[OFFICIAL] Windows 10 Insider Program

By Ian S.
in The Fast Ring (Insider Previews)

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Windows Technical Preview  

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  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
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    • No
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Recommended Posts

Grand Master

Ian W

Posted
Posted

 

I found a way to restore the Start Menu from the previous build (which restores Jump lists for pinned apps, and allows you to resize the Start Menu)

  1. Start Regedit.exe
  2. Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER>Software>Microsoft>Windows>CurrentVersion>Explorer>Advance
  3. Create a new DWORD (32-bit) value, call it "EnableXamlStartMenu" Keep its Value at 0
  4. Restart Explorer

 

I am (thankfully) able to use the Start screen in build 9926 after following your instructions and by disabling the "EnableStartMenu" key located at HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced.

There does not seem to be a way to return to the desktop without using the Windows key + D keyboard shortcut.

post-483058-0-69047200-1422143411.png

Following the instructions apparently also brings back the "Use the Start menu instead of the Start screen" option within the Taskbar and Navigation applet (now renamed as "Taskbar and Start Menu Properties.")

post-483058-0-10509500-1422143661.png

The apparent lack of a shortcut to the desktop for the Start screen and the renaming of the aforementioned Taskbar and Navigation applet is rather worrying. I realize that the Start experience it is not feature complete, but when taken as a whole, the changes further suggest that the screen may be phased out for a full screen menu.

Edit: After signing out, the shortcut to the desktop is back on the Start screen.

post-483058-0-40470800-1422145600.png

Grand Master

HawkMan

Posted
Posted

well, again, they're rewriting it, so why not wait until they're actually done with it to see what they're doing... but the idea as I understand it is a unified scalable start that should be mostly identical and recognizable across all devices. which probably means it will bring the good sorting from the phone version as well and allow "gaps".

  • Ian W and FunkyMike
  • Like 2
Grand Master

Ian W

Posted
Posted

What are you guys doing? Again, these are test builds. Why go through all this trouble, when Microsoft will be making more changes?

It is nice to know that the option is there as I much prefer it. I can also see this being useful if one were to document the changes throughout the various builds of Windows 10.

If nothing else, thanks to the Customer Experience Improvement Program, the use of the Start screen may be a form of implicit feedback.

Grand Master

PsYcHoKiLLa

Posted
Posted

I installed this on my laptop and it seems great, there's some bugs obviously, that's to be expected at this stage.

 

Sadly, I also tried it on my PC and it broke the network connection (Intel Pro 1000), that was only after an update, when it had completed the upgrade it worked fine. Obviously I couldn't report the bug with no network connection so I had to roll back.

Grand Master

Xerxes

Posted
Posted

Well after about 5+ hours of "Getting Ready" the VM finally updated to the new build. It's not bad, I'm liking the new UI over all very nice and noticeably more polished than the previous build I was using. Hopefully they fix the oversized Min/Max/Close buttons as they look kinda silly right now. Not sure I like the titlebar text being left aligned again (like it was in Win7 and earlier), I know Win7 fans will be very happy about it but I actually liked the centre aligned titlebar text in Win8 :/ hope there is an option to bring it back but I'll get over it if it doesn't. I also noticed they redid the Notifications panel and make it like the OSX one (as in it takes the whole side of the screen) with some handy shortcuts. The revamped the start menu is nice, make it scroll instead of just expanding to the right seems more natural for mouse users. I actually like the Start Screen but I can see myself switching between the Start Screen and the new Start Menu, both are very nice. Did notice some lag now and then but overall very smooth. I'm liking what they have done some far (Y)

 

 

Glad to see I'm not the only one who dislikes the new Start "screen" (aka maximized start menu and yes, i know it's a WIP).

Yeah I did notice they screwed around with the Start Screen and not really liking what they did, there was nothing wrong with the Win8 one. However, I can see why they did it though. The Start Screen confused a lot of people in Win8 and MS seem to be making it more like the Start Menu now. So if a user is confronted with it they'll immediately know how to use it and not panic like they did in Win8. I don't agree with it but it makes sense. I could be wrong but that is my take on why they messed with it. I do like how now you can switch between "Desktop" and "Tablet" modes now with a click of a button. Should help shut up the people who complained about having the tablet UI forced on them.

 

EDIT: I've also noticed search is really really really slow and is a shame Cortana is not available in my market (yet). Plus the updated snap feature is nice and FINALLY an updated Xbox app! 

Grand Master

Dane

Posted
Posted

I have a test laptop that I am using.  I3 2.4ghz and 6gig ram.  It feels so slow for some reason, but then again windows 7 does too on it. 

 

 

Anyways.  In older builds if I unpinned items from the start menu it resized it.  That doesn't happen anymore.  So it looks pretty ugly with it not changing to a smaller size.

 

http://i.imgur.com/rdEXoms.png

 

Since i've taken that screen shot, I removed every "tile" there and it remains the same size. 

Grand Master

Denis W. Veteran

Posted
  • Veteran
Posted

Cortana appearing over Start is awkward. I wish Microsoft could move her back inside Start like Search works now in Windows 7.

 

attachicon.gifScreenshot (312)(2).png

 

Speaking of Start, when tablet mode is enabled the Cortana box just awkwardly pops down beneath the full screen Start... WIP I know but amusing to catch that.

Grand Master

Quillz

Posted
Posted

Is the build really that bad? I am ready to take the plunge but this thread is not very encouraging. :laugh: They pushed updates to the build today, does that help?

The performance is really, really slow, even with several updates installed. I'll give the latest set a try, but I might just wait for the next build to be released before I boot up my Win10 VM again.

Grand Master

Quillz

Posted
Posted

Hopefully they fix the oversized Min/Max/Close buttons as they look kinda silly right now. Not sure I like the titlebar text being left aligned again (like it was in Win7 and earlier), I know Win7 fans will be very happy about it but I actually liked the centre aligned titlebar text in Win8 :/ hope there is an option to bring it back but I'll get over it if it doesn't.

The placement of the title bar widgets does seem to be a bug. If you compare it in relation to the location of the title bar text, they're maybe 1-2 pixels too high, whereas in previous Windows releases, they were generally inline with the title bar text. Given that Modern apps seem to have the proper widget placement, that does seem to verify that what we are seeing is buggy behavior, in addition to the fact they don't seem to scale down with smaller title bar text point sizes.

 

As for the title bar text alignment, I doubt it's going to change. Outside of Win8, title bar text has been left aligned on Windows since the 9x days, and I seem to vaguely recall some usability study that demonstrated it's easier to read when left (or right) aligned as opposed to center aligned. As for an option, doubt that, as well. We never have had title bar text placement options in Windows, why would they give us one now?

Grand Master

BajiRav

Posted
Posted

This is weird butI won't be able to install this on my HP Stream 7 without a USB hub. :/ If I start upgrade within Windows, it refuses to run upgrade (something about compresses operating system) and if I boot with the ISO, touch screen doesn't work in the installer! :laugh:

The performance is really, really slow, even with several updates installed. I'll give the latest set a try, but I might just wait for the next build to be released before I boot up my Win10 VM again.

So I did an in-place upgrade of my Wife's ancient Sony vaio (late 2009) from 8.1U and things were really bad initially and I had real difficulty getting to Windows update. Once those updates were installed, things were marginally better but OneDrive and "MS Office document cache" had abnormal CPU usage. I let it run for an hour or so and things are back to normal now.

Reminds me of how Vista RTM used to take few hours to settle down.

Mentor

gohpep

Posted
Posted

I actually like the new start. You have your most used things on the start menu, along with the pinned items you want on the start screen, instead of pinning them on the start menu.

 

Oh, and for some of the stuff, you can blame me :p, because I sent them a very detailed report about build 9901's start screen and search, and how it would be best changed, and some of my very specific recommendations are in this build.

Grand Master

Quillz

Posted
Posted

This is weird butI won't be able to install this on my HP Stream 7 without a USB hub. :/ If I start upgrade within Windows, it refuses to run upgrade (something about compresses operating system) and if I boot with the ISO, touch screen doesn't work in the installer! :laugh:

So I did an in-place upgrade of my Wife's ancient Sony vaio (late 2009) from 8.1U and things were really bad initially and I had real difficulty getting to Windows update. Once those updates were installed, things were marginally better but OneDrive and "MS Office document cache" had abnormal CPU usage. I let it run for an hour or so and things are back to normal now.

Reminds me of how Vista RTM used to take few hours to settle down.

After installing the upgrades from today? I'll try, but I think this build in of itself just has really awful performance, seeing that the previous two released builds ran flawlessly for me on VMware, not just in terms of performance, but also with VMware Tools, which don't seem to work at all on 9926. Since they did a lot of code rewriting and what not in this build, maybe that explains the poor performance.

Grand Master

vcfan

Posted
Posted

This is weird butI won't be able to install this on my HP Stream 7 without a USB hub. :/ If I start upgrade within Windows, it refuses to run upgrade (something about compresses operating system) and if I boot with the ISO, touch screen doesn't work in the installer! :laugh:

 

that's because of WIMBoot. also even if you get it to install, it wont be as generous on hdd space compared to the compressed image.

  • SpiderNitro
  • Like 1
Grand Master

BajiRav

Posted
Posted

that's because of WIMBoot. also even if you get it to install, it wont be as generous on hdd space compared to the compressed image.

Yeah I read something about it using recovery partition itself as windows folder. It is still taking 13 GB on C: and ~5GB on recovery. That is hardly any saving, isn't that pretty much normal install size? :/

 

 

Edit: Does this mean there is no easy way to update all these cheap Windows tablets when 10 RTMs?

Grand Master

chrisj1968

Posted
Posted

I found an issue. under the shutdown section of the start menu, there is NO "lock" selection available for locking my laptop when I leave it.

 

they need to add this unless someone knows a work around

Grand Master

Quillz

Posted
Posted

I found an issue. under the shutdown section of the start menu, there is NO "lock" selection available for locking my laptop when I leave it.

 

they need to add this unless someone knows a work around

Win+L still works. Otherwise, file a bug report/complaint via the Feedback app, and it will probably be addressed. It's likely just an oversight since older Windows releases generally had a Lock/Logout option within the power settings.

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