Windows Technical Preview  

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


Recommended Posts

I don't need my music player to do anything but play music.  I don't need it to watch videos view photos or fix the kitchen sink, so as you say personal preference.  Haven't had any glitches with either the main app or the preview.  Very much disagree about other apps being 'superior.'

 

I'm not saying it's for everyone, I'm saying it may have notable advantages.

I agree; that's why I use Dopamine :D

Could someone please tell me if the app development model is VERY different compared to 8.1?

 

I am currently doing my thesis about cross-device location-aware search thingy, and I am not sure if I should upgrade to Windows 10 and do it there, or stick to 8.1. :/

 

Just an idea, you may already have considered this, why not try it in a VM?

As much as users ask them to, MS is not going to call it Spartan now, it's going to be named Edge, there's a few reasons for this.  First off, the Edge name is used for the new engine, so no need to mix naming up.  Second, and more important, they can keep using the big blue E logo for it, lots of people out there know that you hit the blue E to go online, now they don't have to change the icon that the majority of average users know.

As much as users ask them to, MS is not going to call it Spartan now, it's going to be named Edge, there's a few reasons for this.  First off, the Edge name is used for the new engine, so no need to mix naming up.  Second, and more important, they can keep using the big blue E logo for it, lots of people out there know that you hit the blue E to go online, now they don't have to change the icon that the majority of average users know.

 

I don't care if they call it Spartan or Edge or Iguana Sam but that logo is the worst possible thing for it.

 

"Hey come look at our new browser!  It's still IE!"  is not the message they should be sending.

As much as users ask them to, MS is not going to call it Spartan now, it's going to be named Edge, there's a few reasons for this.  First off, the Edge name is used for the new engine, so no need to mix naming up.  Second, and more important, they can keep using the big blue E logo for it, lots of people out there know that you hit the blue E to go online, now they don't have to change the icon that the majority of average users know.

People know Spartan, those who update to Windows 10 will have some technology knowledge, and Spartan is cool IE is not. 

I think you're overestimating how many people even know which OS they are using. Clicking the blue e is all they know, which is why they are still using generations old versions instead of upgrading.

 

I agree that the logo is horrible, but they can't step away from that property. Maybe different style on the e, but it needs to be similar.

I think you're overestimating how many people even know which OS they are using. Clicking the blue e is all they know, which is why they are still using generations old versions instead of upgrading.

 

I agree that the logo is horrible, but they can't step away from that property. Maybe different style on the e, but it needs to be similar.

The old blue E will be hidden, I think. People will learn eventually. I taught my grandma how to click Chrome instead of IE

I think you're overestimating how many people even know which OS they are using. Clicking the blue e is all they know, which is why they are still using generations old versions instead of upgrading.

 

I agree that the logo is horrible, but they can't step away from that property. Maybe different style on the e, but it needs to be similar.

 

^This,  it has to be a blue E or some form of it because it's what the average consumer knows after 20 years.   I don't see anything wrong with the new Edge icon, it's familiar yet new at the same time.  Could it be better? Maybe? 

I swear I saw like a million posts here on Neowin about how Spartan is a terrible name for a browser and Microsoft should never use it.

What happened? :huh:

I haven't seen any post that said Spartan was a bad name.

 

^This,  it has to be a blue E or some form of it because it's what the average consumer knows after 20 years.   I don't see anything wrong with the new Edge icon, it's familiar yet new at the same time.  Could it be better? Maybe? 

No. People will adjust to new icons and names. Google launched Chrome. Apple launched iCloud. They are well known now.  IE is also well know for being the worst browser on the planet that everyone should avoid the blue e.

Chrome was a first version for Google, they didn't have brand recognition to build on. Apple iCloud 1) used the i-whatever prefix of Apple, 2) used the word "cloud", and 3) was pretty much forced on every user who uses it.

 

 

EDIT

 

Hell, in tech support, I've had clients not know if they had Windows or Mac. I've had people call their Android their iPhone and not know the difference.

 

This is why MS was sued for packaging IE with Windows and why early browser shortcuts were "Access the Internet" or other such phrases - people are idiots and use whatever icon is on the desktop.

Edited by Zagadka

Chrome was a first version for Google, they didn't have brand recognition to build on. Apple iCloud 1) used the i-whatever prefix of Apple, 2) used the word "cloud", and 3) was pretty much forced on every user who uses it.

 

 

EDIT

 

Hell, in tech support, I've had clients not know if they had Windows or Mac. I've had people call their Android their iPhone and not know the difference.

 

This is why MS was sued for packaging IE with Windows and why early browser shortcuts were "Access the Internet" or other such phrases - people are idiots and use whatever icon is on the desktop.

 

Exactly, which is why they did away with the start menu since few people actually used it. But of course, it's back and people can still ignore it, I guess.

It's also why the save icon is still a floppy disk after all these years, I don't see people complaining about changing that, nor is there a need to.   Could MS make the Edge icon better?  Sure, one thing I'd like to see is for Edge to have a live tile that actually shows info this time.  Maybe a preview image of the tab it's open to and also a number of how many tabs are open as well.

 

They could maybe even let different extensions send info to the live tile, or heck, for starters maybe the download manager in it can post info as it's downloading files.

The continued use of the floppy for save is just one of those things. We also use trash cans, icons of rotary phones, Hell, the fact that we still rely on "folders" and "files" is a tremendous throwback. And the use of a 8 1/2 x 10 piece of paper as the default icon for a file. And none of that will change, since it just works and retraining people would be silly.

Wow 17,416 people really are trying to waste every bodies time. 

Really its to see how much they listen. Obviously they thought Edge would have some type of effect or they wouldn't have stopped using Spartan. This is probably why you are not in charge of renaming the browser. :p

Really its to see how much they listen. Obviously they thought Edge would have some type of effect or they wouldn't have stopped using Spartan. This is probably why you are not in charge of renaming the browser. :p

 

Actually 17,416 people failed to realise what the point of these suggestions is for, branding isn't one of them.

Branding has no business in the hands of the people, never has and never will. Those people should spend less time moaning that the browser they probably won't use, has a name they probably don;t like. What they need to realise is with six months they won't care any more. They need to stop wasting their own time and move on now.

Actually 17,416 people failed to realise what the point of these suggestions is for, branding isn't one of them.

Branding has no business in the hands of the people, never has and never will. Those people should spend less time moaning that the browser they probably won't use, has a name they probably don;t like. What they need to realise is with six months they won't care any more. They need to stop wasting their own time and move on now.

indeed.. functionality and feel matter over tthe name anyway

Actually 17,416 people failed to realise what the point of these suggestions is for, branding isn't one of them.

Branding has no business in the hands of the people, never has and never will. Those people should spend less time moaning that the browser they probably won't use, has a name they probably don;t like. What they need to realise is with six months they won't care any more. They need to stop wasting their own time and move on now.

Until Microsoft actually realizes that people recognize the new browser as "Spartan" from all the news floating around. Believe it or not, people actually read tech news outside of tech sites.

Not most people though, that's the point here. Yeah there's a few million insiders who recognise Spartan, but compare that to the potential market reach of Windows 10 and it's really not that much. Besides the insiders are more experienced and technical users anyways so the name isn't really going to make much difference to them.

 

To be honest I'd like to thing the marketing guys at Microsoft who no doubt have years of experience with this type of thing have got a better idea of what to do than a few people complaining on the internet.

  • Like 1

indeed.. functionality and feel matter over tthe name anyway

 

Exactly. All the moaning in the user voice page is just noise getting in the way of the real issues.

I'm hoping the edge team have a little button on the uservoice page that they can click that mutes stupid threads like the "rename back to spartan" and "redesign logo" ones.

 

We need them to concentrate on standards and things like no <picture>, no filters, no will change,  no html templates... etc etc. Make the Edge engine a truly modern, up-to-date engine and a contender to Blink.

 

 

Until Microsoft actually realizes that people recognize the new browser as "Spartan" from all the news floating around. Believe it or not, people actually read tech news outside of tech sites.

 

Don't kid yourself. A tiny minority of the public actually know about "Spartan". and of those people, not all them want it to remain as Spartan. 

Even those that do will be over it in a few months, and then there will be the sort of people who still use XP (and once 10 is released, 7) who will never be happy any way.

 

There's far more important things the Edge team need to be looking at, the branding isn;t one of them, it's just noise in the feedback channels getting in the way of the real issues.

This topic is now closed to further replies.
  • Posts

    • AMD RX 9070 GRE AI, Blender benchmarks vs 9070 XT, 7800XT, Nvidia RTX 5070, 4070 by Sayan Sen Earlier this week, we shared the first part of our review of AMD's new RX 9070 GRE. It was about the gaming performance of the GPU, and we gave it an 8 out of 10. As a follow-up, similar to how we did with the 9070 XT and non-XT, we are doing a dedicated productivity review for the RX 9070 GRE as well, where we compare it against the 9070 XT, 9070, 7800 XT, as well as Nvidia's 5070 and 4070. This will include AI, rendering, compute, and more benchmarks. AI performance, especially, is a very important metric in today's world, and AMD also promised big improvements thanks to its underlying architectural improvements. We will be pitching it against the data we already have for the RX 9070, and RX 9070 XT, but also the Nvidia 5070 FE, MSI GeForce RTX 4070 VENTUS 2X 12G, and Gigabyte Radeon RX 7800 XT GAMING OC 16G as they are in a similar price class, but also because we do not have a comparable 5060 Ti card lying around here that we can compare it against. Before we get underway, this is a collaboration between Sayan Sen and Steven Parker, who lent me his test bed. Also, there was no editorial input from AMD. First up, the specs of the RX 9070, 9070 XT, and 9070 GRE, which were given to us by AMD: Radeon RX 9070 GRE Radeon RX 9070 Radeon RX 9070 XT Boost Clock: Game Clock: up to 2.79GHz up to 2.20GHz up to 2.52GHz up to 2.07GHz up to 2.97GHz up to 2.40GHz Stream Processors 3,072 (48 CU) 3,584 (56 CU) 4,096 (64 CU) Ray Accelerator 48 56 64 AI Accelerator 96 112 128 ROPs 96 128 Texture Mapping Units 192 224 256 Memory 12 GB GDDR6, 18Gbps Clock, 192-bit Bus 432 GB/s 16 GB GDDR6, 20Gbps Clock, 256-bit Bus Effective Memory Bandwidth: 640 GB/s Infinity Cache 48 MB (3rd Gen) 64 MB (3rd Gen) Card Bus PCI-E 5.0 X16 Output 2x HDMI 2.1b 2x DisplayPort 2.1a Power consumption 220W 304W Recommended PSU 650W 750W Slot width 2x 3x Price (SEP) $549 $599 As you can see from the specs above, it is less than the standard RX 9070 in every way that counts, except for slightly higher Boost and Game clock speed. Design Moving on, the RX 9070 GRE we were given is an XFX Swift triple-fan, dual-slot design with two 8-pin connectors. At 30cm (self-measured), it will fit in most systems easily. There is no RGB either. The AMD Radeon RX 9070 GRE by XFX from all angles. Test system Our test system consists of the following: Lian Li O11 Dynamic Mini V2 Flow (Amazon|Newegg) ASUS Z890 ProArt Creator WiFi (Amazon|Newegg) Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus (Amazon|Newegg) Thermal Grizzly KryoSheet - 44x37 (Amazon|Newegg) 2x 16GB G.Skill Trident Z5 RGB (7200 MT/s in XMP) (Amazon|Newegg) Sabrent Rocket4 Plus 2TB SSD (Amazon) Windows 11 25H2 (Build 26200.8246) AMD shared a press driver based on the recently released Adrenaline 26.5.2 that we were required to use. We now move on to our benchmarks. First up, we have Geekbench AI running on ONNX. For some reason, the 9070 GRE does exceptionally well here in both half-precision (FP16) and single-precision (FP32). It manages to beat the RTX 5070 and RX 9070 non-XT, and is only behind the 9070 XT. Since Geekbench runs in short bursts instead of continuously hammering the graphics card, it seems the GRE's faster boost clocks are helping here. Next up, we move to the UL Procyon AI test suite, starting with the image generation benchmark. We chose the Stable Diffusion XL FP16 test since it is the most intense workload available on Procyon. The Nvidia cards do very well here, as even the 4070 out-muscles AMD's best fairy easily. The positive thing about the GRE is that it gets quite close to the 9070 non-XT in this test; this indicates that the VRAM does not play a very big role here, as SD XL relies on float16 (FP16). So this is something to keep in mind again. If you wish to work with float32 AI workloads, graphics cards with larger than 12 GB buffers would likely emerge as victors. Regardless, the gains are still massive on AMD's 9000 series compared to the 7000 series. Following image generation, we move to the text generation benchmark. This is one test where the 9070 GRE struggled, quite a lot. It seems that the 12 GB VRAM and lower memory bandwidth of the new Radeon 9070 GRE are hurting it quite a bit; the split is massive, especially in a test like Llama2, which packs 13 billion parameters. As such, in all the tests, the 9070 GRE is the slowest of the lot. Next, we tried Blender, and here the AMD GPUs were beaten by Nvidia. Rendering is something the Green team has always had a lead over the Red side, and it has not changed so far. On the positive side, though, the 9070 GRE shows significantly better results than the 7800 XT, which means AMD is on the right path. Catching up to Nvidia, though, will require a lot more effort. And we hope HIP and ROCm can keep improving. Wrapping up AI testing, we measured OpenCL throughput in the Geekbench compute benchmark. The RX 9070 GRE alongside the 9070 did not fare well here at all, even falling behind the 7800 XT. Interestingly, even the RTX 5070 could not beat the 4070 on OpenCL, so perhaps this suggests that OpenCL optimization may not have been a priority for either AMD or Nvidia in the modern era. Conclusion We reached the end of our productivity performance review of the 9070 GRE, and we have to say it's a mixed bag. Unlike the 9070 and 9070 XT, the GRE excels in some areas while losing ground fairly easily in others. Similar to how it happened in gaming, any time the card's memory subsystem gets hammered, it tends to fall behind the others. This was the case with text generation, wherein we saw the VRAM sometimes hit its maximum available 12 GB of usage with larger model sizes. So what do we make of the RX 9070 as a productivity hardware? It can certainly be used, but you have to know it has its limitations. For those looking for a GPU that can deal with more, AMD recently unveiled the Radeon AI PRO R9700, which is essentially a 32 GB refresh of the 9070 XT with some additional workstation-based optimizations. On a similar note, the new Ryzen AI Halo platform is something you can consider if you want to set up a local AI processing station. Considering everything, we rate AMD's Radeon RX 9070 GRE a 7.5 out of 10 for its productivity performance. Price is less of a factor for those looking at productivity cases compared to those considering the GPU for gaming, and as such, we felt it did quite decently on many occasions and can be handy if you need a 12 GB GPU and, for some reason, don't want to get Nvidia. Purchase links: RX 9070 / XT / GRE (Amazon US) As an Amazon Associate, we earn from qualifying purchases.
    • Does anyone here know if these updates are integrated into the UUP dump isos?
    • Motrix Next 3.9.4 by Razvan Serea Motrix Next is a modern, open-source cross-platform download manager built as the official next-generation successor to the original Motrix project. It has been completely rewritten using Tauri 2, Vue 3, TypeScript, and Rust, while still relying on the powerful Aria2 download engine for high-speed multi-protocol transfers. The app supports HTTP, HTTPS, FTP, BitTorrent, ED2K and magnet links, offering advanced features like multi-connection acceleration, task scheduling, bandwidth control, and batch download management. With a significantly reduced install size (around 20MB), it focuses on being lightweight, fast, and resource-efficient compared to traditional Electron-based download tools. Designed for Windows, macOS, and Linux, Motrix Next delivers a clean, modern UI inspired by Material Design 3 principles, with smooth animations and a minimal workflow. It improves usability through better download organization, system tray integration, and enhanced torrent handling including selective file downloads and tracker management. Motrix Next features: Multi-protocol downloads — HTTP, FTP, BitTorrent, Magnet, .torrent, ED2K, and Metalink tasks BitTorrent — Selective file download, DHT, peer exchange, encryption controls, metadata caching, GeoIP peer flags, and tracker probing Browser extension integration — Embedded Extension API with independent authentication, download confirmation, smart auto-submit, filename hints, referer/cookie forwarding, and real-time controls (Chrome Web Store · Edge Add-ons) Safe filename handling — Content-Disposition, RFC 2047, non-UTF-8, percent-encoded, and extensionless URL resolution with path traversal sanitization Download organization — Favorite and recent folders, optional file-type categorization, stale-record cleanup, and completed history backed by SQLite Concurrent downloads — Independent controls for active tasks, HTTP connections per server, segments per file, and BT peer limits Speed control — Global and per-task upload/download limits with day-of-week and time-of-day scheduling System integration — Tray operation, optional tray speed display, macOS Dock badge/progress, protocol handlers for magnet://, thunder://, and motrixnext:// Lightweight mode — Destroys the WebView on minimize-to-tray while Rust keeps the engine, task monitor, notifications, history, and extension routing alive Notifications and power options — Native task start/complete/failure notifications, keep-awake during downloads, and optional shutdown after completion Network controls — Scoped proxy support for downloads, app updates, and tracker updates, plus system proxy detection Auto-update channels — Stable, Beta, and Latest Across Channels policies with separate download and install phases Diagnostics — Structured logs, exportable diagnostic ZIPs, database integrity checks, automatic DB rebuild, and Linux GPU rendering fallback Personalization — Light/dark/system theme, 10 color schemes, 26 languages, and first-launch system language detection Motrix Next 3.9.4 changelog: Motrix Next 3.9.4 promotes the 3.9.4 beta cycle to stable. This release refreshes bundled engine binaries, improves task detail readability and copy actions, expands link handling for magnet and ED2K workflows, polishes responsive navigation and text wrapping, updates browser extension documentation, and refines network preference controls. New Features Task Detail copy actions — Added copyable values for task metadata and reusable render functions for long text fields. Magnet and ED2K lifecycle support — Added task lifecycle handling for magnet and ED2K links. History cleanup for deleted tasks — Deleted tasks can now remove matching history records. User-Agent management — Added user-agent management and improved related network preference controls. Browser extension documentation — Added the Firefox Add-ons link for the Motrix Next extension. Improvements Engine binaries — Updated bundled binaries for supported architectures. Task Detail readability — Long task names, URLs, tracker values, and copyable metadata now render more clearly. Deletion messaging — Refined localized task deletion text for clarity and consistency. Text wrapping — Improved URI input wrapping and task name multiline display. Navigation layout — Improved sub-navigation responsiveness. Disk allocation default — Changed the default file allocation method to trunc. Proxy controls — Improved proxy button styling in network preferences. Download: Motrix Next 64-bit | ARM64 | macOS ~20.0 MB (Open Source) Links: Website | macOS / Linux | Screenshot Get alerted to all of our Software updates on Twitter at @NeowinSoftware
    • NVIDIA officially supports Ubuntu, as linked above with the GeForce NOW Hands on I did in collaboration with Paul Hill.
    • TO be clear I am not running linux today, however I keep thinking about it. And I want to make sure there are minimal obstacles if I decide to make that switch in the coming months.
  • Recent Achievements

    • Proficient
      Eric Biran went up a rank
      Proficient
    • Dedicated
      Conjor earned a badge
      Dedicated
    • Week One Done
      Windows Guy earned a badge
      Week One Done
    • Dedicated
      Mark Spruce earned a badge
      Dedicated
    • Collaborator
      conkir earned a badge
      Collaborator
  • Popular Contributors

    1. 1
      +primortal
      479
    2. 2
      PsYcHoKiLLa
      250
    3. 3
      Steven P.
      72
    4. 4
      +Edouard
      69
    5. 5
      FloatingFatMan
      67
  • Tell a friend

    Love Neowin? Tell a friend!