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Microsoft

Microsoft’s rollout of Windows 10 gets B+ grade

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General vibe of the new OS remains positive, say analysts

Microsoft has done a good job rolling out Windows 10 in the first two weeks, analysts said today, and the general vibe for Windows 8’s replacement has been positive, even though glitches have dampened some enthusiasm.

“If I had to give Microsoft a letter grade, it would be a B or a B+,” said Steve Kleynhans of Gartner. “It’s not an A because it hasn’t gone perfectly. They’ve stubbed their toe over privacy issues, for example.”

Microsoft began serving up the free Windows 10 upgrade late on July 28, giving participants in the firm’s Insider preview program first shot at the production code. It then slowly began triggering upgrade notices on Windows 7 and 8.1 machines whose owners had earlier “reserved” copies through an on-device app planted on their devices this spring.

The Redmond, Wash. company has said little of the rollout’s performance other than to tout that 14 million systems were running Windows 10 within 24 hours of its debut.

Estimates based on user share data from U.S. analytics company Net Applications, however, suggests that by Aug. 8, some 45 million PCs were powered by Windows 10.

Analysts largely applauded the launch. “As far as the roll-out, it’s not any worse than any other Windows,” said Kleynhans. “But it’s all happening at this compressed timetable.

“And social media now amplifies any problems,” he continued, much more so than three years ago when Windows 8 released, much less in 2009, when Microsoft last had a hit on its hands.

Others were more bullish on Microsoft’s performance. “Windows 10’s go-to-market was really quite good,” said Wes Miller of Directions on Microsoft, a research firm that specializes in tracking the company’s moves.

Miller was especially impressed with Microsoft’s ability to make customers covet the upgrade. “Something Microsoft has not always done a great job of is creating a sense of exclusivity,” said Miller. “But they’re withholding [the upgrade] just enough that there’s a sense of excitement. People are saying, ‘I want it, I’m not getting the upgrade yet.’ Arguably, that exactly what Microsoft wants.”

Windows 10’s rollout has departed from those of past editions in significant ways.
Historically, Microsoft released a new Windows to its OEM (original equipment manufacturer) partners first, who were given months to prepare new devices pre-loaded with the operating system. Only when the computer makers were ready did Microsoft deliver paid upgrades to customers who wanted to refresh their current hardware. Relatively few users paid for the upgrades; most preferred to purchase a new PC with the new OS already installed.

This cycle, Microsoft gave away the Windows 10 upgrade to hundreds of millions of customers — those running a Home or Pro/Professional edition of Windows 7 or Windows 8.1 — to jumpstart the new OS’s adoption. With some exceptions, the upgrade hit before OEMs had prepared new devices or seeded them to retail.

Because of the large number of customers eligible for the free upgrade, Microsoft announced it would distribute the code in several waves that would take weeks (according to Microsoft) or months (the consensus of analysts) to complete. While some had predicted that the upgrade’s massive audience would stress the delivery system Microsoft had built, or even affect the Internet at large, neither happened.

The “Get Windows 10” app — which was silently placed on PCs beginning in March — not only served as a way to queue customers for the upgrade, but also ran compatibility checks to ensure the hardware and software would support the new operating system, another slick move by Microsoft.

“Microsoft rolled out Windows 10 to the audience that would be most receptive,” said Patrick Moorhead, principal analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy, referring to the Insiders-get-it-first tactic. “Then they rolled it out to those who weren’t Insiders, but who had expressed a desire to get the upgrade. And only those [whose devices] passed all of its tests got it. That was a smart thing to do.”

The latter was designed to limit upgrade snafus, something Microsoft has chiefly, although not entirely, accomplished. “While the rollout was pretty clean, there have been glitchy issues here and there,” said Kleynhans, who cited post-Windows-10-upgrade updates that crippled some consumers’ machines.

Moorhead echoed that, highlighting the out-the-gate problem many had keeping Nvidia’s graphic drivers up-to-date as Microsoft’s and Nvidia’s update services tussled over which got to install a driver. “Problems have been more anecdotal than system-wide,” Moorhead said. “And they seem to get remedied very quickly.”

The bungles haven’t been widespread enough to taint the generally favorable impression of Windows 10 generated by social media, news reports and Microsoft’s PR machine, the analysts argued.

“Overall, I’d say Windows 10 has received a much more positive reception than other [editions of] Windows,” said Moorhead, who said the reaction was justified, since the developing consensus is that Windows 10 is a big improvement over its flop-of-a-predecessor, Windows 8.

“The vibe is positive, but it’s much more about consumers now than businesses,” said Directions’ Miller. Enterprises, he said, will take a wait-and-see approach — as they always do — before jumping onto Windows 10, as they must if they’re to stick with Microsoft, a given since there isn’t a viable alternative.

A credible reaction from corporate customers, Miller continued, won’t be visible until Microsoft finishes unveiling its update tracks, called “branches,” particularly the “Long-term servicing branch” (LTSB). That branch will mimic the traditional servicing model where new features and functionality will be blocked from reaching systems that businesses don’t want to see constantly changing.

“People are liking what they are getting out of the other end” of the upgrade, added Kleynhans. “From what I’ve heard, they’re happy, surprisingly happy, and generally pretty positive about the OS. But I’d expect the new shine to wear off after the first couple of weeks.”

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Windows 10

Windows 10: Fact vs. fiction

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With Win10 slated to drop July 29, we give you the straight dope on support, upgrades, and the state of the bits

It’s a few days before Windows 10 is officially slated to drop, and still, confusion abounds. Worse, many fallacies regarding Microsoft’s plans around upgrades and support for Win10 remain in circulation, despite efforts to dispel them.

Here at InfoWorld, we’ve been tracking Windows 10’s progress very closely, reporting the evolving technical details with each successive build in our popular “Where Windows 10 stands right now” report. We’ve also kept a close eye on the details beyond the bits, reporting on the common misconceptions around Windows 10 licensing, upgrade paths, and updates. If you haven’t already read that article, you may want to give it a gander. Many of the fallacies we pointed out six weeks ago are still as fallacious today — and you’ll hear them repeated as fact by people who should know better.

Here, with Windows 10 nearing the finish line, we once again cut through the fictions to give you the true dirt — and one juicy conjecture — about Windows 10, in hopes of helping you make the right decisions regarding Microsoft’s latest Windows release when it officially lands July 29.

Conjecture: Windows Insiders already have the “final” version of Windows 10
Give or take a few last-minute patches, members of the Windows Insider program may already have what will be the final version of Win10. Build 10240, with applied patches, has all the hallmarks of a first final “general availability” version.

If you’re in the Insider program, either Fast or Slow ring, and your computer’s been connected to the Internet recently, you’ve already upgraded, automatically, to the Windows 10 that’s likely headed out on July 29. No, I can’t prove it. But all the tea leaves point in that direction. Don’t be surprised if Terry Myerson announces on July 29 that Insiders are already running the “real” Windows 10 — and have been running it for a couple of weeks. Everyone else can get a feel for the likely “final” Windows 10, build 10240, by checking out our ongoing Windows 10 beta coverage at “Where Windows stands right now.”

Fact: Windows 10 has a 10-year support cycle
Like Windows Vista, Win7, and Win8 before it, Windows 10 has a 10-year support cycle. In fact, we’re getting a few extra months for free: According to the Windows Lifecycle fact sheet, mainstream support ends Oct. 13, 2020, and extended support ends Oct. 14, 2025. Of course, if your sound card manufacturer, say, stops supporting Windows 10, you’re out of luck.

ALSO ON NETWORK WORLD: What if Windows went open source tomorrow?
I have no idea where Microsoft’s statement about covering Windows 10 “for the supported lifetime of the device” came from. It sounds like legalese that was used to waffle around the topic for seven frustrating months. Microsoft’s publication of the Lifecycle fact sheet shows that Windows 10 will be supported like any other version of Windows. (XP’s dates were a little different because of SP2.)

Fiction: The 10 years of support start from the day you buy or install Windows 10
There’s been absolutely nothing from Microsoft to support the claim that the Win10 support clock starts when you buy or install Windows 10, a claim that has been attributed to an industry analyst.

The new Windows 10 lifecycle and updating requirements look a lot like the old ones, except they’re accelerated a bit. In the past we had Service Packs, and people had a few months to get the Service Packs installed before they became a prerequisite for new patches. With Windows 8.1, we had the ill-fated Update 1: You had to install Update 1 before you could get new patches, and you only had a month (later extended) to get Update 1 working. The new Windows 10 method — requiring customers to install upgrades/fixes/patches sequentially, in set intervals — looks a whole lot like the old Win 8.1 Update 1 approach, although corporate customers in the Long Term Servicing Branch can delay indefinitely.

Fact: You can clean install the (pirate) Windows 10 build 10240 ISO right now and use it without entering a product key
Although it isn’t clear how long you’ll be able to continue to use it, the Windows 10 build 10240 ISO can be installed and used without a product key. Presumably, at some point in the future you’ll be able to feed it a new key (from, say, MSDN), or buy one and use it retroactively.
Fiction: You can get a free upgrade to Windows 10 Pro from Win7 Home Basic/Premium, Win8.1 (“Home” or “Core”), or Win8.1 with Bing

A common misconception is that you can upgrade, for free, from Windows 7 Home Basic or Home Premium, Windows 8.1 (commonly called “Home” or “Core”), or Windows 8.1 with Bing, to Windows 10 Pro. Nope, sorry — all of those will upgrade to Windows 10 Home. To get to Windows 10 Pro, you would then have to pay for an upgrade, from Win10 Home to Pro.

Fact: No product key is required to upgrade a “genuine” copy of Win7 SP1 or Win8.1 Update
According to Microsoft, if you upgrade a “genuine” copy of Windows 7 SP1 or Windows 8.1 Update, come July 29 or later, Windows 10 won’t require a product key. Instead, keep Home and Pro versions separate — upgrade Home to Home, Pro to Pro. If you upgrade and perform a Reset (Start, Settings, Update & Security, Recovery, Reset this PC) you get a clean install of Windows 10 — again, per Microsoft. It’ll take a few months to be absolutely certain that a Reset performs an absolutely clean install, but at this point, it certainly looks that way.

Fiction: Windows 10 requires a Microsoft account to install, use, or manage
Another common misconception is that Microsoft requires users have a Microsoft account to install, use, or manage Windows 10. In fact, local accounts will work for any normal Windows 10 activity, although you need to provide a Microsoft account in the obvious places (for example, to get mail), with Cortana, and to sync Edge.

Fact: If your tablet runs Windows RT, you’re screwed
Microsoft has announced it will release a new version of Windows RT, called Windows RT 3, in September. If anybody’s expecting it to look anything like Windows 10, you’re sorely mistaken. If you bought the original Surface or Surface RT, you’re out of luck. Microsoft sold folks an obsolete bucket of bolts that, sad to say, deserves to die. Compare that with the Chromebook, which is still chugging along.

Fiction: Microsoft pulled Windows Media Player from Windows 10
One word here seems to be tripping up folks. What Microsoft has pulled is Windows Media Center, which is a horse of a completely different color. If you’re thinking of upgrading your Windows Media Center machine to Windows 10, you’re better off retiring it and buying something that actually works like a media center. WMP is still there, although I wonder why anybody would use it, with great free alternatives like VLC readily available.

Fiction: Windows 10 is a buggy mess
In my experience, Windows 10 build 10240 (and thus, presumably, the final version) is quite stable and reasonably fast, and it works very well. There are anomalies — taskbar icons disappear, some characters don’t show up, you can’t change the picture for the Lock Screen, lots of settings are undocumented — and entire waves of features aren’t built yet. But for day-to-day operation, Win10 works fine.

Fact: The current crop of “universal” apps is an electronic wasteland
Microsoft has built some outstanding universal apps on the WinRT foundation, including the Office trilogy, Edge, Cortana, and several lesser apps, such as the Mail/Calendar twins, Solitaire, OneNote, and the Store. But other software developers have, by and large, ignored the WinRT/universal shtick. You have to wonder why Microsoft itself wasn’t able to get a universal OneDrive or Skype app going in time for July 29. Even Rovio has given a pass on Angry Birds 2 for the universal platform. Some games are coming (such as Rise of the Tomb Raider), but don’t expect a big crop of apps for the universal side of Windows 10 (and, presumably, Windows 10 Mobile) any time soon.

Fiction: Microsoft wants to control us by forcing us to go to Windows 10
I hear variations on this theme all the time, and it’s tinfoil-hat hooey. Microsoft is shifting to a different way of making money with Windows. Along the way, it’s trying out a lot of moves to reinvigorate the aging cash cow. Total world domination isn’t one of the options. And, no, the company isn’t going to charge you rent for Windows 10, though it took seven months to say so, in writing.

Fiction: Windows 7 and Windows 8 machines will upgrade directly to Windows 10
Win7 and Win8 machines won’t quite upgrade directly to Win10. You need Windows 7 Service Pack 1, or Windows 8.1 Update 1, in order to perform the upgrade. If you don’t have Windows 7 SP1, Microsoft has official instructions that’ll get you there from Windows 7. If you’re still using Windows 8, follow these official instructions to get to Windows 8.1 Update. Technically, there’s a middle step on your way to Win10.

Fact: We have no idea what will happen when Microsoft releases a really bad patch for Windows 10
If there’s an Achilles’ heel in the grand Windows 10 scheme, it’s forced updates for Windows 10 Home users and Pro users not attached to update servers. As long as Microsoft rolls out good-enough-quality patches — as it’s done for the past three months — there’s little to fear. But if a real stinker ever gets pushed out, heaven only knows how, and how well, Microsoft will handle it.

Fact: You’d have to be stone-cold crazy to install Windows 10 on a production machine on July 29
There isn’t one, single killer app that you desperately need on July 29. Those in the know have mountains of questions, some of which won’t be answered until we see how Win10 really works and what Microsoft does to support it. If you want to play with Windows 10 on a test machine, knock yourself out. I will, too. But only a certified masochist would entrust a working PC to Windows 10, until it’s been pushed and shoved and taken round several blocks, multiple times.

You have until July 29, 2016, to take advantage of the free upgrade. There’s no rush. Microsoft won’t run out of bits.

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Windows 10

Windows 10: The 10 coolest features you should check out first

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From Cortana to the fancy new Start menu, you won’t want to miss these Windows 10 features.

Burying the past
Let’s not beat around the bush: Windows 10 isn’t anywhere near finished, yet it’s already head-and-shoulders better than Windows 8.1, at least for traditional PC users. The fact that it banishes full-screen apps and the Metro Start screen to the aether, focusing instead on the tried-and-true desktop, should be reason enough to make PC purists smile.

These are the 10 coolest new features already available in the Windows 10 Preview. Want to try them for yourself? Here’s everything you need to know to give the Windows 10 Preview a whirl.

The Start menu
Windows 10 atones for one of Windows 8’s greatest sins by returning the Start menu to its rightful spot in the lower left-hand corner of the desktop. But rather than focusing on desktop apps alone, the Windows 10 Start Menu mixes in a dash of the Metro Start screen’s functionality, sprinkling Live Tiles of Windows 8-style apps next to shortcuts to more traditional PC software.

You can turn off that Live Tile functionality if you’d like, and even unpin all the Metro apps from the Start menu, returning it to purely desktop-focused glory. Or you can choose to have the Start menu expand to the full screen, and resize Metro apps to recreate a more Windows 8-like experience. The choice is yours.

Windowed Metro apps
As you might have caught on by now, those reviled Metro apps from Windows 8 haven’t been eradicated—but they have been molded to fit desktop sensibilities. In Windows 10, launching a Metro app on your PC opens it in a desktop window, rather than dumping you into a full-screen app. The windowed apps have a mouse-friendly toolbar of options across the top, and even alter their interface to best fit the size of the window. Nifty.

It’s not all roses—you can’t cut-and-paste text from a Metro app to a normal app, for instance, and Metro apps still tend to sport a sea of wasted space. But it’s a vast improvement over Windows 8.

Action Center notifications
Notifications are one of the coolest features of modern operating systems, with popups reminding you of all sorts of useful information—and Windows 10 has them, too.

As Cortana becomes more tightly integrated into Windows 10, expect to see the Action Center become a repository of useful information (rather than the somewhat barren wasteland that it is right now). As notifications slide into view, they’re archived here.

Cortana
Cortana, Microsoft’s clever digital assistant on Windows Phone 8.1, makes the jump to PCs with Windows 10, where she assumes control of the operating system’s search functions. Cortana will want to access your personal info, then use that info along with her Bing-powered cloud smarts to intelligently surface information you’re looking and perform other helpful tasks.

Cortana can help you find all sorts of online information via natural language queries you ask using text or voice commands. Cortana can also apply those natural language smarts to use search your hard drive, OneDrive, and business network for files that meet certain filters, like “Find me pictures from May.”

It’s deeply cool… though the initial Cortana build can be a bit flaky. She’s a lot smarter (and funnier) in Windows Phone 8.1; the Windows 10 version just needs a bit more time in the oven.

Project Spartan browser
Forget Internet Explorer. Well, don’t forget it entirely—it’s still tucked away in a corner of Windows 10 for legacy compatibility purposes. But the star of the Internet show in Microsoft’s new operating system is clearly Project Spartan, a brand-new browser built from the ground up for speed, slickness, and trawling the modern web.

Spartan uses Microsoft’s new Edge rendering engine—which isn’t being included in IE in Windows 10—and packs some nifty extras. Cortana pops up with supplementary information while you search the web, such as Yelp reviews and Bing Maps directions when you’re viewing a restaurant website. Digital inking tools let you easily mark up a website and share it with others. Finally, Spartan also includes an awesome clutter-stripping Reading View, and allows you to stash articles in the complementary Reading List app for later perusal.

Revamped Mail and Calendar apps
Windows 10 Preview build 10061 introduced overhauled Mail and Calendar apps that are vastly better than their Windows 8 counterparts. While the Windows 8 apps were pokey, the Windows 10 variants are speedy and responsive, and they manage to fit much more info on the screen while still being friendly to mice cursors and fat fingers alike. The new apps also dynamically shift their interfaces to fit nicely into windows of all shapes and sizes.

The Mail app adds swipe gesture controls so you can quickly sort your inbox with just a few swipes—and what each swipe does is user-configurable, too. But more important for practicality, the revamped apps include key functionality that was missing in their Windows 8 predecessors: POP email support in the Windows 10 Mail app, and Google Calendar support in Calendar.

Virtual desktops
The poor man’s multimonitor setup allows you to go back and forth between either apps or “desktops” of apps, organized how you like them. (You can either ALT-TAB through the apps themselves or else hit Windows + CTRL+ either the left or arrow to move between virtual desktops, and right-click and app to move it between virtual desktops, too.)

Either way, virtual desktops mean that you instantly know where things are.

Xbox App
The new app should feel deeply familiar to Xbox One fans: The center point is your Activity Feed, which is populated by your Xbox Live Friends’ activities, such as unlocking an achievement or launching a Twitch stream. The right side of the app lists your friends; selecting one offers options to view their game clips, invite them to a party, send an IM, and more. You can also view your own achievements, manage your profile, and more all right within the app. Eventually, you’ll be able to stream your Xbox One games to a Windows 10 PC or tablet.

We can’t help but shake the feeling that this app is more beneficial to console gamers who happen to have a PC than to true PC gamers. But it’s a very handy tool indeed if you fall into the former camp.

Continuum
Yes, Windows 10 is vastly improved on PCs, but Microsoft didn’t forget about touchscreen users. As of Build 9926, Windows 10 includes a handy “Continuum” feature that dynamically switches the interface between the PC-friendly desktop and a Windows 8-like mode that’s better suited for fingers (pictured above), depending on how you’re using the device.

Windows tablets will default to the latter; PCs to the former. And hybrids will intelligently switch between the two modes depending on whether you have a keyboard attached. In tablet mode, the Start menu expands to fit the full screen, as do Metro apps. If you’d like to force a switch, the new Action Center has a dedicated “Tablet Mode” button that you can enable or disable at will.

Settings are solidified, while Charms vanish
One of the odder design decisions within Windows 8 was the separation of Settings into two buckets, one each for the Desktop and Modern/Metro interfaces. With Windows 10, that goes away. Now, there is one Settings menu, available from the Start button. As a bonus, the somewhat annoying Charms menu has vanished. Hurray!

 

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Windows 10, Windows 7, Windows 8

Update: Microsoft quietly seeds consumer PCs with Windows 10 upgrade ‘nag’ campaign

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Automatic update delivered to most Windows 7 and 8.1 consumer devices illustrates aggressive marketing intent
Microsoft has seeded most consumer Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 PCs with an automatic update that will pitch the free Windows 10 upgrade to customers.

According to Myce.com, a March 27 non-security update aimed at Windows 7 Service Pack 1 (SP1) and Windows 8.1 Update — the latter, the April 2014 refresh — lays the foundation for a Windows 10 marketing and upgrade campaign. The update, identified by Microsoft as KB3035583, has been offered as “Recommended,” meaning that it will be automatically downloaded and installed on PCs where Windows Update has been left with its default settings intact.

Microsoft was typically terse in the accompanying documentation for KB3035583, saying only that it introduced “additional capabilities for Windows Update notifications when new updates are available to the user.”

Myce.com, however, rooted through the folder that the update added to Windows’ SYSTEM32 folder and found files that spelled out a multi-step process that will alert users at several milestones that Microsoft triggers.

Computerworld confirmed that the update deposited the folder and associated files onto a Windows 7 SP1 system.

One of the files Myce.com called out, “config.xml,” hinted at how the Redmond, Wash. company will offer Windows 10’s free upgrade.

The first phrase, marked as “None,” disables all features of the update. But the second, tagged as “AnticipationUX,” switches on a tray icon — one of the ways Windows provides notifications to users — and what was listed as “Advertisement.” Myce.com interpreted the latter as some kind of display pitching the upcoming Windows 10, perhaps a stand-alone banner in Windows 7 and a special tile on the Windows 8.1 Start screen.

A third phrase, “Reservation,” turns on what the .xml code identified as “ReservationPage,” likely another banner or tile that lets the user “reserve” a copy of the upgrade as part of Microsoft’s marketing push.

Later steps labeled “RTM” and “GA” referred to Microsoft-speak for important development milestones, including Release to Manufacturing (RTM) and General Availability (GA). The former pegs code ready to ship to computer and device makers, while the latter signals a finished product suitable for distribution to users.

The upgrade won’t be triggered until GA, according to the .xml file’s contents.

Presumably, the messages shown in the tray icon — and when displayed, the ad banner or tile — will change at each phase, with the contents drawn from a URL specified by Microsoft in the .xml file.

Not surprisingly, the Enterprise editions of Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 — those are sold only to large customers with volume licensing agreements — will not display the Windows 10 upgrade pitches. That’s consistent with what Microsoft has said previously, that the Windows Enterprise SKUs will not be eligible for the free upgrade. By refusing to show the alerts and ads to Windows Enterprise users, Microsoft avoids ticking off IT administrators, who will, by all accounts, stick with Windows 7 for the next several years before migrating to Windows 10 as the former nears its January 2020 retirement.

Although Microsoft has often prepped existing versions of Windows for upcoming updates with behind-the-scenes code, the extent of the messaging generated by the .xml file issued on March 27 would be a change from past practices. That fits with Microsoft’s professed goal of getting as many as possible onto Windows 10, a position best illustrated by the unprecedented free upgrade.

Users will face a long line of nagging messages that will be impossible to ignore. Add to that the fact Microsoft set KB3035583 as Recommended — by default Windows Update treats those the same as critical security fixes tagged “Important” — and it’s clear Microsoft will be aggressive in pushing Windows 10.

Those who don’t want to see the Windows 10 marketing push on their machines can uninstall KB3035583 from the Windows Update panel. But because the .xml file was pegged as “version 1.0,” there’s a good chance more such updates will follow.

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Microsoft

First Look: Microsoft’s new Spartan browser for Windows 10

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Here’s what sets Spartan apart from Internet Explorer.

Spartan
The most recent Windows 10 Technical Preview comes with Spartan, a web browser that will eventually replace Internet Explorer. It’s not an updated version of IE under a different name; it’s a new browser that Microsoft built from scratch. Here’s what sets Spartan apart from Internet Explorer.

New name
For the time being, the browser is officially referred to as Project Spartan, and “Spartan” may or may not be its final name when it’s released with Windows 10. Sure, unlike “Internet Explorer,” the name doesn’t strongly imply that this program is for browsing the Internet, but neither do the names Chrome, Firefox, Opera or Safari. So we think “Spartan” sounds like it would fit in perfectly among its competitors.

Internet Explorer lives on
Microsoft’s previous, and not much-loved browser will still be included in Windows 10, in case you need to visit sites or use web services that absolutely require it. This will probably apply mostly to enterprise users. The current Windows 10 Technical Preview doesn’t list Internet Explorer on the desktop or taskbar. It’s hidden under Windows Accessories in the Start Menu.

Spartan is the default
Spartan will be set as the default browser in Windows 10. This status can be changed by another browser, like Chrome or Firefox, to take over the role as the default. There isn’t a way to set Spartan back to default within its own settings. To do this you have to go to the new Windows 10 Settings app.

Spartan features Edge
rendering engine
Not only will Windows 10 come with two web browsers, each browser will use a different rendering engine. IE will still use Trident, while Spartan comes with the faster and more technologically up-to-date successor Edge. Originally, Microsoft considered stuffing both engines into their new browser, but elected not to, in order to better clarify the separation between the two browsers: IE would be sticking around for backward compatibility.

Spartan becomes Windows app
Is Microsoft’s new browser a Windows app or desktop application? It appears to be the former. In Windows 10, users will interact with Windows apps on the desktop environment in resizable windows; the overall feel from using Spartan suggests it is such an app. It also shares the same design language as the other new, resizable Windows apps coming to Windows 10, such as the Store and Maps apps, as seen in its title bar and borderless frame.

Spartan has cleaner, simpler look
As its name implies, compared to IE, Spartan sports a cleaner looking UI with a borderless viewing pane and simpler graphical elements in the toolbar. This minimalism is also evident under its settings menu, which displays things in large text and isn’t cluttered with several options. In a side-by-side matchup, Spartan’s GUI initially looks similar — the main differences are that Spartan’s has fewer colors and slightly larger toolbar icons, but its tabs are set over the toolbar, as opposed to the way IE does it by setting tabs within the toolbar. Spartan’s arrangement of tabs looks less confusing.

Spartan has link sharing feature
This is a minor feature, but one that isn’t in the latest IE. In Spartan, you can send a link directly to another Windows app, such as OneNote or the Reading List.

Cortana is integrated into Spartan
Microsoft’s personal digital assistant Cortana will come with Windows 10. It’s similar to Apple’s Siri or Google’s Google Now, where, basically, you speak aloud a command or question and the technology will scour the Internet for your requested information, sometimes speaking out what it finds in a digital voice. Cortana’s features are integrated into Spartan but, as of this writing, can be accessed only in the US versions of the latest Windows 10 Technical Preview, but Microsoft plans to expand its availability to other countries soon.

Spartan will likely support extensions
Firefox has add-on functionality, while Chrome refers to its equivalent feature as extensions. Under Spartan, add-ons appear to refer to plugins for running multimedia technologies, like Flash. It’s been reported that Spartan’s final release will have extension support similar to Chrome, so developers will be able to write tools to enhance the usability of the browser.

Spartan has ‘reading view’ for smaller screens
Spartan can re-render certain pages to display only the main body of text and a related image, stripping out extraneous graphics and text from the original layout. This is meant to make an online article more legible and visually comfortable to read, especially on a tablet. To do this, you click the open-book icon to the right of the URL address bar. This function isn’t available when this icon is grayed-out: Not every page is able to be stripped down to its essentials. Spartan’s reading view tends to be available when you visit a page showing an article or blog entry, but not always.

Spartan integrates with Web Note drawing tool
This ballyhooed feature lets you draw right onto a page, doodling over it or jotting handwritten notes (if you are using a digital pen on a Windows 10 tablet). But technically what Web Note does is capture an image of a page, and then give you basic drawing and highlighting tools. You can also annotate the image with notes you type in, and copy the image of the page, or portions of it, so that you can paste it into a document or image that you’re editing in another program. Pages can be saved as a favorite (bookmark), added to the browser’s reading list, or forwarded to other Windows apps through Share.

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Windows 10

20 hot user ideas for Windows 10.

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Vox populi: Windows Feedback means you can prod Microsoft to change Windows 10 — but you must vote now

Top 20 Windows 10 Feedback suggestions
The Windows 10 Feedback mechanism offers a unique way for you to change the course of Windows development. While Microsoft’s made only a few, very minor changes to the Win10 Technical Preview in response to feedback, the time to get your vote in is right now, while the dev team goes into an intense six-to-eight-week full-court press.

The following list aggregates feedback items that many Windows “Insiders” feel are most important, with a bit of cheering from the mouse-and-keyboard peanut gallery, and vetting from yours truly. If you want to see these changes in the shipping version of Windows 10, speak now or forever hold the pieces.

Let’s not let the tragedy of Windows 8 be repeated on our watch!

If you aren’t already running Windows 10, it’s easy to use Microsoft’s ISO file to install the latest version, Windows 10 Technical Preview build 9879. Get with the system and get your opinion heard!

Windows 10 Feedback: How to be heard
When you are officially signed up for the Insider Program and have the latest version of Windows 10 Technical Preview installed, go into the Windows Feedback application by clicking Start, then choosing the Windows Feedback tile on the right side of the Start menu.

Take a few minutes to orient yourself in the Windows Feedback app. In particular, note how you can add a Me Too to any of the existing feedback items. That’s the key. If you find a suggestion that rings your chimes, give it a Me Too. If you have a suggestion that’s slightly different from one you see, write up the details as a New Feedback — but don’t forget to add your Me Too vote to the original item. Microsoft counts Me Toos.

Section: Apps/OneDrive

1. Tester’s Feedback: Not at all pleased with the changes to how OneDrive interacts with this latest build (9879). In the OneDrive folder ONLY the synced stuff shows up. Things that are online only have to be gotten to by going to the website. Not good imo.

You can see the problem in this screenshot. On the left, in File Explorer, my OneDrivePictures folder has a folder called Camera Roll and a handful of individual files. On the right, if I log in to OneDrive, there are two folders — including an extra one called Photos. The file called Photos isn’t synced, so it doesn’t show up in File Explorer. In fact, if you looked at your OneDrive folder with File Explorer in build 9879, you’d have no way of knowing the Photos folder existed — applications can’t get to it, Windows searches won’t find anything in it, you can’t save to it.

It’s a controversial move that, in my opinion, makes Windows 10 and OneDrive considerably less useful than they should be. Computerworld’s Gregg Keizer has an excellent synopsis of the controversy. Peter Bright at Ars Technica posted a more conciliatory analysis, and Microsoft has responded. I, for one, think that CITEworld contributor Mary Branscombe hit the nail on the head with her original post, which garnered 7,100 votes, then was pulled by Microsoft.

You can’t vote for Mary Branscombe’s original. But you can, if so inclined, vote for its proxy, listed above.

Section: Apps/All Other Apps

2. Tester’s Feedback: We need a new Windows Media player. Most people install other players like mpc and vlc because of the lack of codec support and features. WMP should have a playlist that can be detached as a separate window. The playlist should support auto save in case you’ve added new files to it but the player was closed unexpectedly…

3. Tester’s Feedback: Don’t preload so many junk apps: Travel, Games, News etc. If people want an app for it, they’ll go to the Windows Store to get it. Not including them will also make the OS be smaller and configure faster.

I get that Microsoft wants to sell Xboxes, games, music, videos, and the like. I don’t get how that translates into poorly behaved Windows apps that I’m forced to install but will never use.

Looks like Windows 10 will be able to play FLAC and MKV files — only 10 years late and 10 cents short.

I give a Me Too to both suggestions — with a twist. Some inside scuttlebutt says Windows Media Player may be dropped in Win10, or at the very least, it won’t be improved. Good riddance, sez I. Hey, Microsoft, why not include a copy of VLC with Win10, kill WMP, and make Xbox Music and Xbox Video optional?

Section: Apps/App behavior on multi-monitor

4. Tester’s Feedback: Add the ability to set other desktops to another monitor. This will provide users with Multi-display setups to have more multitasking functionality when combining the power of Multiple desktops and Other displays.

I’m surprised this wasn’t in the design spec from day one.

Although the user interface for assigning desktops to monitors might be challenging (context menu on each of the thumbnails?), the ability to set up a desktop, then send it to a different monitor would be a godsend for many multi-mon-munchkins.

Section: File Explorer/File Association

5. Tester’s Feedback: Give us an option to unassociate file types! If someone, for example, associates by mistake a system file type to a 3rd party program, then all files of the same type will appear to open with that program.

6. Tester’s Feedback: Don’t check “Use this app for all .xyz files” by default. This drives me nuts. I use Open With to open a file with a different program in a one-off scenario. I constantly have to uncheck it.

The two problems go hand in hand. Advanced Windows users frequently open a file with a one-off program and forget to uncheck the box. That leads to the situation where you want to get rid of the association.

I’ve seen people royally mess up their machines by assigning an unusual program (say, Notepad) to a critical filename extension (for example, .dll). Try diagnosing that one.

Section: File Explorer/File Picker

7. Tester’s Feedback: Tabbed browsing! We use it daily with our Web browser. Our file browser needs it built in, so I don’t have to keep using third-party programs.

(There’s a similar item in the section File Explorer/Ribbon and context menus)

Meet Clover, the best-known third-party program to add tabs to the Windows 8 (File) Explorer. Clover has a very simple user interface: Exactly as you would drag and drop websites to create browser tabs, you can drag and drop locations inside Windows Explorer up to the top, to turn them into tabs.

Click on the tab, and Windows Explorer navigates to the location: easy, intuitive, effective.

This screenshot shows Clover working perfectly well with the Windows 10 Tech Preview build 9879 File Explorer. The tabs across the top are the ones I chose to speed up navigating. Why can’t Windows 10’s built-in File Explorer do the same thing?

Section: File Explorer/Libraries

8. Tester’s Feedback: I would like the option to open file explorer to “This PC” instead of “Home” or the ability to add drives to the Frequent folders under “Home.”

9. Tester’s Feedback: Windows + E should take you to This PC, not Home. Or give the option to include This PC to my Favorites.

10. Tester’s Feedback: The home folder should be customizable.

Windows 7 opened Windows Explorer to your Libraries. Windows 8 doesn’t play well with Libraries, so Microsoft changed Windows Explorer to open in a made-up place called “This PC,” which includes the primary folders (Desktop, Documents, Downloads, Music, Pictures, Videos), Devices and Drives, and Network Locations. In Windows 10 build 9879, File Explorer (different name, same app) opens to a new made-up place called “Home,” which, as of this build, lists Frequent folders and Recent files.

There doesn’t appear to be any way to modify the contents of the “Home” location, so you’re stuck with Frequent folders and Recent files. Clearly, Microsoft hasn’t thought this through very well.

Section: Windows Installation and Setup/First sign-in Start screen layout or app registration

11. Tester’s Feedback: Please add the ability to register a local user account without logging into the Microsoft online account.

12. Tester’s Feedback: You can sign in with a standard account, but the need to select “create a new account” under “sign in with Microsoft account” is misleading, having the “Make a local account” under it would be better.

13. Tester’s Feedback: I don’t like being forced to use Microsoft accounts as my Windows account, so I had to go through hustle of providing fake Outlook account to force install process option where I can create local account.

Similar Feedback under Windows Installation and Setup/Out-of-box-experience and under Windows Installation and Setup/Windows installation, Personalization and Ease of Access/User accounts, and several others.

Microsoft is still stacking the deck, trying hard to get you to use your Microsoft account as a Windows logon. If you don’t want to use a Microsoft account (or convert a current email account into a Microsoft account) to log onto Windows, when you create the local Windows account (see screenshot) you have to click “Sign in without a Microsoft account (not recommended),” then at the bottom of the next screen click “Local Account.”

Microsoft’s playing Google’s game. When you use a Microsoft Account to log on to Windows, Microsoft can keep track of where and when you’re logging in, correlate your user ID with your IP address (and thus your Bing searches and visited URLs in IE), and track all of your local searches.

If you think Local Accounts are for power users only, ask yourself this: If a typical Windows customer understood that using a Microsoft account let Microsoft track them and their searches, what would their reaction be? I don’t know about you, but my Aunt Mergatroid would be aghast.

Section: Network/Network and sharing center

14. Tester’s Feedback: There should be a more intuitive way to change the type (private vs public) of a network.

As it stands in build 9879, the only way I’ve found to change a network from public to private, or vice versa, requires you to “Forget” the network. The only way to do that, as best I can tell, is to bring up the Network pane on the right — click Start, PC Settings, Networks, Manage, and at the bottom click Open Network Flyout (see screenshot). Then right-click on the connection you want to change, and choose “Forget this network.”

Then you have to reconnect to the network, this time specifying either private or public.

Yeah, I think that needs to be more intuitive.

Section: Search/Windows Search

15. Tester’s Feedback: The Windows Search button on the taskbar is weird. Is it supposed to be its own app? If so, why whenever you click a link does it go to IE? This is very strange to me. If this is the case, why even have it? I could just fire up IE and do the same thing. Seems redundant.

16. Tester’s Feedback: Windows Search result brings search results from the Web which personally is a terrible idea. If I want to search the Web, I will start IE or any other browser and search against Google or Bing or Yahoo search engine.

Microsoft uses Windows Search’s extended Web searching — “Smart Search” — to sell ads and to add to its Bing hit count. I talked about it a year ago, when Microsoft first introduced the “feature” into what would become Windows 8.1 Update 1.

In a nutshell, unless you turn it off, Microsoft can track every search you make on your machine — and feed you ads based on your search terms. I’m not talking about Web searches. I’m talking about simple searches for documents, or photos, or music. If you use a Microsoft account and leave Windows Search enabled, Microsoft can amass an enormous amount of information, solely from the way you use your machine on your data.

In Windows 8.1 you can turn it off (or set it off during installation), although it’s enabled by default. In Windows 10, I don’t see any way to turn it off.

Scroogled? Bah! Microsoft snoops around, too — and it brags to its advertisers about how effective Windows snooping can be.

Section: Windows Update and Recovery/Backup and restore

17. Tester’s Feedback: You should return Windows 7 style backup.

18. Tester’s Feedback: Bring back scheduled increment Windows image backups. File history is great, but it’s not enough.

19. Tester’s Feedback: Make System Restore easier to find! Ever since Windows 8 you’ve hidden the classic system restore (where you have automatic restore points) inside “Recovery” so you can push Refresh and Reset PC to the front… Make it accessible again for non-computer-savvy users!

Many more Feedback items, in multiple Feedback sections, are in the same vein.

Microsoft buried the Windows Backup tools in Windows 8, tore some of them out of Windows 8.1, and they sure as shootin’ aren’t coming back in Windows 10. The goal, I’m told, is to present a Chromebook-style backup capability: You don’t need to back up anything on your computer because it’s in the cloud. To that I say, balderdash. If I want Chromebook backup, I’ll use a Chromebook. (In fact, I do, but that’s another story.)

Windows 10 doesn’t create daily restore points (see screenshot). If there’s a way to bring back Windows 7’s full-system backup, I can’t find it (the Win 8.1 trick of searching for “Windows 7 File Recovery” doesn’t work). With OneDrive hitting the skids (see previous slide), backing up to OneDrive is harder than ever.

I doubt that Microsoft will bring back Windows 7 backup/recovery, but I can always hope.

Section: Windows Update and Recovery/Restore, refresh and reset

20. Tester’s Feedback: Allow holding down Shift or F8 or possibly even the Windows key at boot to get the Advanced Boot Options screen. This will make getting into safe mode and other recovery options easier to access before Windows boots.

Booting into Safe Mode in Windows 10 (like Win8 before it) is a convoluted process with a chicken-and-egg element. If you want to get into Safe Mode (or System Restore, Image Recovery, Startup Repair), you have to go into PC Settings, Update and Recovery, Recovery, then click Restart Now at the bottom (see screenshot).

For the 1.5 billion people who’ve been exposed to F8 on boot, perhaps by proxy or vicariously, that’s a big change. It also means Windows has to be working before you can boot into Safe Mode.

Windows 10 Feedback: Speak up now

That’s my take on the best of the Windows 10 Feedback items.

I didn’t include items that have been suggested a million times and ignored by Microsoft (for example, creating a clipboard manager that stores multiple items, or showing filename extensions by default). I also didn’t include feedback that’s surely already on the dev list (such as dragging an open app from one desktop to another, different themes on different desktops, putting an icon marker on shared folders, bringing back the network icon in the notification area), nor did I include obvious bugs. I skipped over UI suggestions, many of which are fine, but all of which fall into the de gustibus bucket (except for bringing back Aero Glass which, to my uneducated eye, is more like a Holy Grail).

Did I miss one of your favorites? Sound off in the comments! Let’s get these design screwups fixed by the time Win10 ships.

Fer heaven’s sake, quitcherbitchin, sign up, and tell Microsoft how to make Windows 10 better!

 

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Windows 10

Windows 10 to be free upgrade for many during its first year

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Four months after pitching Windows 10 to businesses, Microsoft is focusing on consumers at an event where CEO Satya Nadella and other officials are pledging that the new OS offers individuals significant advances over Windows 8, its problematic predecessor.

“Today is a monumental day for Windows,” Terry Myerson, executive vice president of the Operating Systems group, said at Wednesday’s event, being held at Microsoft’s Redmond, Washington, headquarters and available vialive webcast.

The first big news: Windows 10 will be offered as a free upgrade to current users of Windows 8.1, Windows Phone 8.1 and Windows 7 during its first year of availability.

However, Myerson said “this so much more than a free one-time upgrade.” Once installed, Windows 10 will be kept continually “current” throughout the lifecycle of the device. As the OS is treated more as an Internet service, asking what version of the OS someone has installed becomes irrelevant, he said.

As Microsoft has stated previously, Myerson reiterated that, unlike previous iterations of the OS, Windows 10 will deliver a consistent yet tailored product family across all types of computing devices, from screenless, embedded IoT sensors to all-in-one computers with gigantic displays. The Windows 10 family will also include versions for smartphones, tablets, wearables, hybrid tablet-laptops, TVs, PCs and the Xbox gaming console.

For developers, there will be a common development platform, whether they’re building enterprise software or games, and a single application store to purchase, distribute and update the apps.

Joe Belfiore, the vice president of the Operating Systems Group at Microsoft, followed Myerson on stage, and showed the Cortana voice-activated digital assistant working for the first time on a Windows 10 PC, using a pre-release build of the OS that will be released to testers in the coming months.

There are currently about 1.7 million [m] people signed up with the Insider program to test Windows 10 before it ships commercially, which is expected to happen by mid-year.

Since the release of Windows 8 in 2012, Microsoft has been in a persistent damage-control mode regarding the OS, so it’s hoping to turn over a new leaf with Windows 10 and close the chapter on its predecessor. With Windows 8, Microsoft misread the market and botched the product’s user interface, leaving a trail of many unhappy customers.

Windows 8 horrified critics with its radically different default Modern UI, which was optimized for touchscreen tablets, and with its alternate traditional desktop, which was included to run legacy Windows 7 applications but lacked key familiar features like the Start button and menu.

Users also complained that the process of toggling between the Modern interface and the traditional desktop was clunky and erratic. Microsoft addressed some of the biggest complaints in Windows 8.1 and Windows 8.1 Update, but it never fully fixed the problem.

To drive the point home that it has listened to the criticism, Microsoft decided to skip a number for the next major edition of Windows, jumping from Windows 8 to Windows 10, which the company has described as “a whole new generation” of the OS that delivers what consumers and enterprises “demand and what we will deliver.”

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