SFF.Network [SFF Network] Microsoft to host “fan celebrations” for July 29’s Windows 10 release

If you were looking for a reason to party a little over two weeks from now, you’re in luck: In keeping with similar efforts for previous releases of Windows, Microsoft has announced that they’ll be hosting “fan celebrations” of the arrival of Windows 10, with the help of retailers, and (of course) their own Microsoft stores.

Read more here.

 

[Cuzza]

No reason to celebrate. I've been using the latest preview build of win10. imo it sucks. It's like they took win8 and got rid of all the best bits, then added some crappy functionality make it seem loosely related to win7. All the windows apps are worse than their win8 equivalents. Only good thing is the edge browser, which is streets ahead of IE.

 

[iFreilicht]

Have you used the tablet mode? Because that's pretty much exactly what win8 used to be like. I'm rolling with the preview since completion of my build, and I think win10 has the best of both worlds. There are some minor annoyances, but overall it's a very good OS in my eyes.
I really liked the original win8 though, I think it was the right route to take and it's a bit of a bummer that things like the charms bar had to go.

 

[Cuzza]

I agree on the charms bar. I thought that thing was brilliant and I am going to miss it a lot. I admit I have not used win10 in tablet mode, because my tablet is a Surface RT, so I can't thoroughly judge win10 yet. But the worst thing is definitely the mail, people, store, sports and several other apps which are a far inferior. Still waiting in hope for final versions.

Then again, bear in mind that I have a different opinion to most people on these things. I still like vista.

 

[Phuncz]

I was never a fan of Windows 8 with the very huge differences in UI between Metro and Windows. I feel strongly that a continuous user experience is important and Windows 8 was frustrating for me on larger screens (close by). I've not tried Windows 10 yet but what I've seen does look promising for me as a desktop user with a single large screen.

 

[iFreilicht]

I agree on the charms bar. I thought that thing was brilliant and I am going to miss it a lot. I admit I have not used win10 in tablet mode, because my tablet is a Surface RT, so I can't thoroughly judge win10 yet. But the worst thing is definitely the mail, people, store, sports and several other apps which are a far inferior. Still waiting in hope for final versions.

Then again, bear in mind that I have a different opinion to most people on these things. I still like vista.

Yeah I can't use tho people calender mail apps on my PC for some reason, they are in some weird superposition where I can't open, install or remove them. And the sports one never bothered me anyway. The beauty about windows is that those apps can be fully replaced by third party ones. The new store app is fine in my eyes.

I liked vista as well, but it was full of unnecessary features and system-deep DRM integration that righteously bothered people. It didn't stand a chance against win7.

I was never a fan of Windows 8 with the very huge differences in UI between Metro and Windows. I feel strongly that a continuous user experience is important and Windows 8 was frustrating for me on larger screens (close by). I've not tried Windows 10 yet but what I've seen does look promising for me as a desktop user with a single large screen.

The only two large changes in UI are that the start screen doesn't have to be full-screen anymore, it can be resized to a start menu, and that the "Modern UI" apps can now run in windows as well. That's pretty much it. And suddenly, it became much more usable for everyone. I do agree that a lot of the changes made to windows 8 with 8.1 were absolutely vital for user experience, though. The initial version was hard to swallow.
Ok, they've got the new virtual desktops, but I don't have any incentive to use those, I have three screens already, and multi-monitor support with virtual desktops wasn't great in any OS I've ever used.

 

[Phuncz]

The only two large changes in UI are that the start screen doesn't have to be full-screen anymore, it can be resized to a start menu, and that the "Modern UI" apps can now run in windows as well. That's pretty much it. And suddenly, it became much more usable for everyone. I do agree that a lot of the changes made to windows 8 with 8.1 were absolutely vital for user experience, though. The initial version was hard to swallow.

Those two changes mean a world of difference for people with large screens or people with difficulty in flip-flopping between UI designs. Fullscreen Metro apps on a large monitor is just shocking in experience when just a moment ago you had to navigate a standard Windows UI with small icons, radio buttons and detailed design. Then a Metro-only app pops up and suddenly you're introduced to huge square elements that are the size of my hand, a touch-oriented interface with an extreme contrast-rich design.

I personally could not get used to it, how much I wanted to. And seeing as I'm not alone on this one, even people at Microsoft agreed, it's good to see Windows 10 solving many of the issues.

What was wrong with Vista is what is wrong with Windows 8: technically it's a massive improvement but it's just not implemented in a user-friendly way across the board. Vista introduced UAC, proper driver framework and many other security-related features which helped the Windows OS to a more secure and stable experience. Windows 7 buffed out the quirks.

Windows 8 gave way to new types of devices, allowing them to interoperate and share a single eco-system. Windows 10 will hopefully buff out the quirks too.

 

[iFreilicht]

We all know the tick-tock way microsoft is doing their OS release cycle
Yeah you're probably right. The largest screen I have is ~22" and I'm sitting quite far away, so I never had any issues with the Metro Apps.

 

[EdZ]

I'm rather sad to see the Start Screen go for a return of the old Start Menu. For larger monitors, the Start Screen made MUCH better use of available screen real estate. I can fit every shortcut onto one display, whereas with the start menu it'd be one weirdly looping list of submenus to hunt through (which itself was a submenu of the actual start menu).
It's going to be unpleasant to go back top that, as MS appear to be removing the choice between Start Screen and start Menu depending on 'which type of PC' you are using (i.e. if you have a tablet, you get the Start Screen with no choice to use the start Menu, and vice-versa for desktops).

 

[Phuncz]

The Start Screen is not gone in Windows 10, but you now have a choice between the Start Screen and the Start Menu, so everyone can satisfy their preference.

Larger monitors don't benefit from the Start Screen, because it's resolution dependant. So if you want more information on your screen, you want a higher resolution. If you want everything to become larger, you want a larger screen. Ofcourse you can always fiddle with the DPI settings, but let's see a practical example:

Going from a 13" 1080p laptop screen to a 65" 1080p television will yield the same amount of information displayed. But everything will look bigger.

Going from a 24" 1080p monitor to a 24" 2160p monitor will yield four times the amount of information displayed. But everything will look smaller.

 

[iFreilicht]

I'm rather sad to see the Start Screen go for a return of the old Start Menu. For larger monitors, the Start Screen made MUCH better use of available screen real estate. I can fit every shortcut onto one display, whereas with the start menu it'd be one weirdly looping list of submenus to hunt through (which itself was a submenu of the actual start menu).
It's going to be unpleasant to go back top that, as MS appear to be removing the choice between Start Screen and start Menu depending on 'which type of PC' you are using (i.e. if you have a tablet, you get the Start Screen with no choice to use the start Menu, and vice-versa for desktops).

Not the case. Took this screenshot from my desktop PC, you can see the maximise/restore button in the top right corner. You can switch between start screen and start menu that way.

The Start Screen is not gone in Windows 10, but you now have a choice between the Start Screen and the Start Menu, so everyone can satisfy their preference.

Larger monitors don't benefit from the Start Screen, because it's resolution dependant. So if you want more information on your screen, you want a higher resolution. If you want everything to become larger, you want a larger screen. Ofcourse you can always fiddle with the DPI settings, but let's see a practical example:

Going from a 13" 1080p laptop screen to a 65" 1080p television will yield the same amount of information displayed. But everything will look bigger.

Going from a 24" 1080p monitor to a 24" 2160p monitor will yield four times the amount of information displayed. But everything will look smaller.

Not entirely true. Windows employs screen size dependant content scaling, especially for high-resolution laptop monitors. On my XPS 12, the content is scaled to ~150% normally to make everything as big as if the screen had a 1366x786 resolution. I personally like more screen estate, so i'm scaling 100%, giving me the same amount of space that I've got on my desktop.

What you say is only true if all devices have their scaling set to 100%. For desktops, it's nearly always true, though. Sometimes it's a bit of a bummer that you can't select 75% scaling or something like that.

That said, all screens benefit from the start screen compared to the start menu if you're using Apps extensively, because the start screen simply fits more app tiles than the start menu.

 

[Phuncz]

True, that's why I mentioned "DPI settings", but as far as I know this is up to the manufacturer to decide and setup. As far as I know, it still defaults to 100%.

 

[EdZ]

Not the case. Took this screenshot from my desktop PC, you can see the maximise/restore button in the top right corner. You can switch between start screen and start menu that way.

That's good news. the last 10 build I tried was one of the early ones, where it was an 'automagic' setting without a user-exposed toggle.

 

[iFreilicht]

True, that's why I mentioned "DPI settings", but as far as I know this is up to the manufacturer to decide and setup. As far as I know, it still defaults to 100%.

Yeah the manufacturer can change that in the OEM setup. I'm pretty sure that windows does it automatically, though, the OS knows how large the screen is after all and the tools and settings for setting up your Apps UI in Visual Studio seem to indicate to me that windows generally expects small screens to be scaled up. I totally missed your mention of the DPI settings, sorry.

That's good news. the last 10 build I tried was one of the early ones, where it was an 'automagic' setting without a user-exposed toggle.

Yeah they got really bad feedback for that in the Insider Hub

 

[Phuncz]

Yeah the manufacturer can change that in the OEM setup. I'm pretty sure that windows does it automatically, though, the OS knows how large the screen is after all

Well, this depends on your screen's EDID to supply that information. It has a few properties for horizontal and vertical panel size, but I'm not sure all monitors correctly supply this info and that it's properly received at Windows' end.

 

[iFreilicht]

Well, this depends on your screen's EDID to supply that information. It has a few properties for horizontal and vertical panel size, but I'm not sure all monitors correctly supply this info and that it's properly received at Windows' end.

Pretty sure any screen with DisplayPort or HDMI has to supply these informations to be considered standard compliant, but I guess there are quite a no-name brand models out there that don't do this stuff.

 

[Armourcore9brker]

Microsoft seems to be having some fun with this.

 

[jeshikat]

Wow, I thought that was a joke but it's true: http://www.pcworld.com/article/2950...me-with-new-microsoft-desktop-wallpapers.html

 

[Phuncz]

Awesome, Microsoft with public humor ! Ah the days... *cough* getting old *cough*

 

[iFreilicht]

I tested the (Windows10) smiley in skype in it totally works! Does anyone know where the name ninjacat originated from? All I find are articles that say it was an inside joke, but nobody explains what the joke about it was.