
Thanks, Microsoft, but I’m still saying no to Windows 10 - CrankyBear
https://www.computerworld.com/article/3240065/microsoft-windows/thanks-microsoft-but-i-m-still-saying-no-to-windows-10.html
======
vintagedave
Not a well-written article, but some good points. Concerns of mine:

* We /still/ don't know the contents of the telemetry Microsoft sends back; hubbub seems to have died down. Do we just not care?

* Undocumented APIs. Remember when MS had hidden or secret APIs used by, eg, Office, they were forced to document? Those days are back. Consider the APIs for the Acrylic UI, which is implemented in the WinAPI (not .Net) but is only accessible from .Net applications. That's tie-in making it attractive for devs to use only MS products for development, too.

* Incomplete. There are still settings not in the new Settings app that are found in the Control Panel. Counting from Windows 8 in 2012, that's over five years of incomplete settings.

* Buggy. Creator's Update introduced a bug loading DLLs that made thousands of apps slower to start, and made debugging them close to impossible - all because they changed the module loading code. It looks like they only tested with modules built by Visual Studio, not third party dev tools, and so broke debugging for those developers for... how long? Six months. It wasn't fixed until the Fall Update.

I could go on. The first two are the most important to me, and I believe
should be to other developers too.

~~~
WorldMaker
> We /still/ don't know the contents of the telemetry Microsoft sends back

Documentation site: [https://docs.microsoft.com/en-
us/windows/configuration/windo...](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-
us/windows/configuration/windows-diagnostic-data)

> Consider the APIs for the Acrylic UI, which is implemented in the WinAPI
> (not .Net) but is only accessible from .Net applications.

The Acrylic controls are XAML controls built on System.Composition [1] and
Windows.UI.Composition [2] APIs. C++ (and any language that can compile to it)
has access XAML and System.Composition just like .NET, it just needs to speak
WinRT. C++/WinRT was just released in the Windows SDK which just uses "real"
C++ headers and no language extensions to interface with WinRT. [3] That
should make it even easier for other languages to explore how to support WinRT
applications, which for the most part if a language can support COM it can
figure out how to support WinRT.

Complaining that you need WinRT to access modern UI effects seems a bit like
complaining you need DirectX to access modern GPUs and can't just brute force
VGA bit buffer your games anymore.

(My only complaint with the Fluent UI APIs is there doesn't seem to be access
from the HTML/JS side of the fence, given that's the important "third
platform" after C++ and .NET. I'd like to see PWAs have the ability to use at
least some of the Fluent and/or Acrylic effects, but I haven't seen a useful
sample of that yet.)

[1] [https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-
us/library/jj126278.aspx](https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-
us/library/jj126278.aspx) [2] [https://docs.microsoft.com/en-
us/uwp/api/Windows.UI.Composit...](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-
us/uwp/api/Windows.UI.Composition) [3] [https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-
us/magazine/mt745094.aspx](https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-
us/magazine/mt745094.aspx)

~~~
vintagedave
Unfortunately, that reply reflects many of the problems I highlighted in my
comment. You have missed the point.

I'm aware that Acrylic controls are XAML only. I'm referring, though, to the
UI support itself: glass, blending, the small amount of noise added, etc. In
Windows 10, glass is not supported any more - except it is, because it is used
in Acrylic. How? Well, using the same APIs as glass in Win7, but with small
tweaks that are undocumented. Some people including myself have attempted to
reverse engineer some of the new flags that are required. It looks likely that
Acrylica can be completed done in a plain old WinAPI app using glass and a
Direct2D canvas - except that some of that is undocumented.

If I'm wrong here, and you can point me at non-.Net API documentation, please
do.

> Complaining that you need WinRT to access modern UI effects seems a bit like
> complaining you need DirectX to access modern GPUs

That's not what I said.

You do not need WinRT to access modern UI effects, but Microsoft seem to be
requiring to you to use WinRT to access modern UI effects. That is, requiring
you to use their libraries, their development tools, and so forth. It is not
open, and it is anti-competitive.

~~~
WorldMaker
WinRT _is_ that "small tweak" combination of Direct2D and "WinAPI". It's
turtles all the way down, WinRT is the modern COM and modern WinAPI, the
WinAPI is now WinRT. The documentation site I pointed to defaults to C# (.NET)
but is the exact same site supporting C++ and there is a dropdown in the
sidebar to switch between views.

The C++/WinRT library I linked to started outside of Microsoft (as
"moderncpp"), was acquired, and is still open source. Microsoft isn't
requiring their own development tools to build WinRT (there's also open source
React Native off the top of my head), it's just that so far not a lot of non-
Microsoft developments tools have targeted/needed to target WinRT to date.

They aren't requiring you to use their libraries, they are requiring you to
use their modern API (WinRT).

------
injvstice
That article doesn't even pass the standards of a college newspaper.

"Windows 10 is no more secure than Windows 7 — which is to say it is a
profoundly insecure operating system. "

You are going to back up your statement with some proof, right?

"but just because Microsoft didn’t botch things as badly as Apple did doesn’t
get it off the hook. I mean, what do you call it when Microsoft fixes security
holes in Windows 10 that it doesn’t patch in Windows 7?"

Ah, so it's more secure than Windows 7, you mean? And maybe, Apple?

"I’m sticking with Windows 7 on my Windows machines, and I recommend you do
too"

You still haven't told me why?

\--- That said, I hate Windows 10 for one thing: its update process. I am one
of those people who almost never shut down their machines, they are either on,
or sleeping. That means, I leave my apps open, and I expect them open when I
come back. If freakin' windows decided to reboot my computer without my
permission, it means it will shut down my VMs dirty, and potentially cause me
to lose data in some apps. By far, this is my biggest annoyance with Windows
10.

------
nmeofthestate
"Windows 10 is no more secure than Windows 7"

Two paragraphs later.

"what do you call it when Microsoft fixes security holes in Windows 10 that it
doesn’t patch in Windows 7? I call it really, really stupid."

So Windows 7 has security holes that Windows 10 doesn't, but Windows 10 is no
more secure than Windows 7. Right.

~~~
vintagedave
He is most likely saying that Windows 10 does not have a more significantly
inherently secure design. That is, Win10 is not less likely to have security
issues than Win7.

Whereas what you are pointing out is that when issues are found, they are left
unfixed in one of those OSes. That's a different thing.

~~~
jrs95
Built-in anti-virus and Edge as the default instead of IE are pretty big
improvements themselves, for the average user.

------
otakucode
If you want to stay on a prior product version, I see no reason why you should
be prevented. But, to expect continued support and development for it? How
much are you offering to pay for that? Is it a number that grows faster than
the adoption rate of the new product shrinks the userbase supporting continued
development of the old?

~~~
Silhouette
Ongoing support for software-based products is an area where I don't think we
have good answers yet. On the one hand, it's unreasonable to expect indefinite
support and continued development of a product when it's not generating
additional revenue to pay for those activities. On the other hand, when it
comes to security issues, usually we're not talking about continued
development so much as fixing defects in the original product.

If you bought a car or a refrigerator and it was found within a reasonable
period after the sale that the car would break down suddenly under certain
conditions or the fridge wouldn't keep food inside chilled properly, you would
expect the manufacturer or vendor to make the product good at their own
expense or to compensate you in one way or another; indeed, at least for
consumer products, the law in many places would require them to do so.

Software companies have been given a bye on this one for a long time, but
partly because we've also had a culture where they fixed their mistakes
voluntarily. If they're no longer willing to participate in that informal
arrangement, maybe it's time for statutory rules about minimum support levels
and standardised, transparent disclosure of how long something will or won't
be supported for, how updates will be handled, data privacy and portability
including after the end of the minimum support period, and so on.

------
Feniks
Ha ha ha we'll see how long he lasts on win7. MS will pull support.

I'm not a fan of regular win10 (using LTSB myself) but blogging about it isn't
going to change anything. Windows 10 won.

