[OFFICIAL] Windows 10 Insider Program

[George P Global Moderator]

There's no doubt that winrt is going to be what they push going forward but for now they're making it possible to call/user win32 APIs from within modern/metro apps. The only question here is do they keep that or try to redo many of the old win32 stuff as new winrt ones?

 

I think in the end we'll see a pure winrt environment with very little if any win32 code left, even on the desktop. They can do this because the OS already has the ability to either emulate the legacy bits or just run old apps in a VM using something like app-v.

 

Using more fresh, new and most important, legacy code free winrt APIs going forward is better in my opinion. Now that you can have apps windowed or full screen with responsive UIs so they can adapt to the device type then you can do quite a lot and have less of a need to use the older technology.

[+Zlip792 MVC]

Mary Jo Foley on IE Information - http://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-is-building-a-new-browser-as-part-of-its-windows-10-push/

And also app gap (Android - Plan B) - http://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-hones-its-plans-to-try-to-close-the-app-gap/

[George P Global Moderator]

Just work to make the winrt APIs more feature rich/mature and the make it as easy as it can be to port android apps in VS as it can get, heck if they can mirror things closely then I really don't see how the excuse of "it costs too much" can still be used.

[Sszecret Veteran]

Mary Jo Foley on IE Information - http://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-is-building-a-new-browser-as-part-of-its-windows-10-push/

And also app gap (Android - Plan B) - http://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-hones-its-plans-to-try-to-close-the-app-gap/

 

So as far as the post goes, W10 will ship with IE 11 and the as of yet unnamed 'Spartan' browser? No other updates for IE, then?

[George P Global Moderator]

Spartan is just the codename for what I expect they'll call IE12. There's no way they'll just drop the IE brand now IMO.

[MorganX]

Can anyone say if Media Center is in the preview?

[Guest]

Can anyone say if Media Center is in the preview?

 

Nope. Also, some leftovers that originally were present in 8.1, even if you didn't have MC, have been removed. My guess is that with 10, it is officially dead.

[Ian S.]

For me the Store (beta) is completely broken it simply gets stuck at the loading screen.

[MorganX]

Nope. Also, some leftovers that originally were present in 8.1, even if you didn't have MC, have been removed. My guess is that with 10, it is officially dead.

 

Thanks.

[nosense]

For me the Store (beta) is completely broken it simply gets stuck at the loading screen.

I remember someone saying on mdl that they block access to it. 

[Dot Matrix]

Store (beta) isn't supposed to be in our hands yet.

[Guest]

I wonder what their plan for WordPad is when they release the new versions of Office, which I assume would be free.

[Dot Matrix]

I wonder what their plan for WordPad is when they release the new versions of Office, which I assume would be free.

TBH it's such an insignificant application. I'm sure it'll be left in the file system.

[Guest]

TBH it's such an insignificant application. I'm sure it'll be left in the file system.

 

There are also the old Fax & Scanning app, and a bunch of other smaller things. I would like to see everything freshened up.

[Ian S.]

Games in Photos? Yep... Probably part of their machine learning, they have built "games" to teach the system what to identify in images:

 

Issues loading their default image stack...

[George P Global Moderator]

I expect all of those little apps to get updated modern versions, but things like fax and scan are probably low on the list, I've never used the fax ability in windows personally.

 

I bet the store beta backend servers are only working internally on the OS groups intranet and not outside of MS.

[Sszecret Veteran]

Spartan is just the codename for what I expect they'll call IE12. There's no way they'll just drop the IE brand now IMO.

 

I wouldn't expect them to drop the IE brand either, especially with the improvements they've made since 9, but if we're to go with what MJ has written (and she has been right on quite a few occasions) : " Microsoft is building a new browser, codenamed Spartan, which is not IE 12 -- at least according to a couple of sources of mine." . So Spartan isn't IE 12. 

[Guest]

Whatever they are doing, it will still be based on the IE code. They won't just throw away all that hard work done throughout the years through the window.

[George P Global Moderator]

Whatever they are doing, it will still be based on the IE code. They won't just throw away all that hard work done throughout the years through the window.

The way it sounds Spartan could just basically be trident from v9 and up without the older IE8 and older legacy code.  Or it could just be only html5 standards with nothing else.

[BajiRav]

The way it sounds Spartan could just basically be trident from v9 and up without the older IE8 and older legacy code.  Or it could just be only html5 standards with nothing else.

I think Spartan will be just that (spartan as in simple) and just the metro or immersive browser.

[Dot Matrix]

I think Spartan will be just that (spartan as in simple) and just the metro or immersive browser.

I thought they were eliminating the dual browsers?

[George P Global Moderator]

I don't expect there to be two front end browsers but two underlying trident engines. Depending on what you need you'll either get the old or new for a site. The user shouldn't even know when it's using one or the other only that websites load.

[Sszecret Veteran]

I thought they were eliminating the dual browsers?

 

As far as I know, yes. They could do the same thing that you can do in Chrome now: Add an option to just switch to the Immersive version. I'm not a developer so I'm not aware of this, but can you write code and have the GUI adapt according to which operating environment it is in?  

[George P Global Moderator]

The modern/winrt apps can scale to show more on bigger screens or they can change their layout, we've already seen this with how apps change when snapped to the side. As far as going from a desktop mode UI to a tablet or phone UI I think it's already possible to have your apps change on the fly, so going from windowed on the desktop to full screen buttons and other elements can scale up and be more touch friendly and so on.

[Studio384]

?

 

I expect all of those little apps to get updated modern versions, but things like fax and scan are probably low on the list, I've never used the fax ability in windows personally.

 

I bet the store beta backend servers are only working internally on the OS groups intranet and not outside of MS.

 

There is already a scan app in Windows 8.1.