9 is less than 10. That's why Microsoft had to have 360 Xboxes when Playstation 3 was announced. Because 2 Xboxes would have been less than 3 Playstations. So Microsoft just went for it and got 360 Xboxes cause that's more than just 3.
 
Coreda

Coreda

Member
BrokenEchelon said:
I can see that whoever is in charge of designing the font for the window titlebars is still a complete imbecile.

Outerglow in 2014. Fucking disgusting.
Click to expand...

The Segoe UI typeface or the text glow? If the latter it's enabled as I use transparent windows and W8 removed the option to change titlebar color, thus without the glow there is no contrast on some backgrounds. Works well with the Aero blur. Windows 8 needs more customization options however, drove me mad originally.

DMPrince said:
uoQLNUv.png


i should restart after updating the graphics driver but.
Click to expand...

Looks like OSX's liberal active window drop shadow.
 
SerTapTap

SerTapTap

Member
Loving the preview so far. A couple oddities, but the desktop stuff is everything Windows 8 should have been and more. Metro as windows works great. I hate full screen and I'm finally happy. Also UAC no longer flashes the screen black, so I can stand to leave it on.

megarockexe said:
Is the Screen Saver menu still that gutted legacy properties box with the disgusting Windows XP CRT "preview"?
Click to expand...
There is no sane reason to use a screensaver anymore. Just set it to turn off the screen as is the default and has been for nearly a decade.

BrokenEchelon said:
I can see that whoever is in charge of designing the font for the window titlebars is still a complete imbecile.

Outerglow in 2014. Fucking disgusting.
Click to expand...

I don't get outerglow here. Everything is very clean and nice.
 
I

Iced_Eagle

Member
DarkFlow said:
Now that you mention it, the charm bar doesn't work on my machine either. Do I have to turn it on or something?
Click to expand...

With mousekeyboard? It isn't there anymore (though maybe Win+C could work?). They said in the keynote that it will be touch only, and even then, they said those will change by release.
 
D

DrEvil

not a medical professional
Just installed. The only snag I ran into was "Next you'll set up your account" hung forever.

This is because I had an offline account on Windows 8.1. Easiest fix is hit cancel, pull out Ethernet plug, then hit next. It'll go through then.
 
D

DarkFlow

Banned
Iced_Eagle said:
With mousekeyboard? It isn't there anymore (though maybe Win+C could work?). They said in the keynote that it will be touch only, and even then, they said those will change by release.
Click to expand...

Win+c works, but pushing to the edge of the screen does nothing. I liked that, I also like the start screen over this menu crap.

I have found one annoying thing, but it's likely more google's fault. My hangouts tabs make a odd box when they hide themselves, they didn't do that on 8.1.

Closed.
rHeb.png
Click to expand...
Open
sHeb.png
Click to expand...
 
X

Xplatformer

Member
BocoDragon said:
I am basing this entirely on their design paradigms and what they've shown in the video. I haven't gone through some of the technical details yet, but I am thinking purely in terms of UI and design: They grafted the Metro onto the Desktop with 8, now they're renegotiating the relationship between Modern/Classic elements.... at this point they should be rethinking how desktop and modern elments look and work entirely, and design something that feels unified. It really just looks like another Frankenstein design grafted on top of 7.

If they have done work under the hood, that's appreciated, but everything on the surface looks half baked. More compromises between the legacies of 7 and 8... no original design thinking that unifies the two or does its own thing.

I think they've dug themself into a hole with Win 8 - now the market is forcing them back to Win 7 paradigms - so it's a design based on compromise after compromise between the two. This isn't a confidant new vision - it's an iterative retreat.
Click to expand...


You typed what I was thinking.
 
NJDEN

NJDEN

Member
Someone in the Windows Insider Program should tell Microsoft to make the Bluetooth icon stylized like the other system icons... instead of the ugly blue oval thing it currently is. It just doesn't match with the other clean white theme MS has going.
rJIILtj.png

I know its not really a system icon, but if its going to be in my system bar then it should blend! Besides, what computers are shipping now adays without Bluetooth hardware.

Also maybe make the wireless / WI-FI icon look like it does in every other piece of software rather than a weird bar graph...
 
F

FLAguy954

Junior Member
DarkFlow said:
Win+c works, but pushing to the edge of the screen does nothing. I liked that, I also like the start screen over this menu crap.

I have found one annoying thing, but it's likely more google's fault. My hangouts tabs make a odd box when they hide themselves, they didn't do that on 8.1.

Closed.

Open
Click to expand...

Right click the start button, then go over a couple of tabs until you see the option to disable the start menu. It will then prompt you to sign out then back in to see the effects.

I can't stand the start menu either but at least Windows 7 users can stop fucking complaining ;)
 
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