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1031 members have voted

  1. 1. On a scale of 1-5, 1 being worst, 5 being best. What do you think of Windows 10 from the leaks so far?

    • 5.Great, best OS ever
      156
    • 4. Pretty Good, needs a lot of minor tweaks
      409
    • 3. OK, Needs a few major improvements, some minor ones
      168
    • 2. Fine, Needs a lot of major improvements
      79
    • 1.Poor, Needs too many improvements, all hope is lost, never going to use it
      41
  2. 2. Based on the recent leaks by Neowin and Winfuture.de, my next OS upgrade will be?

    • Windows 10
      720
    • Windows 8
      20
    • Windows 7
      48
    • Sticking with XP
      3
    • OSX Yosemite
      35
    • Linux
      24
    • Sticking with OSX Mavericks
      3
  3. 3. Should Microsoft give away Windows 10 for free?

    • Yes for Windows 8.1 Users
      305
    • Yes for Windows 7 and above users
      227
    • Yes for Vista and above users
      31
    • Yes for XP and above users
      27
    • Yes for all Windows users
      192
    • No
      71


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There are a couple of pros about a homogeneous release cycle.

 

Apple gets huge amounts of build up in anticipation

 

However,

A normal company with that type of life cycle would get no press coverage all year. (Apple obviously for some reason is exempt and everything about Apple is reported on)

 

Apple does have a ton of leaks

 

The lifecycle gets old and Microsoft has many more products than Apple has, so a homogeneous lifecycle is almost impossible.

 

It leaves Apple years behind in innovation and releases.

However, the very reason that Apple IS homogenous is that it goes after a single market - which has never been the case with Microsoft.

 

Even after the sunset of the 9x codebase, there has still been a split between consumers and enterprises.  Consumers want faster release cycles, shorter wait times between changes, and many more changes themselves.  Enterprises want longer (nearly glacial) periods between changes and release cycles, and thus fewer changes.  Office (and Windows Server) are the second-most influenced by what enterprises want - in the case of Office alone, the only real major change (from Office 2007, mind you) was the x64 option, complete with add-ons for it.  Visual Studio changed even less than Office has (again, the influence of not JUST developers, but developers for enterprises rearing its head).  Windows Server (influenced more by the addition of SMBs as a target) IS moving away from those glacial change-pace cycles - it changed more from 2012 to 2012R2 than it ever has in a mere two-OS release cycle.

so i gave win8 another try in virtualbox yesterday, the taskbar can't be scaled freely in the default view mode (that one with the big icons). anyone knows if that's gonna be fixed in win 9?

so i gave win8 another try in virtualbox yesterday, the taskbar can't be scaled freely in the default view mode (that one with the big icons). anyone knows if that's gonna be fixed in win 9?

What do you mean? You can resize the taskbar to your likes.

What do you mean? You can resize the taskbar to your likes.

I can't seem to do it if it's settled in default mode. I can make it bigger which adds exactly another line but not smaller

In your case, try "Use small taskbar buttons" from the taskbar properties.

 

did. it makes the buttons smaller and the taskbar smaller. i still can't freely scale it, only make it exactly 1 line bigger. what's the propose of a non-freely scalable taskbar? i don't know. has it ever been that way?

 

tried to install train simulator 2015 (the iso is over 4GB big!) in win8;

i get errors after errors:

msvcr100.dll missing --> got it from dll-files

d3dx9_43.dll missing --> ---------- " -----------

msvcp100.dll missing --> ---------" -----------

 

it would be nice to have the possibility to copy the content of a dialog box, otherwise i am forced to type it off everytime.

 

after this the game still won't start but says it needs steam. installed that one created an account, the game starts and all i get is a black screen. waited 5 min and did not bother anymore.

 

i hope more games will come to linux soon.

 

i don't know if ms is to blame for the lacking dll files but during my windows time this happend so often. i think if they ship a game with a dvd, either include the dll files there or find another way.

this is not user friendly at all

did. it makes the buttons smaller and the taskbar smaller. i still can't freely scale it, only make it exactly 1 line bigger. what's the propose of a non-freely scalable taskbar? i don't know. has it ever been that way?

 

Yeah, I think it has always been like that. In vertical orientation it is freely scalable though.

The task bar has been locked by default since WinXP. Right-click on it, uncheck "lock task bar" and then you should be able to resize it to whatever you need.

 

It was changed because I think a lot of people were unintentionally resizing it/moving it around in the 9x releases, where it was always unlocked by default (and I don't think there was even a way to lock it).

so i gave win8 another try in virtualbox yesterday, the taskbar can't be scaled freely in the default view mode (that one with the big icons). anyone knows if that's gonna be fixed in win 9?

why does it need fixed if it's not a bug/problem.

 

tried to install train simulator 2015 (the iso is over 4GB big!) in win8;

i get errors after errors:

msvcr100.dll missing --> got it from dll-files

d3dx9_43.dll missing --> ---------- " -----------

msvcp100.dll missing --> ---------" -----------

 

it would be nice to have the possibility to copy the content of a dialog box, otherwise i am forced to type it off everytime.

 

after this the game still won't start but says it needs steam. installed that one created an account, the game starts and all i get is a black screen. waited 5 min and did not bother anymore.

 

 

 

None pirated games work a lot better, the legal version installed through steam would installed the runtimes and DX9 for you before you run the game the first time. and just installing steam won't help as you'd need a launcher to pretend it's a legally installed steam version as well. 

 

the real proper disk version would also install DX and runtimes at install time. 

The task bar has been locked by default since WinXP. Right-click on it, uncheck "lock task bar" and then you should be able to resize it to whatever you need.

 

It was changed because I think a lot of people were unintentionally resizing it/moving it around in the 9x releases, where it was always unlocked by default (and I don't think there was even a way to lock it).

 

that's not what he means, he thinks it should be scalable like the KDE launcher so that the icons scale with a freely scalable taskbar. imho it's rather pointless. 

why does it need fixed if it's not a bug/problem.

 

 

None pirated games work a lot better, the legal version installed through steam would installed the runtimes and DX9 for you before you run the game the first time. and just installing steam won't help as you'd need a launcher to pretend it's a legally installed steam version as well. 

 

the real proper disk version would also install DX and runtimes at install time. 

 

that's not what he means, he thinks it should be scalable like the KDE launcher so that the icons scale with a freely scalable taskbar. imho it's rather pointless. 

 

He'd have a lot better luck/experience also not running it in Virtual Box on crappy hardware, yesterday he was in IRC complaining about how slow it was to install and boot.

 

Out of all of the VM running programs that one is the worst on Emulation/Performance IMHO...

so obviously i am the one to blame and a scalable taskbar is pointless. yes suuuure :rofl:

 

What purpose does a scalable taskbar bring, except, more complexity, unpredictable sizes of things and reduced performance (like KDE already shows). everything knows the taskbar is one of two sizes, it's created at a size that's practical and usable without wasting screen estate, and can be made slim for those that need the extra pixels. There's no inherrent benefit to free scaling it. except added complexity and reduce amount of visible icons. 

 

As for your VB problems, well yeah, your choice of poor virtualization software along witht he poor VM software is to blame. 

 

and it's funny, if you where to give up as fast on linux every time you ran into a problem like you did. you'd never have linux installed for more than 5 minutes in the first palce as the issues you ran into with the obviusly pirated game,is similar to issues you would regularly run into with linux, and every time I install I I run into far more and far worse issues every every time. 

did. it makes the buttons smaller and the taskbar smaller. i still can't freely scale it, only make it exactly 1 line bigger. what's the propose of a non-freely scalable taskbar? i don't know. has it ever been that way?

 

tried to install train simulator 2015 (the iso is over 4GB big!) in win8;

i get errors after errors:

msvcr100.dll missing --> got it from dll-files

d3dx9_43.dll missing --> ---------- " -----------

msvcp100.dll missing --> ---------" -----------

 

it would be nice to have the possibility to copy the content of a dialog box, otherwise i am forced to type it off everytime.

 

after this the game still won't start but says it needs steam. installed that one created an account, the game starts and all i get is a black screen. waited 5 min and did not bother anymore.

 

i hope more games will come to linux soon.

 

i don't know if ms is to blame for the lacking dll files but during my windows time this happend so often. i think if they ship a game with a dvd, either include the dll files there or find another way.

this is not user friendly at all

What are you doing trying all of this stuff inside of a VM? A virtual machine is no place to be attempting to install games. Your DLL errors look to be a result of a pirated game or OS ISO, and are not an issue with the OS.

I have an idea of a way Threshold can integrate the Recycle Bin into the task bar, users can choose to pin it when they wish to, but there is a better way for power users.

 

Those who understand the concept that Down in Windows 8 is closing/throwing away like in the Mail app or with suspending an app, understand that if the trash can would be easily accessible from the desktop or the Modern UI, the logical place to put it is under everything else. For example, when you drag a file from Files or the desktop, hitting the bottom edge of your screen, a trash icon appears that allows you to throw away your file. Same goes for uninstalling programs, without using the Control Panel's horrendous Programs Install/Uninstall. The trash would sit below the taskbar, with a tiny amount of space between the taskbar and the edge of your screen that can be clicked, and would open a band that contains the trash. It could still be accessible through the desktop icon, but instead of opeining Files for the trash, it would be OS universal, available in the desktop and the Modern UI.

 

For the Modern UI, the trash would serve as a way to dump your files away, which apparently you cannot do in the OneDrive app. Also, when you suspend an app it "throws away" the running app session.

Definitely missing a few dependencies there for sure, just like Linux you need to have those taken care of, although typically the installer handles that for you.. if you're copying from another Windows install (or downloading) you'll need to do that yourself. For those listed, you need the C++ 2010 runtimes and the DirectX9 redist.

As far as gaming in a VM goes, *shrug* VMWare anyways actually does a fairly passable job at it, not so much with VBox, drivers aren't as good, I've run a few 3D games in VMWare Workstation with decent results. Far from idea obviously but not horrible either, I've done a few Windows games in it when Wine can't handle it and wasn't in the mood for the hassle of a dual boot.

 

332a52v.png

 

 

All posters in this forum are only talking about UI-changes.

But MSFT is doing a great overhaul in a very important component.

As you can see in the scrennshot.

 

WIMBOOT was a first step to minimize the footprint of the installation.

Because this was a great weakness - the recovery-partition was way to big (one of the biggest points when the Surface Pro was released).

So they are working on the separation of the language packages and they are not per se installed, they are downloadable.

 

And they are working on the MBCS (Multibyte Character Set) integration. It is an Optional-In feature right now.

So if you want to run old MBCS-MFC-Apps you have to go into "Add Windows Features" and install it.

With this tricks they can reduce the size of the WIMBOOT.

 

So 16GByte tablets have enough additional space on the eMMC.

 

And it seems that they are killing very old/legacy programs completely.

They want to kill Visual Basic 6.0 - here is a statement:

http://visualstudio.uservoice.com/forums/121579-visual-studio/suggestions/3440221-bring-back-classic-visual-basic-an-improved-versi

 

 

We have to innovate to enable our customers to innovate. It is not a viable option to create a next version of VB6. We stand by our decision to make VB.NET and the .NET Framework. We think they are awesome too. It is not feasible to open source VB6 tools chain and ecosystem. The VB6 runtime was last shipped in Windows 8.1 and will be supported for the lifetime of Windows 8.1.

 

 

I am expecting some more killing of legacy and very old things.

Just like Satya Nadella says:

 

 

The day I took on my new role I said that our industry does not respect tradition ? it only respects innovation.

 

I think that there is a first eye-opener -> Nadella will kill deprecated APIs faster then Ballmer.

I'll believe it when I see it. Backwards compatibility I think is one of the major reasons for people/companies to stay with Windows.

 

That's why they will still have them as optional installs but not in the standard installation

People on Low end tablets don't need all that backwards compatibility

 

Maybe when you install then enterprise edition, lots of stuff for backwards compatibility will be installed by default

 

Seems like a smart move by MS in my eyes

 

By compartmentalizing Windows it might be easier to install a standard smaller version of it 

That's why they will still have them as optional installs but not in the standard installation

People on Low end tablets don't need all that backwards compatibility

 

Maybe when you install then enterprise edition, lots of stuff for backwards compatibility will be installed by default

A lot of backwards compatibility can also be virtualized now for anyone who needs it. The average consumer doesn't need 20 years worth of legacy.

  • Like 2

A lot of backwards compatibility can also be virtualized now for anyone who needs it. The average consumer doesn't need 20 years worth of legacy.

 

 I agree :)

 

For what I do with my pc these days, I think I can get away with an RT device

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