
Windows 10 is unfinished - gbl08ma
http://gbl08ma.com/windows-10-is-unfinished/
======
ladzoppelin
Whatever. 7 people in my office just upgraded from 7/8.1 in under a hour with
all their documents, programs and settings unchanged and then continued
working like normal. That's unreal considering how many different hardware
combinations exist. People seem to like it and its only going to get better.

~~~
bryanlarsen
Warning: VirtualBox doesn't work in Windows 10. We're a very Vagrant-dependent
shop here, so one of my coworkers was forced to spend his entire day in
meetings rather than doing real work.

~~~
Zikes
That must be hardware dependent, I was able to fire up VirtualBox and resume
working in a Linux VM immediately after upgrading.

~~~
Zancarius
Same here. Just booted over to Windows 10, and VirtualBox appears to work
fine.

VirtualBox 5.0.0 on relatively modest hardware. I haven't tested it beyond
running a couple Linux VMs though.

------
Zikes
As long as the functionality is there and basic improvements have been made,
I'm not at all upset. I got my upgrade for free, and I'm enjoying several of
the new features (especially multiple desktops, welcome to the 21st century
Microsoft).

We've all released minimum viable products before. Hell, "early access" is
dominating video games in particular. As long as they continue to improve and
have a stable, steady release schedule with tangible results, then I think it
was a good move on Microsoft's part. Especially since the longer they waited
the more entrenched users of Windows 7 & 8 would become, just like they did
with XP.

~~~
javert
I disagree. Basic UI issues are not excusable for a company with the resources
of Microsoft.

If we were talking about issues in a brand new kernel, maybe. But not basic UI
issues.

~~~
nosideeffects
Why are _kernel_ issues excusable but UI issues are not? I think you have that
backwards.

~~~
Dylan16807
Bugs in massive undertakings like a kernel are unavoidable. It's a bitter pill
to get a big improvement.

Using the wrong UI framework for dialogs or having links going nowhere is
easily avoidable, it just needs manpower.

------
CSDude
I guess it is the trend in software now. 'Move fast and break things'. Started
with games, now with Operating Systems.

I agree, there was a lot of duality in Windows 8 with Metro and classical
Windows menus/programs, and they still seem to exist with 10. I even have
"Backup and Restore (Windows 7)" option in control panel and yet I upgraded
from a clean install of Windows 8.1.

~~~
acqq
I actually need the "Backup and Restore (Windows 7)" option as, as far as I
know, there is no other way to do the disk image backup or restore of my
Windows computers without having to use the third party programs. The problem
there is naming it "Backup and Restore (Windows 7)" and not just "Disk Image
Backup and Restore" or something like that. The funny name comes from some
managerial decision to hint that it's "unmodern" (hey, an old Windows
version!) way to do the backup now with the push for ho-ho clouds.

~~~
akira2501
> as far as I know, there is no other way to do the disk image backup or
> restore of my Windows computers without having to use the third party
> programs.

Since Windows 7, Microsoft has provided imagex.exe; it's typically used in
high-volume disk imaging applications, but you can easily use it to snapshot
or restore an entire installation.

~~~
acqq
> you can easily use it to snapshot or restore an entire installation.

"Easily"? Any link? As far as I know imagex.exe has less functionality than
the "backup and restore" application, former being a simpler command line
utility (1). Specifically, how would anybody without any programming
experience (step by step)

\- perform the regular backup in order to be prepared for the case his hard
disk "dies."

\- restore from his backup once the new hard disk is inserted in the computer.
As far as I know, especially the repartitioning steps are far from being
trivial and not done by imagex.

"Backup and restore" are GUI based tools, easy to be explained and used by
non-professionals to do the full local backups of their computers. The same
thing we can still do with iPhone and iTunes (a button in iTunes starting the
complete backup of the iPhone, and restoring simply with the another button).
Why should I purchase the third party program or do unknown amount of
programming to do something like that on a Windows computer?

1) [https://technet.microsoft.com/en-
us/library/Cc749003%28v=WS....](https://technet.microsoft.com/en-
us/library/Cc749003%28v=WS.10%29.aspx)

------
mark_l_watson
I don't really agree with the author. I find Windows 10 to be a step up from
8.1. Also, a fair comparison might be to verion 8 when it first came out,
right?

I think Microsoft and Apple are on a good path: keeping the same major version
number for their OS, and just continually bring out little changes.

~~~
Zikes
It is funny that both major OS developers settled on 10 for their "forever
version."

~~~
phantom784
That's probably part of the reason why 9 was skipped - Microsoft didn't want a
lower "forever version" number lower than Apple.

~~~
nkozyra
Then why not Windows 11? These guys are just not ambitious enough.

I imagine it did play some role but as a child comment notes, the regex checks
for Windows 9\d* in order to capture both 95 and 98 in a few languages that
exposed versions like that probably played a much larger role. Accommodations
that were made for those incredibly old systems could very easily have caused
some big problems if they matched on Windows 9.

~~~
bcohen5055
Ya, "Our OS goes to 11, you see... a typical OS can only go to 10. Our OS
rocks that much harder"

------
coldcode
Nothing is ever really finished. Apple's been working on their version 10 for
14 years.

~~~
joshstrange
Except that OS X versions are generally not this buggy on release IMHO. Really
the dual interfaces to the same thing are the worst part of Windows 10 right
now.

~~~
NDizzle
OSX not buggy? Have you not updated in the last ~3 years or something?!

~~~
joshstrange
I have been using it for the last 5yrs or so. While I have run into 1-2 little
issues here and there I have never experienced the level of duplicate
interfaces that do the same thing and not knowing where to go to do something.
While I use OS X as my primary I need to use (and test) with Windows for some
things. I feel utterly lost in Win10 (and largely in 8 as well) because the
interfaces they force on you make statements about OS X "Fisher-price-y ease
of use/dumbing down" pale in comparison. That's what I focused on in my
comment:

> Really the dual interfaces to the same thing are the worst part of Windows
> 10 right now.

------
bargl
I think this guy brings up a lot of good points about windows 10, but isn't
that the point of this OS, to be incrementally updated based on all the user
data they are pulling from us?

They could use more polish, but I they got rid of one thing that bugged the
hell out of me from windows 8. Apps. Every time I slid my mouse to the right I
inevitably was on the edge and opened the last app. Infuriating. I had to
disable that feature every time.

Windowed apps are an improvement, and I really hope they listen to their
customers and improve the OS.

~~~
joshstrange
That COULD have been the point but when you push (hard) to get everyone to
upgrade on release day you can't really hide behind that IMHO. Using Win10
previews regularly made me want to pull out my hair (which was my general
feeling with Win8 as well).

~~~
bargl
Didn't they actually try to slow people down from upgrading release day? I
mean what I read everywhere is that (paraphrasing), "when windows 10 is ready
on your PC you'll see a pop up, but register now."

Then you could just go and force the upgrade if you are impatient (like me).

[http://techreport.com/news/28579/microsoft-plans-phased-
roll...](http://techreport.com/news/28579/microsoft-plans-phased-rollout-for-
windows-10-upgraders)

------
bentcorner
Cached:
[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:9bJY6S9...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:9bJY6S96820J:gbl08ma.com/windows-10-is-
unfinished/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us)

------
Negative1
Still on the last stable preview release (1 month old) and tons of issues with
crashes/freezes, weird UI funkiness and game compatibility. Hoping the final
version fixed many of these issues but it's sounding unlikely.

My initial impressions remain the same. Compared to 7; lots of invasive
privacy policies, much slower (especially bootup), takes WAY more space on my
sad little SSD, adds little to no value (I had multiple desktops already using
a reliable plugin). Wish I didn't upgrade...

~~~
chadgeidel
According to this article it takes up quite a bit less HDD space and starts up
much faster than 7: [http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/07/faster-booting-
smalle...](http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/07/faster-booting-smaller-
footprint-make-windows-10-an-easy-upgrade-for-old-pcs/)

------
yuhong
Also see [http://textslashplain.com/2015/07/31/on-
defaults/](http://textslashplain.com/2015/07/31/on-defaults/) and a Twitter
thread on the problems with the OOBE UI:
[https://twitter.com/yuhong2/status/627145718331904000](https://twitter.com/yuhong2/status/627145718331904000)

------
anant
Almost all of the author's complaints revolve around the Control Panel. Most
users won't ever see the Control Panel, just the Settings app.

The Control Panel is a legacy piece they decided to keep around for the
"enterprise"; just like Windows 10 also still includes the old Internet
Explorer.

------
currysausage
Flashback to 2001:
[http://www.actsofvolition.com/archive/2001/december/windowsx...](http://www.actsofvolition.com/archive/2001/december/windowsxprough)

(Two years later, Steven analyzed the visual identity of Mozilla:
[http://www.actsofvolition.com/files/mozillabranding/](http://www.actsofvolition.com/files/mozillabranding/)
That article, as far as I can remember, resulted in a fruitful collaboration
between Steven (Silverorange) and Mozilla.)

------
nailer
Having used Windows 10, yes, Control Panel is still there and full of junk,
but you need it _much_ less in Windows 10 than Windows 8 since Settings is now
so much larger.

The only time I've needed control panel so far was for mouse acceleration.
That should be in settings, but they've done so much work I expect they'll
sort it soon.

------
bhouston
I find that the Windows Explorer is super cluttered. I need to find a good
replacement.

~~~
errantspark
Total Commander, been using it since I was 7 years old, I can't even use a
Windows computer without it.

~~~
jafingi
Haha! Me too! And Norton Commander before that.

It's great to be able to use the commander without mouse. Just plain keyboard.
Really boosts productivity (especially for a developer like me).

------
nhebb
> but the RAM usage has gone up when compared to 8.1. On a device with just 2
> GB of RAM, this matters, but not nearly as much as what’s coming next…

In that entire article, increased RAM usage was the only thing that piqued my
interest. The rest of the issues were styling inconsistencies and changes to
how some settings are accessed, both of which are problems Windows has had
since Vista.

At the same time, though, it's impressive that a modern operating system can
operate on just 2GB of RAM. The last time I had that little RAM, I was running
Windows 98.

~~~
sedatk
in fact even increased RAM use doesn't matter at all if it makes the system
faster and more responsive. for some reason, people keep looking at it from a
warped perspective.

~~~
bsilvereagle
An Arch Linux install with i3 as the window manager will consume <300MB of RAM
and be (subjectively) more responsive than Windows. On the same machine, a
default Windows 7 install will take 1.6GB of RAM.

I think it's a baseline like this that leaves people wondering why Windows by
default needs to consume large amounts of RAM.

~~~
ac29
>On the same machine, a default Windows 7 install will take 1.6GB of RAM.

Are you sure about that?
[https://i.imgur.com/jXRrEJS.png](https://i.imgur.com/jXRrEJS.png)

My mostly stock install of Win8.1 seems to use less than 600MB at idle. I 100%
agree with you that Linux can be more efficient (that screenshot was taken
from a VM running on Linux, which is my primary OS), but Windows isn't that
awful memory wise.

------
AdeptusAquinas
I'm not surprised by the UI dissonance.

I was in the insider preview, and they changed the UI style they were going
for a few times. I suspect its just a matter of scale: they eventually settled
on a given style, but didn't have a chance to upgrade the six million dialogs
in the system in time.

Importantly, its not just look but the app technology that needs to shift. The
new stuff is in the Universal App framework, some other stuff in WPF, and the
ancient stuff in forms. I imagine as the updates come in, one after another
dialog will be updated.

------
heavymark
For people with attention to detail and notice when icons are not updated and
other design inconsistencies they are probably far better suited for OS X.
Typical windows users don't notice those things so imagine Microsoft didn't
focus on them in this version. May take until 11 or 12 to get all those things
refined. (And yes mac has had similar issues but far less in release
versions).

------
GnarfGnarf
"History" is still not available in Spartan: "You'll see your browsing history
here in the not-too-distant future". Is History that hard to implement?

Spartan does not respond properly to ShellExecute(). My app launches a PDF
and... Spartan just sits there, without displaying the PDF. Yes, you can open
it manually with the PDF Reader, but my users expect it to launch
automatically.

~~~
hirsin
Are you on the RTM 10240 build? History has been in Spartan for over a month
now publicly.

------
jmnicolas
I would think by now everybody knew that you had to wait at least one year
before adopting a new Microsoft OS. OK, with the "new Microsoft"* you can
probably shorten the delay to 6 months, but any shorter than that you're an
early adopter and shouldn't complain.

* anybody that used their softwares for 2 decades can see how much they improved

~~~
orthecreedence
Or wait a year before adopting _any_ OS. Microsoft botches just about every
other version of Windows, but recently Apple has been doing some really stupid
things in OSx, and a few years back Ubuntu screwed up their default interface.

Unless you're on a really stable version of linux/BSD, it really makes sense
to wait to install any OS until the kinks are worked out.

I think the same applies to most software.

------
McGlockenshire
Why does everyone complain about error reporting?

A former coworker of mine worked with one of the areas in Microsoft that dealt
with error reporting. They actually analyze the data and provide feedback to
the vendors of crash-happy programs. It's an important thing that helps
generally improve quality of life.

------
stephengillie
My apologies for being glib, but I intend to skip Windows 10.

Microsoft traditionally releases a revised edition within a year or so, and so
I intend to wait for this revision before upgrading.

Will it be named Windows 10.1? Will it be named Windows 11, or even Windows
12? I am unsure about the name, but I will hold out for this OS.

~~~
ChuckMcM
I would not blame you, although the press seems to think that most people have
been 'skipping' Windows 8/8.1 remaining on 7.

As for the next version, Microsoft made a big claim that this is the "last"
windows version because they have made everything in the system upgradable.
Thus all future upgrades will come as package changes through Windows Update
and the "version" will forever be Windows 10 (so why not just call it Windows?
I don't know)

------
sedatk
tl; dr: some icons are old and whole control panel is not adapted to modern
UI.

that is the reason twitter exists people.

------
digi_owl
You know the personal computing world has run out of technical ideas when we
spend massive amount of time fretting over "ui design language"...

------
decafbad
So this is a surprise for you? Which Microsoft software was finished at its
release date?

------
bitwize
Release it as-is, then release patches and day-one DLC.

------
graycat
Wow. Windows 10 is too hard for Microsoft. What a mess. Right, I'll say with
Windows XP or Windows 7.

Time for Windows 11.

What a disaster.

And for what I'm really interested in, security, and compatibility, if they
can't get some simple GUI dialogs correct, there's no hope for the rest. Looks
like Windows 7 is the most recent usable Microsoft OS.

~~~
mejari
That is certainly quite a bit of not useful hyperbole.

What connection do you think that GUI dialog styling and
security/compatibility have?

~~~
graycat
What connection?

Just in what people do: If they can't do the simple work on the easy to see
label on the bottle right, then can't have confidence in the more difficult
work less easy to see for the contents of the bottle.

~~~
mejari
Have you worked on software projects before? Differing priority levels for GUI
consistency and base functionality is not an odd thing, and being bad on one
does not really mean you're bad at the other.

Plus the people making the label for the bottle are almost never the same ones
putting stuff in it.

~~~
graycat
> Have you worked on software projects before?

Yup.

From Microsoft, by now for too long I've seen too much poor quality work,
apparently bottom to top in the _stack_ and left to right for the
applications. I hate to say this and am betting my startup on Windows as the
_platform_ , but for too long there have been too many security problems, poor
documentation, bugs, "buffer overflows" still, even design issues (Vista),
etc.

Windows 10? That's a lot, from Windows 3.1, NT, ..., 8.1, and now 10, along
with Windows Server, etc. -- that's a lot of software that is supposed to be
really serious. So, we have to expect that by now Microsoft could get the
routine things right for Windows 10 and not ship something that will need 10
_service packs_ , with lots of user struggles with lots of problems along the
way, to get to a solid chunk of code.

E.g., the OP looked like just a fast review of 10 but still found some serious
problems. So, it looks like Microsoft never did a serious _critical review_
and fixed the obvious issues.

I've seen some good work from Microsoft, but there's also been too much poor
work, and some of that seems to be in 10. Not good. Microsoft shipping bad
code for their main product is an old story that needed to end a long time
ago.

I just want Microsoft to _put their game face on_ , _come ready to play_ ,
take bugs, errors, etc. seriously, and design and write good code.

E.g., I'm concerned: Clearly Microsoft wants to push their users into Windows
10. Well, if 10 has problems it shouldn't have, then I will have problems I
shouldn't have.

At this point, I'm very concerned about the basic quality of Microsoft's work.

------
ytdht
Microsoft historically released a good OS version at about every 2 major
versions... could Windows 10 be the start of a good version at every 3 major
release?

~~~
jonhohle
I know this is internet canon, but is questionable, in my experience.

    
    
       x DOS - passable
       o Windows 1 - bad
       o Windows 2 - bad
       x Windows 3.1x - good
       x Windows NT 3.5 - good
       x Windows 95 - good
       x Windows NT 4 - good
       x Windows 98 - better
       x Windows 2000 - great
       o Windows ME - bad
       x Windows XP - better than 9x/ME, on par with 2000, eventually long in the tooth and outdated
       o Windows Vista - bad
       x Windows 7 - good
       o Windows 8 - bad
       o Windows 10 - ???
    

The NT lineage was reasonably good prior to Vista (in the context of that OS
family). The DOS lineage was reasonable good until ME (again, in the context
of that OS family).

XP was a significant improvement over the DOS lineage, however, Microsoft had
a reasonably good run in the 90s and early 00s.

~~~
Karunamon
I'd include the point releases in that. XP once it was patched was awesome,
but I recall nothing but problems prior to SP1-2. There's also 8.1, which
fixed a lot of people's W8 complaints.

~~~
MikusR
And Windows 8.1 Update 1

