Microsoft is now hard at work on the next feature update for Windows 10, codenamed 19H1 and scheduled for release this April. This update is expected to include yet more changes, new features, and further UI refinements and improvements. Development of this release is almost at the halfway mark, meaning it shouldn’t be long now before 19H1 is marked as “feature complete” internally and a focus on fixing bugs before release begins.
This new release is still a few weeks off, but this article is a detailed overview of what’s coming. I personally see a lot of good things in here, but Microsoft’s recent release history when it comes to Windows updates hasn’t exactly been stellar, so the company certainly has something to prove here.
They only thing that would make me happier than seeing all these “we brought back this feature from the mid nineties” is the complete reversal of all the terrible changes brought in with Windows 8.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5OGOwzGbnFw
When I read such release notes, I’m like “Meh’…”, starting by :
A new light theme is available
Shadows are now present under several UI elements
The login screen now features Acrylic blur effects
The Emoji Panel is now drag-able
…
Like anybody cares about these esthetics modifications ? Anyway, day after day, I’m more and more proud to have decided to stay under Windows 7.
I agree that this release seems extremely light on actual features and almost everything is “fit and finish”. “Fit and finish” should require a major release but should just be included with the monthly patches that install in minutes instead of taking half an hour. The only thing I found in there that really seemed like a bigger feature was “Windows Sandbox let’s Pro and Enterprise users run a virtual instance of Windows 10 on top of your active install to test apps.” That is a genuinely interesting feature, basically changing the way I will approach testing software (both my own and unknown software)
Being proud that you stayed under Windows 7 seems silly to me. You indicate that you don’t care about esthetics while basically the only thing that Windows 7 might do better than 10 is esthetics (and I personally like Windows 10 much better for that). Windows 10 has hyper-v, a much better shell and commandline-tools, it has WSL, a far more useful task manager, Winkey+X, and so many more genuinely useful features that Windows 7 lacks that I would never want to go back to Windows 7
Using Total Commander for all my “basic” usage. No needs for anything else (shell and cli). And as task manager, using ProcExp from SysInternals since my XP days. Do you really believe I waited for Windows to stay up to date with advanced features ?
Everyone has their own usecases they care about, but come on, shell improvements themselves are reason alone for any tech working in windows. How can you live with out modern copy paste? Tar built int to powershell? wsl? Docker? Now ssh!
Windows 7 is the new Windows XP – an outdated, clearly inferior operating system people hang on to because to many people, any form of change is always bad, and they’d rather use EOL software that’s not going to receive security updates and patches for much longer, thereby exposing themselves and others to risks, than upgrading to Windows 10, which, for all intents and purposes, works pretty much the same way but has actually modern applications and code, and whose user-facing components aren’t 18 years old, but are actually new, being newly and actively developed with new standards and security practices in mind.
It’s more than reasonable to not immediately jump ship with every new release – especially on workstation-type machines – but at this point in time, hanging on to Windows 7 is bordering on the irresponsible, and the longer these people wait, the harder they’re going to make it for themselves.
Until Microsoft proves me that Windows 10 is ultimately superior in every point to Windows 7, there’s absolutely no reason to switch. I use Windows 10 at work and I’m not 1000x more proficient than I was using Windows 7 before, either at office or at home. In fact, since Windows 2000, Windows haven’t “empowered” me very much more.
Currently Windows 10 is a MAJOR step backward to me. Not only the UI is a mess (have to use Winaero Tweaker to get respectable border width and some things that used to work well before), adds new telemetry I don’t care, and the security updates could have been provided to Windows 7 just as seamlessly as they are supposed to be with Windows 10.
Windows 10 is a NON answer to a NON problem. You probably had your hate of Windows XP, but to me it was really a good OS, especially after SP2, even more after SP3 (still using my old Via C7 under XP). Claiming people should switch to Windows 10 just for security reasons is an ABSOLUTE non-sense to this regard.
Have Windows 10 prevented from Meltdown/Spectre ? No. Have XP and 7 received patches to mitigate the problems ? Hell yes, so security is still possible on these “aging” operating systems. Do Microsoft stop updates to older CPU models ? Yes, even tough those models don’t pose any security threat.
Unless Microsoft pays me a new shiny computer every two years and performs the data migration for me (what Apple consumers do at their expense), I just won’t. Sure developers have to get paid for their job, but if they made flaws, I’m not going to pay more, as I don’t need more features from the OS I bought initially.
Just like replacing an “aging” car because there are new shiny and more secure models out there. Car manufacturers offers at least 20 years parts support without having to change your car. Why car manufacturers can but software companies cannot ? It’s not like duplicating a piece of software costs that much.
So I’d like to close the debate once for all : there is no feature benefit (so to speak) to “upgrade” every time Microsoft comes with a new OS version / update, especially when those are advertised as “security necessity”. That’s a strawman I don’t get fooled by. If security is the issue, show professionalism and provide patches.
It’s not my problem if Microsoft decided to shove into users’ throat big blobs of updates, stuffing it with useless sense of indelicacy, with things I don’t even looked for in the for place (esthetics shit, like they have good taste), I want an effective operating system, not a toy for my tablet to browse Facebook.
Thom, I agree with you on the technological side of Win 10.
But the userinterface is a catastrophy.
We are now in the 4th year of 10s lifetime and are still falling back to XP-dialogs on a regular basis.
Flat design is a failure.
And don’t get me started on the quadro driver microsoft distributes through windows update…
Seriously: Did anybody test that shit?
Thom Holwerda,
I agree with Kochise here. Alot of what changed was merely for changes sake rather than progress. Many changes that are progress are driver updates that microsoft is withholding from windows 7 for marketing reasons rather than than genuine incompatibilities (ie USB3, Kaby Lake, etc). The1stImmortal recently posted that windows 8/10 have never seen strong consumer or enterprise demand: the main reason windows 10 just finally overtook windows 7 is because microsoft hasn’t allowed new licenses to be sold for a number of years, but I bet you if windows 7 were still being sold & supported it would still be in demand at point of purchase.
You’re not wrong that microsoft dropping support is bad for windows 7 users, but at the same time it’s equally irresponsible to always give into corporations and buy their products and support services that don’t align with our values simply because they want to tell us what’s best for us, that just encourages more of the bad behavior and more lock in. Microsoft introduced invasive anti-features in windows 8 that they did not completely eliminate with windows 10.
Importantly, I don’t accept a corporation’s authority to override my rights as an owner to install updates on my computer without my consent. The fact is windows update IS a backdoor that grants remote access to our computers, while some people make excuses for it because microsoft are “the good guys”, the mere existence of this mechanism that can’t be overridden is extremely problematic from a security perspective. As we speak, there’s a major push for cyber weapons by governments across the world and having these backdoors that owners cannot control makes us much more vulnerable to mass exploitation in the future.
I know that from past discussions, you are triggered by people who don’t embrace the latest and greatest, but I’d like for you to appreciate that some people’s needs (and values) differ from your own. And I also like for you to reflect on the long term effects of giving into corporate control and ponder how it might enable a more Orwellian future for future generations. I’m not saying there’s an easy answer, but if you never put your foot down because they make it inconvenient to do so, then you’re implicitly following a path that leads to increasing consolidation of control over our digital lives. So I ask you directly, to what end will you continue to tow the “you must upgrade at all costs” mantra?
(replying to this message because there is no reply-link at the lower replies. I am actually replying to Kochise obviously)
Perfectly reasonable argument right there. This really motivated me to read the rest of your post /s
…and not only does something need to be superior in every point, it needs to be 1000x better. Perfectly reasonable argument again /s
Yet you upgraded to XP and 7 anyway. With so many great arguments you are sure to convince everyone /s
Ah, the first actually valid argument. An OS is a major step backwards because you don’t like the border width
…but you do care. You care so much that you complain about it in an OS that you don’t use without realising that telemetry has also been added to Windows 7 (source: https://mspoweruser.com/microsoft-makes-telemetry-updates-for-windows-7-and-8-1-critical-updates/). Telemetry is actually useful for most people and can be disabled for people that don’t want it.
…and now you say that Windows 10 is a major step backward because it actually does get something that Windows 7 COULD have gotten. Normally this is where I would walk away from a discussion but somehow I feel like continuing
It might actually be for you. You seem to be happy with 7. For me and my parents it is quite beneficial to have the newer kernel and boot mechanisms that make 10 so much quicker to start/pause/resume. We also enjoy the much better touch support, easier installation/removal of the occasional app from the store and many other features that you are either not aware of or found replacements for that work well enough for you. You complain about border-width in 10, I complain about non-resizable width of command-windows in 7.
Do you notice your use of the word WAS when you are talking about XP? 7 WAS a really good OS as well and just like XP on your old Via C7 it is still very usable.
I actually agree with you here. 7 is just fine for security reasons (XP isn’t)
Uhm, hell no for XP! (source: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4073757/protect-your-windows-devices-against-spectre-meltdown. “Although Windows XP-based systems are affected products, Microsoft is not issuing an update for them because the comprehensive architectural changes that would be required would jeopardize system stability and cause application compatibility problems. We recommend that security-conscious customers upgrade to a newer supported operating system to keep pace with the changing security threat landscape and benefit from the more robust protections that newer operating systems provide.”)
Sure, you need a new shiny computer every two years. Because Windows 10 19H1 won’t work on a computer older than 2 years because those 1 Ghz computers with a whopping 1 GB of RAM only just became available /s (source: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/windows-10-specifications#primaryR2
Completely reasonable argument. That is why 7, and every feature upgrade of 10, is still receiving patches to fix such flaws for free
Car analogies are always fun aren’t they. You don’t expect those 20 year part support for free right? And when you compare the car-hardware from 20 years ago with now the differences are just as immense as when you compare pc’s from 20 years to pc’s from now right? They are hundreds of times faster/bigger/more-powerful for example right? Or were pc’s perhaps barely connected to dial-up back then and all driving on different roads now (the always on internet)
The one setting up a strawman here is you. The debate isn’t if you need to upgrade every time. It is about Windows 10 being vastly superior in almost every way to Windows 7 including security. For example Windows 10 included fundamental changes that allowed Hyper-V to be included. Maybe you didn’t need to run full virtuals so this seemed like useless bloat to you. However in 19H1 this sandbox-feature is added based on Hyper-V meaning I can run a program in a vastly more secure environment than was possible in 7. This goes far beyond the level of “patches” that 7 and 10 both receive anyway. Some features require kernel-changes and Windows 10 has had many that make it more secure than 7
You mean like SP2 for XP that transformed XP from the “ILOVEYOU, Anna Kournikova, Slammer and Blaster” era into the “Secure-by-Default”-era?
I get it. They don’t have good taste…that is why 7 is fine but 10 isn’t. Got ya /s
Windows 10 is a far more effective operating system than 7. From having multiple desktops, the Windows Subsystem for Linux, Hyper-V, TimeLine, speed, security, an app store, commandline improvements, a better browser (ducks), better multi-monitor and high-dpi support, keyboard shortcuts, the list goes on and on. Reducing 10 to “I don’t need apps, don’t use touch and don’t like the modern UI” while not acknowledging all the advancements in 10 compare to 7 means you really are selling 10 short.
On the positive side, I am very happy for you that 7 is suiting all your needs so nicely while I am longing for Microsoft to finally deliver features like Sets to 10.
@avgalen : what have prevented Microsoft to provide high-dpi support to Windows 7 like making “the login screen now features Acrylic blur effects” or “the Emoji Panel is now drag-able” ? Does it really, REALLY, require a whole new operating system, and add some coating here and there to make things acceptable ? I remember XP having theme support, being then removed. Now to get “new light theme is available” instead ?
I not upgraded to Windows 7, it was installed on my Dell Vostro. I installed XP on the computers I built, having bought legit licenses for that, because it worth the price, not necessarily the upgrade. As you state, my 1GiB Via C7 won’t be quite please with Windows 10 (not even 7) when it shines under XP. There is not always a reason to “upgrade” when in fact it degrades the performances and the experience.
Windows XP’s UI was close to perfection, despite people finding it old school. Windows 95/98/2000 UI can be considered old school, but here again, the efficiency of the UI is close to perfection, you quickly identify what is a menu, what is a button, its clicked/selected state, the scroll bar, etc. Not anymore with flat-line Windows 8/10.
And about patches/fixes, it’s again in the hands of Microsoft to do so, until they decide to withdraw the support of one or another OS. I’m fed up with those fabricated incompatibilities, driver support of perfectly working devices being abandoned because you know, the next OS is better and the new printer prints better.
Yeah, that’s why I don’t upgrade, I’m tired to have people going the “end-of-the-world-is-near” route if I don’t do so, and because new features that lacks Windows XP/7 can be added using third parties’ software (paying or free). I can assure you, Windows 7 was/is really good (enough) and they could have improved it instead to do Windows 8. But their plans aren’t necessary mine.
You are true in one thing thou, the next PC will have a full supported Windows 7 or it won’t be a Windows. And as the next PC will be Ryzen driven, you might get where it’s leading.
There is this odd phenomenon of humble bragging in the tech world.
I think there is a point where people identify technology with the state it was in at some point in their lives. And anything that deviates from that state is seeing as threatening or too disruptive to adopt.
This tends to happen on other fields. Music, movies, or anything in general are very typical, old farts telling younger generations how XYZ from their day is the real thing, and the new thing is obviously worse and degenerative.
It’s as old as humanity really. But I’m fascinated observing it in the tech field. Especially IT which is defined by exponential growth/advancement.
@Kochise
> Windows XP’s UI was close to perfection, despite people finding it old school.
It was a horrible mess of a pre-school design. No one liked it at first. They hated it, they got used to it after time, and then it was you can remove it from my dead body type nonsence.
At least:
> Windows 95/98/2000
Did not mention ME. the sane people went from 98SE to 2000. No reason for ME.
I stuck with 2000 until I was forced to use XP (so you see I can act like that too!). I then needed a 64 bit OS becuuse it was time (it really was). I tried XP 64 bit it was the red headed step-child. I was forced back to XP to simply be able to run things I wanted. I jumped to Vista ASAP, just for a 64 bit os that worked. Truth be told it is probably the only windows OS I paid for (the others are legit BTW, just not paid for). I specifically got the download version. Which was a pain to get working. The installer only ran on 64 bit windows you see! No upgrade path! Thankfully it was pretty much a disk image in some odd format you could extract and burn and boot from. Now vists had some oddities (not issues!). Sp1 recified all of them, anyhow they were not bad, just different. Windows 7 is pretty much Vista SP1.00000000001. So if you say you like 7 you are sayinfg you like Vista SP1. Any disbelief in this is just the public being stupid. 7 only occured because vista got a bad name. It would have been Vista SP2 or and update to SP1 otherwise.
Windows 8. OK stupid changes that every OS did for some idiotic unification cult. Sorry differnet things are different! Treat them as so. Still software fixed that. I waited till SP1 myself (called 8.1 as they gave up on the SP naming!), as I had no reason to switch. At 8.1 no-one had an excuse not to upgrade as it was a better OS.
Which bringgs us to Win 10. Again pretty much because public perception to Win 8 was akin to Vista. So new OS ( honest 😉 ) time! I upgraded to 10 at the start and am happy in the changes to be honest.
RE:
> Until Microsoft proves me that Windows 10 is ultimately superior in every point to Windows 7, there’s absolutely no reason to switch.
If you belived that you would still be on Win 3.11. Some things are improved other things not so much. Excpecting everything to be improved is folly. I know you mean “everything I care about” but the same applies.
RE:
> Windows 10 is a NON answer to a NON problem
Windows 10 is just an update to the NT line of OS’s. No QUESTION, no answer.
Does 10 have some annoying additions? Yes. It get’s in a horrible cycle of doom if you are one of those type who constantly turns machines off. The updates get in a fail loop, fill up the drive and eventually take 100% of drive time up and you cannot do anything (much). I have seen this on 3 machines. Itr can also happen on machines that are on all the time, though less so, I have seen it on 1. However as someone with at least half a clue. I do not see a fresh install now and then as a bad thing! Can it be rectified without? Yes. Is the extra time worth it? No, a re-install removes crap you no longer care about! The time where you knew what every file in your OS did and what you whould do with it is long gone!
RE:
> Have Windows 10 prevented from Meltdown/Spectre ? No.
Why would an OS know about harware bugs that no-one made public? I don’t even understand what you are getting at here.
RE:
> Unless Microsoft pays me a new shiny computer every two years and performs the data migration
Data migration. Install from your backups. You have backups right?
RE:
> (what Apple consumers do at their expense)
Apple also provides highly inflated hardware costs so they can do this. You want my view on apple (and I have used a lot over the years!)? Pre 10.2 SUCKED. Really Amiga OS 3 was better. (well not the 10.0/10.1 but they were bad in other ways). Post 10.6? (maybe even 10.6) ASS ASS ASS. Now the old hardware was however up to scratch. However since the core2 intel era they are no better than an £300 intel machine! Prettier? Yes. more reliable? No way. (As per my and lot’s of people’s experience). And since Jobs carked it? (and maybe a few before). just chading the money and the money is not in “computers”. It’s not in phones and pads now so who knows whee they will end up. Good luck to them. they need some new blood though.
Additional:
I too use total commander. At times I need to do things and coming from the amiga it just seems easier than command prompts.
Yes the amiga had em,. yes 10 has very good ones. I also use them if I need to. However a nice program is often easier. (I never used workbench or dopus on amiga, I used Diskmaster 2! Though it’s config it was very extensible!)
After thoughts:
Hey if you are happy with what you are doing go with it! Unlike you I use 10 at home (or debian/android/even amazon android/various!) and 7 at work! (you confuse me with your company that is up to date, it must be small!). I am just thankful computers got to where I saw the pontential for them to be back in the day!
javiercero1,
It’s not clear to me who you are actually responding to given the new format, but I don’t think people are “bragging” so much as expressing their individual differences.
You can call us old farts, but I think objectively my generation has experienced and embraced more changes in desktop computing than any other. Consider that we partook and embraced widescale adoption of WIMP interfaces, email, the whole internet, ecommerce, instant messing, video calling & streaming, multiplayer 3d gaming, desktop publishing, etc. While all of these things have improved drastically since their inception, the progress has mostly been incremental improvements. For desktop I don’t think anybody can fairly say that we don’t embrace change, we absolutely did and in doing so we changed the world! However we do expect change to bring meaningful benefits rather than having superficial changes shoveled our plates for no benefit other than pushing new sales numbers.
This generation owns mobile, I give them that hands down. That’s were most new innovation has been happening but at the end of the day the mobile market is also going to mature and even this generation will find that the changes being sold to them are less and less impressive. It’s not that they don’t embrace change, but the fact that it becomes less and less substantive over time. I think this is already happening and we can see this with companies pushing planned obsolescence (dropping support for the old, rather than creating strong demand for the new).
Looking to the future (and getting a bit off topic) the next revolution on the horizon with meaningful change is looking more and more like it will come from autonomous robots. I think there’s a huge potential to greatly improve the human condition, however I have reservations about who owns and controls those robots. As explained above, I’m not against change, but I’d like to see the economic benefits to benefit all of mankind rather than just a few at the top.
OK, OSNews still has some kirks.
It is a reply to Alfman 2019-01-09 2:47 pm EST
Alfman it would be nice if we could pin this specific comment of yours. Nicely constructed.
I will, partially, side with Kochise in the argument that Windows 7 use is perfectly valid, it is still receiving security updates but, unluckily, it will not persist for long. To me it looks way better than Windows 10 and Windows 8.1, which I also use and recognize as fine systems too.
The main change, from a user’s perspective, Windows XP to Windows Vista/7 was the UAC overhaul. Otherwise, Windows 7 was pretty much the same as XP. Sure, the UI was different, but turn off themes and you have essentially the same interface you’ve had since Windows 95 hiding underneath. There were incremental improvements and structural tweaks, and some refactoring relevant to driver authors etc, but it was essentially the same OS. If Windows 10 had continued that tradition, very few people would be complaining.
Instead, what happened was Microsoft decided was that they needed to replace the runtime, shell etc with an incomplete, inconsistent substitute (UWT based stuff) for no terribly good reason (WinRT and WinPhone were a failure after all), and they decided to remove choice from the user. You can no longer turn stuff off that you don’t like. You have only recently got a lot of customization options back and they’re still not at parity. You lose the choice of older plugins and tools. You lose the choice to update or not (and yes, that needs to be a choice of the user – particularly when system-breaking and major UI changes are pushed out with little warning). You lose the choice to make many settings stick – there are many settings which will, by design, change themselves back if they’re not at Microsoft’s recommended settings.
There is no reason that Windows 8 or 10 could not have continued building on and improving the Windows XP and 7 base. They could have done the necessary security improvements, they could have added and refined Hyper-V, and WSL, and all the other features people like about Windows 10. They could have even added UWP as a parallel subsystem without forcing it into every corner of the OS. But they didn’t.
The only things people have to sway companies like Microsoft are their dollars, their contribution to market share, and their ability to whinge. And that’s why people are holding onto Windows 7 and held onto XP. That’s why people are complaining when the topic comes up. Because it’s the only way to change their mind. And it partially, sometimes, works.
(most people can’t write code, most people don’t have a realistic choice of OS vendor etc)
So for those who think not upgrading is irresponsible or petty – get off your high horses and accept that there are real problems people have and they’re using the only tools they have to make a difference.
Couldn’t agree more. The crux here is that users who refuse to upgrade are, as you say, exposing themselves *and others* to risk. It is reckless and anti-social.
One should for a long time test apps at least in some 3rd party virtual machine, anyway. 😛
Meh?
Don’t forget ‘Well Whoopppeeeee Do’
and
“WTF are they thinking?”
IMHO, MS are deep in headless chicken mode and trying all sorts of things out until the inevitable happens and Subsctiptions arrive and then anything worth having will need shelling out mulah for.
Most of the things on this list seem cosmetic but, Most of these sorts of lists are only the UberGeek tends to pay attention to the cool back end stuff.
“Fix scaling for legacy apps” is now on by default.
I see the war on Desktop apps (aka the useful apps of Windows) continues. I guess this new “fix” is another nonsense attempt to force resolution independence on applications not designed to scale beyond the traditional 120% text scaling of Windows. Why? Can’t we just get crisp text and icons on our Desktop apps without having to dive into settings?
And if you do want to scale an old application, always do it in integer multiples and always with billinear or line-doubling. Never scale text or icon bitmaps as if they were a photo of your latte Mr Joe Belfiore!
But the true is that today almost no one cares about new Windows releases.
Windows (and tô a certain extent Microsoft) became irrelevant. something unbelievable a couple decadades ago…
I don’t think the world “irrelevant” means what you want it to mean, since you’re referring to basically the largest software company, and one of the most profitable corporations, in the world.
Microsoft still dominates the desktop by a large margin, they have still a very large presence in corporate infrastructure, and they have been very successful in their transition to cloud/services.
By pure inertia.
They will not disapeer anytime soon, but we can’t point to any tendency started by then in this decade.
They are not leading anymore. Now they follow.
So, according to you, since Microsoft and Windows will likely become irrelevant in 10-20 years, it means they are also irrelevant today?.. Nice logic.
Perhaps the problem is that you’re using the royal “we?” Just because you can’t point, it does not mean that it is so.
They’re extremely profitable and leading when it comes to services and infrastructure. For example.
We care much less about new OS releases because OS’es have become extremely good and capable. In the past we needed a new OS to give us plug-and-play, 32-bit (later 64-bit) support, non-constant-crashing (stability), security, power-management, lots of hardware support, etc.
Nowadays a new OS is about new nice-2-have software features that could also have been added to the existing OS with third party tools. And everybody only “cares” about a few of these nice-to-have features and which ones they care about is different for everyone. People are pretty happy with their current hardware and software and hardly notice any new features unless they directly solve a pet-peeve for them. Of course most software is now on a rolling release which makes updates far less intrusive. Instead of a big release every 3 years (or 6 if you skip a version) you get multiple releases in 1 year, resulting in all changes feeling minor.
And of course hardware doesn’t change much anymore either. In the past you would upgrade hardware every 3 years because you would get an enormous boost in performance and capabilities (+300%). Nowadays that timeframe would give you a 20% performance boost and an extra hour of battery life
Windows/Microsoft haven’t become irrelevant, but hardware and software has become a commodity.
This has been a thing for basically the majority of this century; IT became another commoditized field. It’s just another tool/appliance for the vast majority of its users, i.e. most consumers of Windows or Mac. Thing is, that lot of the old geeks do not realize they are no longer the intended audience, which is why reading comments in sites like these is always such a hoot.
It’s also fascinating how the “new” OS/tech becomes “the golden standard” once it is obsolete, sometimes by the same individuals who complained about it in the beginning.
It’s a bizarre phenomenon, I don’t think I haven’t seen it as prevalently(sic) as in the tech field.
I’ve noticed that too, including in myself. But at least for me, I think it keeps boiling down to “software designed for hardware that doesn’t exist yet”, so that on release day a product is pretty bad but the experience with it really does get better over time. Eventually the hardware is so far ahead of the software that it feels lightweight, clean and elegant. Often though by the time it gets to that point the software is no longer in widespread use, and we incorrectly assume that it was lightweight and elegant when we were truly using it.
For me, this is what happened with Windows, OS/2, NT, Mac OS X, Mozilla/Firefox, and plenty of recent releases.
In some cases software authors predict changes in the ecosystem that don’t apply to me yet, and only become important much later. For example, I didn’t have an always-on internet connection when Windows 2000 was released, so Windows Update seemed pointless. A few years later, it became a killer feature, since keeping 2000 up to date was so much easier than NT 4. Or in a lower level case, I remember mocking NT for private memory address spaces per process which in 1993 imposed a huge performance cost over Windows 3.x, but I’d hate to run a system today where all processes shared an address space because software bugs would manifest in undebuggable ways and we’d just have a lot more of them.
I think the real take out for me is to recognize this effect exists, be a little open minded that what appears bad today might appear better tomorrow, and that the past is not as nice as we often like to remember it.
Hmm, I look forward to light mode but otherwise meh. It kinda pisses me off that they are now pushing “Microsoft Rewards” in the Settings app – wtf is it doing there? They ought to finish migrating all the Control Panel functionality before they add this kind of marketing junk… Also it feels like it’s getting harder and harder to use Windows 10 without tying any and all settings to my Microsoft account. For some this may be perceived as a benefit but I would appreciate the ability to turn off all personalization syncing features completely if so desired, so each device does its own thing, like it works for most other OSes. Finally, I am annoyed that despite the fact that ever more built-in MS apps can be uninstalled, the crapware “Candy Crush Saga” etc will I assume still be near impossible to get rid of.
Just compare it with the competition.
https://dot.kde.org/2018/12/13/kde-applications-1812-are-waiting-for-you
Time and time again, if you just mention that you don’t like latest Windows, there just HAVE to be at least few commentators with same old song of “You just don’t like change / you’re old”.
No, I do like change, and I like it a lot. I always anticipate every major OS update. What I don’t like is broken shit. And Windows 10 is broken shit, as well as Windows 8 was broken shit. Windows Vista was broken shit, but only in the beginning — after SP2 it became quite a nice OS. Windows 7, surprisingly, was pretty good OS from the very start. Windows XP, on the other hand, was not too bad from the start, and only became better with SP1/2/3. Windows 98 was broken shit from the beginning and it stayed broken shit forever, no amount of updates helped (same as whole 9x family).
It’s even more ridiculous how they’re trying to shame you by saying “you’re exposing yourself and others to risk”, as if you were contagious just for using older OS. It just makes me laugh out loud to what extent some fanboys can go and psychological intimidation strategies they adopt to coerce/force others to use their “darling” product… They will sentence and punish you 3 times before you can even say a word in defense.
There are some more details on upcoming changes (not sure if it’s the same exact build number but features most of the same changes) here:
https://insider.windows.com/en-us/previews-highlights/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=201901-NL42&utm_content=WIP_Body_InsiderPreviewFeatureHighlights
Of note is the sandboxing via hyper v tech and also the fact that the legacy app resolution fix is explicitly designed to avoid blurriness.