[OFFICIAL] Windows 10 Insider Program

[ParadiseLost]

Biggest complaint, regarding metro, is all the real estate the applications take up.  I mean...why in the heck do these applications have to be so dang huge?

 

The below captures are the smallest I could make the metro applications...and compared them with the "legacy" equivalents.

They're designed for touch input, it's as simple as that .

[Ian S.]

Eventually I bet the Modern Apps will scale to the smallest WP size, maybe switching to WP's interface when it reaches 6 inches or so. 

[Dot Matrix]

They're designed for touch input, it's as simple as that .

Yes, and no. They're designed to scale. Tiny UI elements aren't working out anymore as screen resolutions exponentially increase.  You should just ask Apple how that's working out... That's the Verge running at native resolution on iMac with Retina. (http://theverge.com/e/6832404)

 

 

A bit ridiculous, no? Just look at how microscopic everything is! Now imagine running Windows XP or Windows 7 on that. Needless to say, things need to change in the way desktop OSs look and feel.

[PGHammer]

They're designed for touch input, it's as simple as that .

No - they are designed for smaller screens.

 

That smaller screen size isn't just about tablets - it is also about laptops and notebooks; how many laptops OR notebooks have resolutions greater than 1440x900?  (And of those that do, how much do they cost?)

 

You are so "het up" about something, and I don't think that it's really touch, so much as it is about smaller screen sizes than is the current standard for desktops - and specifically, desktop formfactor PCs.

 

The current 1920x1080 commonplace desktop screen resolution was NOT the standard resolution even for desktops five years ago - you could get it, but it wasn't cheap.  The only reason it GOT cheap is due to falling prices for mass-producible TN displays.  (How much are non-TN displays at the same resolution today?)

 

How common is 1920x1080 in terms of either notebooks OR laptops, even today?  (ANd yes - I am INCLUDING MacBooks in the re

[PGHammer]

They're designed for touch input, it's as simple as that .

No - they are designed for smaller screens.

 

That smaller screen size isn't just about tablets - it is also about laptops and notebooks; how many laptops OR notebooks have resolutions greater than 1440x900?  (And of those that do, how much do they cost?)

 

You are so "het up" about something, and I don't think that it's really touch, so much as it is about smaller screen sizes than is the current standard for desktops - and specifically, desktop formfactor PCs.

 

The current 1920x1080 commonplace desktop screen resolution was NOT the standard resolution even for desktops five years ago - you could get it, but it wasn't cheap.  The only reason it GOT cheap is due to falling prices for mass-producible TN displays.  (How much are non-TN displays at the same resolution today?)

 

How common is 1920x1080 in terms of either notebooks OR laptops, even today?  (And yes - I am INCLUDING MacBooks in the requested sample size.)

 

Windows has not only been about desktop-formfactor PCs - in fact, while Windows is used primarily ON such PCs, what has been the percentage of the new-computer base - merely since XP - that has been form-factors OTHER than desktops?

 

I'm not denying that there ARE more tablets and slates running 8.x than has been true of previous versions - however, the same has been true of simply laptops and notebooks - leaving those aforementioned tablets and slates completely out.

 

ModernUI makes more sense simply on laptops and notebooks - and that is driven by screen size - not touch.  (My older HP dv9000 has no touch support whatsoever; yet I will be the first to tell you that ModernUI makes more sense there than on my desktop.)

 

ModernUI is certainly more sensible on smaller screens - I haven't said otherwise.  However, the driver is precisely that simple - those smaller screen sizes on non-desktop-form-factor PCs.

[bandit_liberty_rumble]

Just look at how microscopic everything is!  [...] Needless to say, things need to change in the way desktop OSs look and feel.

Uh, not really... did you not read the review?

 

 

By default [...] you?re seeing everything at exactly the same size you?d see it on a lower-res iMac. The difference is that where the non-Retina iMac displays only one pixel per point, the Retina display shows a square of four; that?s four times as much detail, four times as many opportunities to create sharper edges and cleaner lines. (Apple?s been doing this on iOS devices for years, to make everything look the same no matter which iPhone you own.) That?s why text looks incredible on the Retina iMac, why I love reading on this computer in a way I never have on the iMac I bought just a few months ago, why Bioshock Infinite, at the same settings and resolution as my iMac, looks much cleaner and crisper. More pixels makes everything look the same, only better.

[PGHammer]

Yes, and no. They're designed to scale. Tiny UI elements aren't working out anymore as screen resolutions exponentially increase.  You should just ask Apple how that's working out... That's the Verge running at native resolution on iMac with Retina. (http://theverge.com/e/6832404)

 

 

A bit ridiculous, no? Just look at how microscopic everything is! Now imagine running Windows XP or Windows 7 on that. Needless to say, things need to change in the way desktop OSs look and feel.

Precisely.  If anything, laptops and notebooks have the opposing problem - at-scale takes up too MUCH space.

 

That is also why I use more ModernUI software on my notebook than my desktop.

 

That is a problem that Windows has ALWAYS had when it came to portable form-factors - the smaller the screen-size, the worse the scalability problem.  (However, not even the largest-screen notebooks or laptops have ever really solved it, or even really tackled it - because it's not a hardware problem.)

 

I have mentioned before the "God's eye" view of 1920x1080 or greater, and the impact on those with nearsightedness (with or without astigmatism).  Now consider an unadjusted (at scale, in other words) 4K desktop (3840x2160).  How small would merely text be, let alone icons?  Such a desktop is quite possible today, and using entirely off-the-shelf (if not exactly bargain-priced) consumer hardware.  An astigmatic with nearsightedness would practically faceplant into the display merely to read the text!  That is why such a desktop is - quite literally - a non-starter for me, despite being affordable.  (Affordable?  Very much so - it doesn't require multiple GPUs anymore to drive a 4k desktop.  I'm not talking gaming - but a Windows, OS X, or Linux-distribution desktop - at that outsize resolution - can be driven by exactly ONE GPU, and with a sub-$200USD price tag.  However, where is the actual real-world demand for 4k desktop displays, despite the affordability?  The majority of the cost of such a non-hypothetical 4K desktop would be the cost of the display itself - at least FOUR times the cost of the required GPU to drive the display.  So figure on $1000USD as the total price to upgrade an existing PC to 4K desktop capability - and that is just two parts.  And that is - quite literally - all that it would take.  Strange thing about the PCI Express x16 GPUs - in most cases, they will work in every such PCI Express x16 slot - even though the current spec is 3.0, the slots themselves are backward-compatible electrically back to 1.1, if not 1.0.  That means that 4k-capable quantity-of-one desktop GPUs - such as the current-generation GTX750Ti/GTX760/R9-280 - will work in motherboards with chipsets as far back as G41 (Intel Eagle Lake) if not G31 (Intel Bear Lake).  To put that in perspective, BOTH chipsets date back to Windows Vista.  However, 4K isn't being driven by desktop usage - not in the least.  It's being driven by video and/or gaming - not ordinary non-niche desktop use.  If you DO run  at 4K for ANY reason, do you stay there when back outside that task that requires 4K?  (In other words, do you run your desktop - regardless of what operating system you use - at that same resolution?)

[blerk]

<snip>

 

Careful with your wall'o'text there - Dot Matrix likes his white-space and I suspect you aren't going to meet his expectations :D

 

 

I don't see what you're getting at though. Even on small high-resolution screens, games on windows have been able to cope just fine at native resolutions whilst the rest of the OS+other programs just ran at 150% scaling or whatnot, so I don't quite see what problems 4K is bringing. 

[mdtaUK]

Biggest complaint, regarding metro, is all the real estate the applications take up.  I mean...why in the heck do these applications have to be so dang huge?

 

The below captures are the smallest I could make the metro applications...and compared them with the "legacy" equivalents.

With Windows 8 and 8.1 - The modern apps are all designed to have a minimum height of 768.  Because of the snapping, the apps also support both a 320px minimum width, or as of Windows 8.1 - a 500px minimum width option

 

I am sure some scaling and new APIs will come that enable different minimum heights when apps are run within windows.  There are still many bugs with WinRT apps in Windows 10, and I'm sure there is much to be done by the dev teams.

[HawkMan]

Based on every metro application I've used.  Aside from "Video" being terrible...so is the metro IE, Money, Weather...etc.    Why would a metro WMP be any different?

there was no windows "apps" for money and weather before modern, so...

If I recall correctly (been awhile since I used it), metro IE doesn't support plugins, can not manage favorites (by folder/subfolder), tabs/buttons/menus have been removed, etc.  As with all metro apps, large amount of display real estate has been used for nothing (like the calculator).  Metro photo burner can not do simple task like burn to cd or email.  As you already stated, the video app plays videos but just sucks in general.  Just small examples that I can think of without firing up my 8.1 notebook.  Oh...and ads in some metro apps...and generally just an eyesore.

 

I don't see a huge need for plugins or even extensions on modern IE, and most browsers are actually actively moving away from plugins. and modern IE certainly has favorites with folders and it has tabs. have you even used it ? I mean it has better favorites function than Crome. 

[PGHammer]

Careful with your wall'o'text there - Dot Matrix likes his white-space and I suspect you aren't going to meet his expectations :D

 

 

I don't see what you're getting at though. Even on small high-resolution screens, games on windows have been able to cope just fine at native resolutions whilst the rest of the OS+other programs just ran at 150% scaling or whatnot, so I don't quite see what problems 4K is bringing. 

I wasn't referring to gaming at all - but ordinary (and thus relatively boring) desktop stuff - which was both the complaint about ModernUI, and what I was referring to with my reply. 

Unlike gaming (which has higher requirements for maintaining 4K due to frame-rate concerns), ordinary desktop duties have far less - as even the iMac shows.  Look at the hardware loadout of the "Retina" iMac, and compare it to any desktop (or portable) GPU to ship merely within the past year.  It's not that the hardware can't go there, but that a scaled application (even a desktop application) looks rather lost at such a high resolution - as the OS X screenshot proves.

 

It is why (on both OS X and Windows) scaling DOES require fiddlework at high resolutions - neither OS is exactly ready out of the box for desktop work that tall.  (Ask the graphic artists that use such overlarge displays on a DAILY basis - for work - how much fiddlework they have to do as far as desktop scaling goes; it's anything but fun for them.)  If you run a portable, the issue is stood on its head - portable displays (even laptops and notebooks) are much smaller than even common desktop-formfactor displays, let alone the outliers.  ModernUI (unlike "legacy/desktop" software) is targeting full-screen displays - which are generally smaller than those for desktop-formfactor PCs.  I didn't say that tablets and slates don't benefit - they are, after all, smaller in terms of screen-size than even notebooks and laptops.  However, because there are more notebooks and laptops in the current Windows hardware base, they actually benefit more (in terms of absolute numbers AND in terms of percentages) than tablets and slates do.  By attempting to throw tablets and slates under the bus, they are ALSO - as much as they are trying to deny it - throwing more traditional laptops and notebooks under the bus as well - and there are a lot more of those (for now) than tablets and slates.  And as someone that HAS a notebook, I will naturally resent the heck outta that.

 

In other words, the issue isn't mice vs. touch, but the far-older dispute between desktop-formfactor computing and portable computing.

[PGHammer]

there was no windows "apps" for money and weather before modern, so...

 

I don't see a huge need for plugins or even extensions on modern IE, and most browsers are actually actively moving away from plugins. and modern IE certainly has favorites with folders and it has tabs. have you even used it ? I mean it has better favorites function than Crome. 

And portable computing (I'm referring to simply laptops and notebooks) used the SAME software as the larger-screened desktop-formfactor counterparts.  That may have worked well whenthe resolution differences between the two were smaller; however, the difference has grown - and that is just between laptops/notebooks and their desktop-formfactor relations; throw tablets and slates into the mix, and the issue gets MUCH worse.

 

Those smaller screens (not JUST tablets and slates, but even laptops and notebooks) need an API of their own, as the desktop API simply doesn't scale DOWN enough for portable computing.  That is the REAL reasoning behind ModernUI.

[+Frank B. Subscriber²]

Um. OS X scales quite well on 'retina' devices. Both the OS and all of the important apps (Adobe software included) scale with the UI. The Verge screenshot only shows that you can use the 5k iMac at full resolution; by default it uses 2560 x 1440, which works perfectly fine on a 27" screen. I'm using the scaled resolution equal to 1920 x 1200 on my 15" rMBP and have no issues with apps not scaling.

[PGHammer]

Um. OS X scales quite well on 'retina' devices. Both the OS and all of the important apps (Adobe software included) scale with the UI. The Verge screenshot only shows that you can use the 5k iMac at full resolution; by default it uses 2560 x 1440, which works perfectly fine on a 27" screen. I'm using the scaled resolution equal to 1920 x 1200 on my 15" rMBP and have no issues with apps not scaling.

And that is why OS X is still the preferred OS for graphics artists, etc. - they (Apple) targeted the problem because they had to for that niche.

 

Tall resolutions demand (not merely require) physically-larger screens - why are there so many Neowinians that STILL gripe and complain that a 23" (diagonal display at 1920x1080) is too small?

 

4k resolutions on PCs isn't driven by desktop software in ANY way, shape or form - instead, it is driven by video and/or gaming.  Except for API support, how relevant is even Windows to any of that?

4k desktops require less in terms of power than 4k gaming does - which then leads back to my point about implementation cost; the big cost factor is - literally - the cost of the display itself.

 

Graphics and photography artists STILL largely swear by - not at - Apple, because of that extremely-tall-resolution display support that they demand - and Apple has continued to kiss up to them.  (I'm not blaming Apple - it makes sense to them.)

 

Windows, on the other hand, eschewed highest-end displays except for hyperniche (and proprietary) solutions tied to individual OEMs and/or specific use cases (such as CAD/CAM).

 

Have you ever tried to use Microsoft Word (or WordPerfect) on such an outsize display? Or even Illustrator or Pagemaker?  (I'm talking in terms of either OS X or Windows here.)  If left un-fiddled-with, the text is way too small - and if you have clerical/secretarial support that has to write documentation on such a display, that clerk or secretary will likely want to hang YOU from the highest yardarm!

 

Windows - far more so than Apple - caters to the lowest-common-denominator - which means scaling in either direction is not as critical as it is to Apple.  However, Apple has kinda boxed themselves in with catering to such higher resolution desktops - it scales down to smaller displays even worse than Windows does.  Hence iOS - which is designed literally for smaller screens - and more "Retina" MacBooks (to attack the problem from the hardware end).

 

ModernUI, as opposed to iOS, does not require new hardware, and thus is not a "hard" firewall.  ModernUI can be used on any combination of hardware/OS that supports the API - which runs back all the way to Vista, if not (in some hardware cases) XP-era hardware.  Also, unlike iOS, that wide gamut of capable hardware allows for FULL user choice - it's not required that you even use it (except in the RT/Phone niche case - and both of those, like iOS, are largely niche driven).

 

Do you want to choose yourself what software to use?  Or do you want the choice made for you?

 

Windows lets you choose - and even more so in the case of the Technical Preview.  Apple basically boxes you in - you go where they send you.

[Alwaysonacoffebreak]

Something in the preview is messing with Valve's VAC. Got kicked out of CS GO 4 times already. If I'll see it again I'll post a Picture.

[Dashel]

OS X only 'scales' well because they took the easy way out (pixel doubling).  MS has implemented a much harder solution since it does have to factor in a wide gamut of resolutions and aspects.

 

The only API they may need is one that supports more 'responsive' layout.  There is nothing preventing Win32 apps from growing, the question is - how will Modern shrink down.

[George P Global Moderator]

OS X only 'scales' well because they took the easy way out (pixel doubling).  MS has implemented a much harder solution since it does have to factor in a wide gamut of resolutions and aspects.

 

The only API they may need is one that supports more 'responsive' layout.  There is nothing preventing Win32 apps from growing, the question is - how will Modern shrink down.

 

Yeah, why are people arguing about scaling up when the original issue here is that modern apps have some issue scaling down past a preset number (which some have pointed out as probably having to do with snap).    Modern apps by nature can and do scale up to higher resolutions without issue.  From what I remember, though I could be off here, they can either scale the UI elements bigger, using vector graphics, or the UI can change it's layout and show more on screen as the screen size/resolution gets bigger.   Depends on the developer but MS has shown examples of both methods in the past iirc.

[PGHammer]

OS X only 'scales' well because they took the easy way out (pixel doubling).  MS has implemented a much harder solution since it does have to factor in a wide gamut of resolutions and aspects.

 

The only API they may need is one that supports more 'responsive' layout.  There is nothing preventing Win32 apps from growing, the question is - how will Modern shrink down.

The issue with Win32 isn't growth, but shrinkage (specifically for smaller screen sizes).  4k desktops aren't common in the Land of Windows at all - therefore, outsized displays aren't as much of a demand as they are (and have been) for Apple.  On the other hand, there are more laptops and notebooks running Windows 7 than there are MacBooks running all versions of OS X.  Worse, portable Windows-based PCs (again, not just tablets and slates, but laptops and notebooks as well) have a mishmash of screen resolutions, and non-standard screen sizes as well.  Apple's iron-fisted control over all things Mac (and MacBook, and iOS) has produced tight-fisted rigidity in terms of screen sizes AND resolutions.

 

Further, Apple has, in fact, been mounting a back-door assault on the 4k display, by killing (albeit quietly) one of their rather profitable side-businesses - external displays for non-Apple PCs.  Consider the Apple Cinema Display and Apple Retina Display - how much of a whacking has their non-Apple connectivity taken?

[Dinggus]

Can I install this on a Dell Venue Pro 8 tablet?

[Studio384]

Can I install this on a Dell Venue Pro 8 tablet?

Every Windows 8.1 device supports Windows 10. However, I wouldn't recommend it for a tablet, you can better wait until the consumer preview when they start making it touch-friendly.

Also, build 9880 is on flight level "low". The only 2 builds that have this level are build 9841 and 9860. And we all know what happened to those 2.

https://buildfeed.net/actions/info/556/

[+Zlip792 MVC]

In 9879 Build:

 

- Pinning on Home in Windows Explorer and Layout change notice in C D drivers etc.

 

Google Translated from article:

 

File Explorer in the left navigation, C drive, D drive and other drive letter and This PC (this computer) tied after the letter was placed in "this computer" in.

 

 

Source: http://www.ithome.com/html/win10/111516.htm

 

- Feedback button on IE and Office 2013 Preview

 

 

 

Source: http://www.ithome.com/html/win10/111513.htm

 

- Hamburger icon replacing Charm bar button in windowed metro apps

 

Source: http://www.ithome.com/html/win10/111601.htm

 

- Power icon on Lock Screen

 

Source: http://www.ithome.com/html/win10/111615.htm

 

- Pin to Home

 

Source: http://www.ithome.com/html/win10/111615.htm

 

- Oldie: Task View and Search Button disable option

 

Source: http://www.ithome.com/html/win10/111606.htm

[BajiRav]

Why the ###### would they use a Vista era pin icon now? :/

[Studio384]

Why the ###### would they use a Vista era pin icon now? :/

They are just using an icon that is already in there.

[+Frank B. Subscriber²]

Brace yourselves:

 

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[Dot Matrix]

Brace yourselves:

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YAYAYAYAYA! :D