Is there anything Windows 10 does better?

[Anibal P]

[neo1911]

Windows 10 is shaping up to be terrible. Especially the UI. I don't understand why is Microsoft hell bent on using tried and failed Modern interface.

This is coming from me who liked Vista. I had installed it the day it RTMed and it ran decently on my PC.

[Defcon]

The problem is MS have decided to spend 99% of their effort on start menu, icons etc which are trivial things compared to all the rest of stuff in an OS. There are many huge issues they couldve worked on. It feels like one component is being upgraded only.

[Ian W]

The problem is MS have decided to spend 99% of their effort on start menu, icons etc which are trivial things compared to all the rest of stuff in an OS. There are many huge issues they couldve worked on. It feels like one component is being upgraded only.

I agree that the icons are trivial, the Start menu however, is less so.

Your assertion that Microsoft has "decided to spend 99% of their effort" on those features has no basis in reality. One only needs to look at the documentation from Build 2015 to determine that this is not the case.

[DeusProto]

For a mobile user? A lot since they're the ones being catered to nowadays with OSes, website design, and everything else... desktop users who use mice are an afterthought now. 

 

For a desktop user? MAYBE DirectX 12, but only if a large portion of games start using the DirectX 12 API, which is not likely besides first party titles because I doubt Windows 7's market share is going to shrink significantly anytime soon thus DirectX 11 will remain the foremost used DX. 

 

Other than that, nothing really benefits the desktop user with a mouse and keyboard. Especially if they are a power user who likes extensive context menus, customizing options including things as basic as changing the color of the titlebar and being able to fine tune the sizes of window UI elements instead of being forced to have much larger UI elements that benefit mobile users while wasting screen real estate for desktop mouse users see the below image, you won't have even 1% of the customability of this control panel applet. In Windows 10 you're gonna be stuck with white and sometimes gray titlebars, and you will only be able to choose from a set of 20 or so colors for "accent" and even when choosing a solid color background for your desktop you are locked down to a predefined set of 20 or so colors. RGB 255,255,255 is NOT one of those predefined colors too, in case you're wondering. 

 

Compare that to Windows 7.. where you can fine tune every UI element. The font it uses, the font size, the spacing, the background color, the foreground/text color, whether the text is bolded and/or italicized. Choose ANY color within the 24-bit RGB spectrum to your liking, and not from a predetermined set of 20+ that lacks black. 

 

[Ian W]

Other than that, nothing really benefits the desktop user with a mouse and keyboard. Especially if they are a power user who likes extensive context menus, customizing options including things as basic as changing the color of the titlebar and being able to fine tune the sizes of window UI elements instead of being forced to have much larger UI elements that benefit mobile users while wasting screen real estate for desktop mouse users see the below image, you won't have even 1% of the customability of this control panel applet:

One can already resize many, if not all of, the applications to a size so small as to be worthless, just like you wanted.

[DeusProto]

One can already resize many, if not all of, the applications to a size so small as to be worthless, just like you wanted.

The minimize, maximize, and close buttons are still much wider and taller than they were on Windows 7 - which I might add could be made smaller yet (or larger) to a user's desire.

 

In Windows 10 you are stuck with one size for those buttons with no options at all to shrink or enlarge them except by changing the DPI setting which causes all objects to be enlarged rather than changing just the titlebar height, the button width, etc.

 

And, of course, we are at the mercy of Microsoft as to what titlebar color is. One build its gray, another its white. Wonder what color they'll force us all to have next? 

 

Maybe if we're really lucky, they'll gift us 10 additional predefined colors to choose from for the desktop background "solid color" setting and accent setting. 

[Ian W]

In Windows 10 you are stuck with one size with no options at all to shrink or enlarge them except by changing the DPI setting which causes all objects to be enlarged. 

All I can say is to leave feedback about this instead of just posting about it on some forum.

By the way, in Windows 7, one is stuck with one size for entire applications with no options at all to change their size without changing the DPI, et cetera.

In Windows 7, Calculator cannot be enlarged by itself; Calculator in Windows 10, however, can be resized individually, and even to ridiculously small and large sizes.

[Defcon]

And the thing is, all these customization features were removed for no reason at all and they have ignored all feedback for 3 years now.

[Defcon]

All I can say is to leave feedback about this instead of just posting about it on some forum.

There has been TONS of feedback ever since customization options were removed in the early builds of Win 8, do you really think no one else has issues with this?

I bet the code still exists in control panel even and in the window manager. They even removed the registry settings so power users couldn't modify things, and there was a huge backlash when that happened. The whole thing is a concerted effort to remove all power user options for no rhyme or reason.

[HawkMan]

The minimize, maximize, and close buttons are still much wider and taller than they were on Windows 7 - which I might add could be made smaller yet (or larger) to a user's desire.

 

In Windows 10 you are stuck with one size for those buttons with no options at all to shrink or enlarge them except by changing the DPI setting which causes all objects to be enlarged rather than changing just the titlebar height, the button width, etc.

 

And, of course, we are at the mercy of Microsoft as to what titlebar color is. One build its gray, another its white. Wonder what color they'll force us all to have next? 

 

Maybe if we're really lucky, they'll gift us 10 additional predefined colors to choose from for the desktop background "solid color" setting and accent setting. 

 

 

in final titlebars will be white or black, depending on what you select, for non self themed apps. for those, the developer choses the color(s), which is why changing titlebar colors between the two themes is fairly pointless on windows 10 since eventually most apps won't use your theme color for the titlebar anyway. 

[DeusProto]

in final titlebars will be white or black, depending on what you select, for non self themed apps. for those, the developer choses the color(s), which is why changing titlebar colors between the two themes is fairly pointless on windows 10 since eventually most apps won't use your theme color for the titlebar anyway. 

Sure, the setting wouldn't apply to Metro programs. But I don't intend to use any besides the Settings program and the Netflix one. The rest will all be Win32 programs, which the setting would apply to. I could live without being able to customize the titlebars of Metro programs since I barely use them, mostly out of necessity. Netflix being a necessity because its the only way on PC to play in "Super HD" 5800kbit. Otherwise I'd be happy to use the web browser player. 

 

Other than that, I will remove as many as I can - first using the Uninstall context menu option, and the rest via PowerShell whatever I can remove that doesn't break things. Any that remain besides Netflix and Settings I'll remove/hide the shortcuts to. 

 

In fact I'm considering trying out Windows Server 2015 as a workstation which I assume won't have any Metro programs preinstalled besides the Settings one. I used Server 2003 as a workstation in the XP days since before 64-bit XP it had kernel 5.2 whereas XP 32-bit had 5.1. Going to have to see how things shape up first. 

[Ian W]

And the thing is, all these customization features were removed for no reason at all and they have ignored all feedback for 3 years now.

Perhaps there is not enough feedback (i.e., requests) for these features? Many wanted the return of Aero Glass in Windows 10, and at first it did not seem like the feature would return, but now it seems that it will. At least one request for Aero Glass is very popular.

There has been TONS of feedback ever since customization options were removed in the early builds of Win 8

Prove it. Show me this "TONS of feedback." Saying it's so doesn't make it so.

do you really think no one else has issues with this?

Do you really think that I do not have issues with this? I love having the options for customization.

The only reason I participated in this topic in the first place is because of comments by the uninformed who state that Windows 10 offers nothing major, and also because of the double standard held by commentators who lambast the operating system for being limited in certain areas of customization, when the operating system that they elevate on a pedestal

[siah1214]

.01% of the population likes something but they're guaranteed to whine the loudest when it goes away.  No one cares about deep UI customization. 

[neo1911]

In future, all the displays are going to be 2K 4K 5K etc. So Microsoft is currently redesigning all the menus to scale well with varying sizes.

 

Right now on Retina MBP, Windows 8 needs DPI to be 200%. But that breaks compatibility with several older apps. And Windows itself looks funny at many places. Microsoft's 99% efforts are to fix this problem.

 

But whatever the UI team is doing is not enough as the whole OS looks terrible. Needs so much more polish. Staring from initial setup process.

[MikeChipshop Member]

[Obi-Wan Kenobi]

It smells better than my farts. Mark as solved. /troll thread

[neo1911]

Personal opinions != fact

Who said it was a fact? Personal opinion should be treated only as personal opinion.

[JakeB]

Here are the actual improvements I can think of - slightly better window borders, icons, theme, DX12, virtual desktops

 

There are no performance improvements that I can see, and more importantly MS hasn't said there will be any. Win 7/8 had very clear goals of being faster and using less resources which were met, no such thing for Win 10.

 

In fact in many areas Win 10 is much worse and slower - anything involving Metro is slower, and this now includes the Start menu, Settings many things users interact with that now freeze and don't open.

 

The actual OS underneath is still Win 8.1 and it seems 99% of the effort has gone into playing weekly roulette with Start menu, icons, and other trivial stuff, hoping to find something that sticks. I'm pretty sure any actual OS changes have been pushed to Redstone or further, this is nothing more than a band aid.

 

I'm sure the defenders will now be out with the usual 'its not final, it's just a beta, magical internal Redmond builds are much better' which we've been hearing since the beginning, yet are still to see any actual new features.

Well you are ignoring the biggest changes between Windows 8.1 and Windows 10. The Metro start screen is gone for desktops. The metro apps and WIN32 app all run in Windows on the desktop (That is major). It also has a HTML5 browser with a new engine.  

[Preppy Veteran]

Other than that, nothing really benefits the desktop user with a mouse and keyboard. Especially if they are a power user who likes extensive context menus, customizing options including things as basic as changing the color of the titlebar and being able to fine tune the sizes of window UI elements instead of being forced to have much larger UI elements that benefit mobile users while wasting screen real estate for desktop mouse users see the below image, you won't have even 1% of the customability of this control panel applet. In Windows 10 you're gonna be stuck with white and sometimes gray titlebars, and you will only be able to choose from a set of 20 or so colors for "accent" and even when choosing a solid color background for your desktop you are locked down to a predefined set of 20 or so colors. RGB 255,255,255 is NOT one of those predefined colors too, in case you're wondering. 

Hm.  At face value in Windows 10 it looks like currently they've been reimplementing that area.  I managed to find the ability to add black or white by going directly to

 control /name Microsoft.Personalization /page pageWallpaper

and using those old Solid Color options.

 

I'd bet you three chocolate chip cookies that the right people are aware of this area/concern.

 

And the thing is, all these customization features were removed for no reason at all and they have ignored all feedback for 3 years now.

A: No.  It's easy to dismiss something as "no reason" when it's not ours and we're not involved.  Either the people involved are pants-on-head stupid or they have some sort of reason that perhaps we disagree with.  It's a complicated world, and it's perhaps easier to dismiss the hidden reasons of others when there's not really any ability for you to sit in on meetings.

B: Hi!

 

There's a theory that it's not possible to make everybody happy all the time, and that if you hold yourself 100% to that you will literally explode.  There's also a theory that it's awesome to work to make people happy.  There's a final untested theory that sometimes making people happy takes time and effort.  I don't know if I buy any of that, but it seems half-reasonable.

 

There has been TONS of feedback ever since customization options were removed in the early builds of Win 8, do you really think no one else has issues with this?

I bet the code still exists in control panel even and in the window manager. They even removed the registry settings so power users couldn't modify things, and there was a huge backlash when that happened. The whole thing is a concerted effort to remove all power user options for no rhyme or reason.

Per the command above, it looks like you can still get to them.  That's odd.  It's almost like there's some elf at Microsoft that sometimes thinks about things and tries to do right by you, even if we're midway through an ongoing voyage and people are super curious to see the final destination that you've been kinda specifically told you're not at yet as part of a "preview" program.  But that way of thinking may be madness.

 

I love power user tweaks.  Bear in mind that if those come before getting things pixel-perfect, I'd bet that the people involved would have their bosses unhappy with them and the non-power users would be suffering for no substantive reason.  If that kind of thing happened, those people who like power users, who go out of their way to enable that kind of thing, maybe wouldn't be in positions to do that kind of thing anymore.  That'd suck for all involved. :\

It is fun to think about the possibility that professional software people are sane and listen and enjoy tinkering themselves.  *shrug*  But again, that may be crazy talk.  I'm probably just tired from working late and should probably get some sleep.  <3

[sinetheo]

I just bought 8.1 and feel ripped off after putting up with the pastel colors and terrible flat UI and finding out HyperV can't run nested like VMWare Workstation under 7 does.

 

I am about to go back to 7 as it relieves my anxiety when I see this eye piercing mess that is anti skuemorphism. I know I am not alone

[nMIK-3]

"Is there anything Windows 10 doesn't do better?"

 

^Here I corrected the Topic Title for you guys so you can have a realistic conversation.

 

You are welcome!
 

[Ian W]

I just bought 8.1 and feel ripped off after putting up with the pastel colors and terrible flat UI and finding out HyperV can't run nested like VMWare Workstation under 7 does.

What stops you from using VMWare Workstation on Windows 8.1? How is that even relevant to the discussion?

 

I am about to go back to 7 as it relieves my anxiety when I see this eye piercing mess that is anti skuemorphism. I know I am not alone

I hope that you are alone. It is not good to have anxiety about something so petty.

 

"Is there anything Windows 10 doesn't do better?"

 

^Here I corrected the Topic Title for you guys so you can have a realistic conversation.

 

You are welcome!

There are a few things. Touch seems to be an afterthought with Windows 10, for example.

"All Apps" is confined to an area of the screen, with no option to expand full-screen like in Windows 8.1. One cannot boot to that interface, there are no options for application sorting.

[HawkMan]

umm, you can boot to tablet mode though.

[Ian W]

umm, you can boot to tablet mode though.

Yes, but not to "All Apps." Windows 8.1 allowed one to do both (i.e., to boot to the Start screen or "All Apps" section).