Windows 9... erm 10 Technical Preview

[slip84]

I know I'll be getting a spare drive ready for this. Anyone else?

The Verge has a story with some details here: http://www.theverge.com/2014/9/30/6868899/windows-10-availability-technical-preview-tomorrow

And MS has a blog up here: http://blogs.windows.com/bloggingwindows/2014/09/30/announcing-windows-10/

The start menu doesn't look like a step in the right direction to me, honestly, but I know a lot of people have been clamoring for it to come back. Personally, that never made sense to me since the new start menu business was fine (and much better after a few days of getting used to it), but I'm not typically a knee-jerk kind of person.

Also, I just want to point out, that Flock of Seagulls haircut is boss.

[SpAmRaY]

I plan on using Windows 7 for as long as possible.

[tp4tissue]

wait why 10...

[SpAmRaY]

wait why 10...

because 'X'

[Zeal]

What happened to 9? Or 8.2/3/4/5/6/7/8/9  )

[trizkut]

What happened to 9? Or 8.2/3/4/5/6/7/8/9  )

7 8 9.  )

[SpAmRaY]

What happened to 9? Or 8.2/3/4/5/6/7/8/9  )

7 8 9.  )

that's why 6 is scared of 7

[lightsout714]

I am pretty stoked for it. Never really messed with 8 much so this should be fun and new.

[Fragil1ty]

I know I'll be getting a spare drive ready for this. Anyone else?

The Verge has a story with some details here: http://www.theverge.com/2014/9/30/6868899/windows-10-availability-technical-preview-tomorrow

And MS has a blog up here: http://blogs.windows.com/bloggingwindows/2014/09/30/announcing-windows-10/

The start menu doesn't look like a step in the right direction to me, honestly, but I know a lot of people have been clamoring for it to come back. Personally, that never made sense to me since the new start menu business was fine (and much better after a few days of getting used to it), but I'm not typically a knee-jerk kind of person.

Also, I just want to point out, that Flock of Seagulls haircut is boss.

I'm not going to try it out, although it will be interesting to see what the new major changes are, as I cannot really see any major differences here.

[tp4tissue]

They only reason I upgraded from XP  was because of hardware support.. PCIE, Multicore, SSD..


Those things were dramatically improved in recent times, which greatly improved people's computing experience..


Our computing experience is SO GOOD already,  I could hardly imagine making another upgrade until TOTAL robot butler gets invented..   and that is honestly limited by power densities which is 50 years away, so....

Win 7 next 50 Years...

[slip84]

I am pretty stoked for it. Never really messed with 8 much so this should be fun and new.

Windows 8 and 8.1 really aren't as bad as everyone made them out to be. I run it on three machines, one for gaming and two for work. That said, 8.1 was a serious improvement from 8.

[tp4tissue]

I am pretty stoked for it. Never really messed with 8 much so this should be fun and new.

Windows 8 and 8.1 really aren't as bad as everyone made them out to be. I run it on three machines, one for gaming and two for work. That said, 8.1 was a serious improvement from 8.

It's not bad AT ALL..  the h8ers just love to h8...

There are no REAL changes in 8 from 7..... it's just got a new dress...  and if you don't wanna pay for that, Don't...   but as h8ers ...  they MUST tell you how much they won't pay for the dress ONTOP of Not-paying for the dress.

[Tiramisuu]

I'm holding out for a re release of xp

[tp4tissue]

I'm holding out for a re release of xp

XP remastered HD edition..

[samwisekoi]

What happened to 9? Or 8.2/3/4/5/6/7/8/9  )

7 8 9.  )

that's why 6 is scared of 7

Young Jedi, 6 7 8!

[noisyturtle]

I plan on using Windows 7 for as long as possible.

Yup. Microsoft has made no move to force a change, so why would I buy a new version when the old version works perfectly? When 3rd parties start dropping 7 support is when I'll make a change.
By then Win 12 will be out )

[Elrick]

There are no REAL changes in 8 from 7..... it's just got a new dress...  and if you don't wanna pay for that, Don't...   but as h8ers ...  they MUST tell you how much they won't pay for the dress ONTOP of Not-paying for the dress.

I think you've been sipping something toxic here, Win 8 has that ABORTION known to everyone here as METRO.  The most useless piece of crap ever to come from Redmond.  In fact if you traced back all the garbage released by them this ranks up there with Vista and ME as the most horrendous, putrid smell of cretinous software ever attached to any operating system, just like some sort of trojan.

At least with traditional trojans you can eventually remove it but not Metro, it sits there taking up valuable ram and hard drive space for no reason other than for Microsoft to force people into their gawd awful store and buy worthless crud (never needed).  That is why Windows 8 is a total, fvcking failure and will continue to be unless until the morons at head office slice it away like an ugly tumour growth, then maybe Win 8 can survive.  More than likely it'll head into the Vista Morgue for a decent cut up and burial where it belongs  .

[tp4tissue]

There are no REAL changes in 8 from 7..... it's just got a new dress...  and if you don't wanna pay for that, Don't...   but as h8ers ...  they MUST tell you how much they won't pay for the dress ONTOP of Not-paying for the dress.

I think you've been sipping something toxic here, Win 8 has that ABORTION known to everyone here as METRO.  The most useless piece of crap ever to come from Redmond.  In fact if you traced back all the garbage released by them this ranks up there with Vista and ME as the most horrendous, putrid smell of cretinous software ever attached to any operating system, just like some sort of trojan.

At least with traditional trojans you can eventually remove it but not Metro, it sits there taking up valuable ram and hard drive space for no reason other than for Microsoft to force people into their gawd awful store and buy worthless crud (never needed).  That is why Windows 8 is a total, fvcking failure and will continue to be unless until the morons at head office slice it away like an ugly tumour growth, then maybe Win 8 can survive.  More than likely it'll head into the Vista Morgue for a decent cut up and burial where it belongs  .

Metro is a stylistic choice..  it's not crippling to modern hardware.. 

I wouldn't say that's a problem...  it's not like they force you to use Win 8, you can still use 7.. just don't switch..

if you h8 metro, just don't use 8..

Like I said, 8 is just a new dress...  metro is no reason to h8 on win 8 though..

[Smasher816]

The snapping and multiple desktops makes me happy, and will make coming back from a tiling WM on linux not quite so painful.

Making store apps act like normal windows is great and might actually cause people to it to find programs. I know I never used apps because they were huge fullscreen programs that took me away from whatever I was doing before.

I dont' agree with everything but I do think they are making some changes for the better.

[strict]

The most logical reason I've seen hypothesized for why Microsoft decided against including "9" in the name of the next version of windows is that there is likely still software out there that tries to determine if it's running on Win95/98 by looking to see if a "9" can be found in the OS string. By skipping the number 9 they can avoid some potential headache dealing with other peoples ****ty code.

crude vbscript example

Code: [Select]

if ( InStr(OSver, "9") ) Then
   WScript.Echo "win9x found"
Else
   WScript.Echo "some other version of windows"
End If


[tp4tissue]

The most logical reason I've seen hypothesized for why Microsoft decided against including "9" in the name of the next version of windows is that there is likely still software out there that try's to determine if it's running on Win95/98 by looking to see if a "9" can be found in the OS string. By skipping the number 9 they can avoid some potential headache dealing with other peoples ****ty code.

crude vbscript example

Code: [Select]

if ( InStr(OSver, "9") ) Then
   WScript.Echo "win9x found"
Else
   WScript.Echo "some other version of windows"
End If


hrmm..... makes sense...... 

[dorkvader]

I'm not going to try it out, although it will be interesting to see what the new major changes are, as I cannot really see any major differences here.

The important changes are all behind the scenes, but the changes all the people worry about are meaningless UI tweaks.

[Vibex]

I'm not going to try it out, although it will be interesting to see what the new major changes are, as I cannot really see any major differences here.

The important changes are all behind the scenes, but the changes all the people worry about are meaningless UI tweaks.

I beg to differ on UI being meaningless (though I might be a bit biased  )). But I know what you mean.

[Findecanor]

I think you've been sipping something toxic here, Win 8 has that ABOMINATION known to everyone here as METRO.

FTFY

At least with traditional trojans you can eventually remove it but not Metro, it sits there taking up valuable ram and hard drive space for no reason other than for Microsoft to force people into their gawd awful store and buy worthless crud (never needed).

Yep. Who has used that store anyway? (except for accessing the free upgrade from 8 to 8.1)

Metro is a stylistic choice..  it's not crippling to modern hardware.. 

Metro is bloat. Bloat is bloat. Bloat is bad.

The important changes are all behind the scenes, but the changes all the people worry about are meaningless UI tweaks.

I've heard that the handling of multiple monitors has been improved significantly, and that does matter to people.
(I have yet to use 8.1 with multiple monitors myself though, so I can't comment more.)

By skipping the number 9 they can avoid some potential headache dealing with other peoples ****ty code.

If that was the real reason, .... <facepalm>.

There is an internal version number that is different from the marketing number. Windows 8.1 does actually have version number 6.3. Real program code checks for that. There are already lots of incompatibility with old ****ty programs. Let the bad programs die, I'd say!

[rowdy]

I'm still using Windows XP at home.

[Elrick]

I'm still using Windows XP at home.

One of the few smart men here on Geekhack  .  The poor bastards at Redmond is quickly shoving Windows 8 into it's crypt faster than Vista, goes to show how confident they were for it's longevity in the world of Computers  ) .

As it stands now, WINDOWS 7 and Windows XP will be used by business for many decades to come simply because of Microsoft's complete stupidity in publishing and selling the current monstrosity, pretending to be an OS of some sort.  Very glad to see them setting them selves for a major fall in the coming years when it comes to profits and share holding within the business community.

I always wanted to see Microsoft shaft itself in such a way that it will most probably be splintered off in small chunks for sale, but who would waste valuable money buying into Redmond's current failures within key business services and products  ?

[inanis]

I'll be happy if the new server version isn't treated as a desktop OS. Whoever came up with putting Metro in Server2012 should be shot out of a canon. It is nearly impossible to use. Who has a touchscreen in a datacenter! It is even worse running as a VM. I don't know what they were thinking. Just because you don't have to use the GUI doesn't mean they should make it a nightmare for those who do.

[rowdy]

I'll be happy if the new server version isn't treated as a desktop OS. Whoever came up with putting Metro in Server2012 should be shot out of a canon. It is nearly impossible to use. Who has a touchscreen in a datacenter! It is even worse running as a VM. I don't know what they were thinking. Just because you don't have to use the GUI doesn't mean they should make it a nightmare for those who do.

Windows, to me, is still a single user gaming operating system.  Due to the proliferation of hardware and drivers, it is reasonably good at that.

[inanis]

I'll be happy if the new server version isn't treated as a desktop OS. Whoever came up with putting Metro in Server2012 should be shot out of a canon. It is nearly impossible to use. Who has a touchscreen in a datacenter! It is even worse running as a VM. I don't know what they were thinking. Just because you don't have to use the GUI doesn't mean they should make it a nightmare for those who do.

Windows, to me, is still a single user gaming operating system.  Due to the proliferation of hardware and drivers, it is reasonably good at that.

The server platform is quite good. I know people like to give Windows a hard time and it isn't the "cool" choice, but Server 2003 was very reliable and it was not treated as though it was a desktop OS. 2008, while the look and feel was very different, still was a very solid server OS. 2012 might be the best thing on the planet, but the struggle to do things do basic things is beyond annoying. Yes, you can create shortcuts, yes there are multiple was to access things, but WHY did they have to make something that was so easy so flipping difficult. And when you are working in a VM and have you have to get your mouse juuuust right in order to trigger the menu, it can make you lose your mind. One pixel over and your not in the VM anymore, but one pixel the other way and you get no menu. Drives me crazy I tell you.

[slip84]

I'm still using Windows XP at home.

One of the few smart men here on Geekhack  .  The poor bastards at Redmond is quickly shoving Windows 8 into it's crypt faster than Vista, goes to show how confident they were for it's longevity in the world of Computers  ) .

As it stands now, WINDOWS 7 and Windows XP will be used by business for many decades to come simply because of Microsoft's complete stupidity in publishing and selling the current monstrosity, pretending to be an OS of some sort.  Very glad to see them setting them selves for a major fall in the coming years when it comes to profits and share holding within the business community.

I always wanted to see Microsoft shaft itself in such a way that it will most probably be splintered off in small chunks for sale, but who would waste valuable money buying into Redmond's current failures within key business services and products  ?

Windos XP came out in October of 20001.

Windows Vista came out in January of 2007.

Windows 7 came out in October of 2009.

Windows 8 came out in October of 2012.

Windows 10 is scheduled for "late" next year.

So, that's just a little over five years between XP and Vista. Just about three years between Vista and 7. Another three between 7 and 8. And now it's going to be just about three years between 8 and 10. Your logic isn't too good.

Any halfway intelligent business is dumping XP as fast as it can. The company I work for shut down the final few Windows XP machines when I started with them last year. It's a major security blight for any company that hasn't elected to finally move on from an OS that is old enough to like the Twilight series. And while I'll admit that Windows 8 server products are pretty odd for including the "Modern" user interface in lieu of something more business styled, it's really odd that a business would purposely lag behind in terms of technology because of a UI hiccup. And that's all it really is. At the end of the day, if you're not smart enough to find your way out of the Modern UI to the desktop... well, I don't know. There isn't a good phrase for that.

Either way, those praying for Microsoft to fail will continue to hold their breaths. Windows 10 will be reluctantly adopted by many, people will ***** that it's not like Windows XP, and the rest of us will use it because it's probably going to be a fine operating system, iteratively better, just like every other OS released in the last decade or two.

Or you could buy a Mac or evangelize Linux. Whatever.

[tp4tissue]

Mac's biggest mistake, is that they don't let people pirate their software...   That is the SUREFIRE way to gain market share..

[rowdy]

Mac's biggest mistake, is that they don't let people pirate their software...   That is the SUREFIRE way to gain market share..

Most commercial vendors do not let people pirate their software!

In Apple's case, they limit by licence that you can only install OS X on Apple-branded hardware, and further try to enforce that by only implementing drivers for Apple-built hardware.  Those drivers happen to work with similar third-party hardware, hence the rise of the Hackintosh.

OS X can be downloaded for free from the App Store.

Microsoft are yet to provide free downloads of their operating systems.

[dustinhxc]

I plan on using Windows 7 for as long as possible.

Same here.

I dual booted for 8 and hated it. Went back to windows 7 only partition. It's perfect.

Now another new OS? Damnit.. Hopefully I can use 7 forever.

[byker]

I plan on using Windows 7 for as long as possible.

Same here.

I dual booted for 8 and hated it. Went back to windows 7 only partition. It's perfect.

Now another new OS? Damnit.. Hopefully I can use 7 forever.

After disabling metro and using Classic Start menu, I have no complaints with 8..

[dustinhxc]

I plan on using Windows 7 for as long as possible.

Same here.

I dual booted for 8 and hated it. Went back to windows 7 only partition. It's perfect.

Now another new OS? Damnit.. Hopefully I can use 7 forever.

After disabling metro and using Classic Start menu, I have no complaints with 8..

That sounds decent actually. Good tweaks!

[byker]

I plan on using Windows 7 for as long as possible.

Same here.

I dual booted for 8 and hated it. Went back to windows 7 only partition. It's perfect.

Now another new OS? Damnit.. Hopefully I can use 7 forever.

After disabling metro and using Classic Start menu, I have no complaints with 8..

That sounds decent actually. Good tweaks!

Yeah, in my experience it looks and feels like 7 but a little bit faster!

[atlas3686]

I plan on using Windows 7 for as long as possible.

Same here.

I dual booted for 8 and hated it. Went back to windows 7 only partition. It's perfect.

Now another new OS? Damnit.. Hopefully I can use 7 forever.

After disabling metro and using Classic Start menu, I have no complaints with 8..

This^

8 is actually perfectly fine just need to do some tweaking. It does have some under the hood improvements on 7 that are worth the effort.

[katushkin]

I used windows 8 on a brand new laptop with a touch screen. Before I realised it had a touch screen, it was really really horrible to use. But after it kind of made sense. I have no idea how you could use it on a desktop.

I like the look of the different windows and stuff on 10, but I'm not going to be over eager to swap over to it. I will stick to 7 until I know it's worth it to move to 10.

[The Mad Professor]

wait why 10...

Apparently, the experimental Windows 9 was so horrible, so awful, so Lovecraftian that they've decided to erase all evidence that it ever existed. Somewhere there's a secret insane asylum with mad programmers scrawling disjointed computer code on the walls, and endless repetitions of the number "9".

[PointyFox]

They skipped 9 because it is too psychologically close to 8, which everyone knows is an abomination.

[slip84]

The most logical reason I've seen hypothesized for why Microsoft decided against including "9" in the name of the next version of windows is that there is likely still software out there that try's to determine if it's running on Win95/98 by looking to see if a "9" can be found in the OS string. By skipping the number 9 they can avoid some potential headache dealing with other peoples ****ty code.

crude vbscript example

Code: [Select]

if ( InStr(OSver, "9") ) Then
   WScript.Echo "win9x found"
Else
   WScript.Echo "some other version of windows"
End If


It's starting to sound like this is valid: http://www.cnet.com/news/is-this-why-microsoft-named-it-windows-10/

[Elrick]

They skipped 9 because it is too psychologically close to 8, which everyone knows is an abomination.

The real word here is ABOMINATION  .  That's basically what Microsoft has been producing since 2012 and it' getting worse by the looks of it.  Don't think that 10 is going to save them hence they'll do the usual stuff of pouring millions of dollars into promoting their latest abortion, hoping that the shills out there will do their paid task, of pushing it hard to the moronic everywhere (which is pretty easy to do).

Shame that they've lost their way from the busniess desktop's in favour of the Phone-using Mafia Clans  .

[slip84]

Oi vey. You do realize they've had other stinkers, right? Windows 98 before the SE release was pretty rough around the edges. Windows ME was utter crap in almost every way. Windows XP before SP2 was actually pretty rough in a lot of ways. Windows Vista wasn't nearly as bad as most people made it out to be, but was heralded as one of the worst releases in recent memory.

And, yeah, Windows 8 hasn't exactly had the best reputation, but I've found most people who bag on Windows 8 really haven't ever used it. I bought a Surface Pro in March and had been running Windows 7 on my work laptop and my gaming desktop up to that point. After about a week of using Windows 8, I was inclined to upgrade both my gaming desktop and work laptop to normalize my experience among my machines. My work laptop, in particular, got a HUGE speed boost with no changes in hardware. It boots considerably faster and just seems way, way snappier and this was going from a relatively clean install of Windows 7 to Windows 8.1.

I would ask for those of you bagging on Windows 8 if you've used either 8 or 8.1 at all. I mean, I'm no evangelist for Microsoft, but some people really drive me batty with their assertions that Windows 8 is somehow the worst OS ever without so much as using it for more than a few seconds.

Either way, I've pulled the download and burned to disc. I'll be installing this on my spare desktop this weekend. I'm pretty excited to give it a spin.

For those interested: http://www.theverge.com/2014/10/1/6877195/windows-10-technical-preview-download

[baldgye]

I plan on using Windows 7 for as long as possible.

Oh no! Go away scary change!!

[Halvar]

We haven't even seen their new business model for Windows!

If they really think they can change Windows to a cloud-based subscription product Bill G & Steve B should better sell their stocks fast.   

[RED-404]

So umm the command prompt will finally get Ctrl+C and stuff so that's something. It's good to see windows catching up to *nix, BeOS, Netware, OSX, vending machines and my router.

[Elrick]

If they really think they can change Windows to a cloud-based subscription product Bill G & Steve B should better sell their stocks fast.

That will be the ONLY concept for Windows 10, everything has to be installed on Cloud servers - then watch the complete collapse of essential data as they come to realize the very fault of depending upon the "Cloud"  .

Any business relying on Cloud based functions deserves utter decimation and ridicule  .

[baldgye]

So anyone here actually used the preview build yet? Or are we all just crying and *****ing about something we don't understand?

[slip84]

So anyone here actually used the preview build yet? Or are we all just crying and *****ing about something we don't understand?

I got as far as downloading it yesterday and burning it to disc last night. Work hit me like a dump truck yesterday. I have to get a machine backed up and get it installed on said machine... so I'll have it going this weekend. Pretty excited!

[Hundrakia]

So far, I'm enjoying it. There's a window snap feature that when you snap half screen (like to the right side) you get a floating menu of what you want to snap to the right, be it desktop or another open window. Kudos on that, but this was like 30 minutes of use.