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What To Expect With Windows 9
snydeq writes: Two weeks before the its official unveiling, this article provides a roundup of what to expect and the open questions around Windows 9, given Build 9834 leaks and confirmations springing up all over the Web. The desktop's Start Menu, Metro apps running in resizable windows on the desktop, virtual desktops, Notification Center, and Storage Sense, are among the presumed features in store for Windows 9. Chief among the open questions are the fates of Internet Explorer, Cortana, and the Metro Start Screen. Changes to Windows 9 will provide an inkling of where Nadella will lead Microsoft in the years ahead. What's your litmus test on Windows 9?
More attacks, more viruses, more confusion.
Deal with it.
Unballmering Windows
Yet another year of Windows on the Desktop. Sorry fanbois.
Seriously, give me transparency, name it whatever you want, just give it to me. I don't want your flat color bs.
Suckage.
Haters gonna hate, but I think it looks awesome. Love my two touch screen ultrabooks; they are truly awesome. Hate the Surface RT (sucks balls), and love my two Windows 8.1 desktops (home and work). A better working start menu is most definitely welcome for lots of people I know. It sucks that I have to post anonymously here because there are so many fan girl haterz.
then it may be worth taking a serious look at. After all, MS seems to get every other major version right.
Steve Magruder, Metro Foodist
Speed and stability. All the drama about new features, missing features, start menus and other preferences are all just nonsense. Just make it fast and stable.
How my users react to it. I demoed 8 to my users, and got a resounding "HELL NO", due entirely to the start screen. They weren't buying it, and I don't blame them.
Given the leaks so far, I expect my users will be onboard with the new version ( possibly with some grumbling about the "look" ). But I won't really know until I get it in front of them for some feedback.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
Rather than creeping you out by peering over your shoulder waiting for you too blunder so he can offer unsolicited advice instead He just sits there and serenades you with the Beatles song "Number Nine" until ask him a question
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Basically sounds like the OSX keychain, but using your name/credentials/etc to login to public wifi spots automatically - I wonder what kind of coverage they'll have?
Other than that, though - seems like they're de-mobilifying the desktop OS part. Such a waste of money, attention and marketshare - all because Steve wanted to be more like the other Steve.
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
I'm still trying to figure out what to expect with Windows 8.
Windows 9 will be interesting, and will break all kinds of things like every other upgrade does.
But Server 2012 is unusable. R2 improved it, but they clearly hate their customers.
1. Why does a Server install have boxes called "this PC" to click on. Just bring back "My Briefcase" and get it over with you lazy pieces of crap.
2. Why does it have a snazzy new front end that then puts back up screens we had in Windows 3.1?
3. I will cut the bitch that decided to use URLs for error messages, but not have them as active links so you could follow them.
I wasted hours of my life trying to make .Net3.5 install on 2012 because a vendor swore they wouldn't support R2, but had to have 3.5. I finally just did R2 and told them it was that or no .Net. If Microsoft didn't want me to install .Net 3.5, they shouldn't have made it the top feature in the list to install. Hide it. Make it separate. Something. But top in the list, incapable of installing saying it can't find media no matter what you do with copying files locally, powershell/DISM/whatever? Bite me you no-testing-code-shipping pieces of crap!
But I'm not bitter.
My mom says I'm cool.
Over all I'm enjoying windows 8/8.1... The start screen isn't my cup of tea, but then again I use it the same way i use the start bar in Win7, hit the windows key and type a few letters then enter to select the app I want. Only difference is I can see the weather and maybe a news headline at the same time. One thing I love about it though is the new theme, it's like Win 3.1 done right, its simple, elegant and out of your way. So with pretty much instant start up time, great battery life, clean lines, and built in hyper-v Windows 8 is my choice, so I'm sure I'll enjoy 9 as well.
... nothing since adds anything. 7=bloat, 8.0=wtf, 8.1=really?, 9=nfw
One word answer: "Disappointment"
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Anyone that does freelance IT work knows that this means $$$. Hell I'm still counting the money from WinXP's death. Yehaa!
Politics; n. : A religion whereby man is god.
Why upgrade, Windows7 does everything I need.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
I've used workspaces extensively since discovering Linux in the early 2000's. I find it rather interesting Microsoft is /finally/ introducing native, proper, workspaces.
Any time I try to explain it to someone who has never used them, they always ask me "Why would I use/want that?" and then they always jump on the multi-monitor mantra and say "Why not just get X number of screens?"
I personally have 8 workspaces configured. I use them all. I have my pager configured in 2 rows of 4 grid. My window manager is configured to 'skip' to the corresponding workspace by dragging the mouse pointer to the edge of the screen (with a configurable amount of resistance), so its as close to physical screens as it can get without the cost of buying 8 screens, video cards, plus power costs.
I've argued this in the past on Slashdot here, but I honestly don't see the appeal of physical screens. Maybe Windows people will finally 'get it' when Win9 comes out.
A: Not much
Table-ized A.I.
Now that metro programs are runnable in re-sizable windows, can someone explain to me the technical difference between a desktop program and a metro program?
Must have: Useable start menu, (a button to dump us into the "start screen" was just plain insulting) a useable desktop, and the ability to not run any metro (or whatever it's called) apps whatsoever.
Important but not a deal killer: Put all the control panel functions back in the control panel. You can keep the charms bar for tablet compatibility, but I'd want some way to turn it off on a desktop. In fact, I would like a way to turn off all hot corners, hot sides, and swiping gestures while on a KVM machine. Registry changes to do this would be fine, as I would intend to do it once and never revert back.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
I evaluate new software primarily based on two areas.
1) What do I gain with the new software? Currently running Windows 7, what do I get that helps make my life more productive with Windows 9? Thusfar, I see nothing. From Windows 8 to 9, yeah, I can see the improvement, but so far it is simply "improved" to the point of reverting back to what 7 already has.
2) What do I lose with the new software? From the current leaks, Windows 9 is just as ugly as Windows 8 desktop mode. The Win8/9 UI looks like Windows 3.1. They've switched back to centering title bar text from the previous decade+ of left-align title bar text. They've taken the UI from the clean and modern Aero Glass and turned it into flat colors just like Windows 3.1. The OS as a whole is simply less visually appealing.
So, the question still remains: WHY SWITCH!?
9 will be more like 7 than 8 was, so it will be 7sp2.
My Windows 7 laptop does everything I need for Windowsy stuff, so I won't be replacing or upgrading it unless I win the lottery.
Sadly, my 10+ year old 3.8GHz Pentium-pre-Core2 box is finally dying, so I'm in the midst of shifting my development and personal stuff over to the laptop. I've used Windows for years as a developer so it's not *too* painful, but I'm going to miss Linux. Linux just *works* without getting in my way; I can't say the same for Windows, even on trivial issues as to which widgets get auto-focused when you open them up (who is the brilliant idiot who came up with the idea that the file browser should focus on that damned library panel instead of the list of files?)
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
What's your litmus test on Windows 9?
I will buy it in a heartbeat, as long as it isn't made by Microsoft.
I am a career MS guy an .Net Dev, now in IT management. They failed the litmus test with Win8 and Server 2012... I am in the middle of moving everything to Linux. Had it on my laptop for almost a year now, about to do a rebuild on the home PC. I will keep a Win7 VirtualBox for the few times I need compatibility (Dymo label printer, SQL Server Manager) but that's it.
See ya MS. I can wait to laugh at Windows 10 Minecraft edition.
Metro Apps aren't particularly good or useful. They haven't seen mass usage by the Market or Developers, why keep it around on the desktop? It's a design clearly meant for touch interfaces. The design insist on hiding things in a submenu of a hidden side-menu - all that's visibly left is padding.
There might have been a reason for it a couple of years ago, when the world thought all laptops were going to have a touch screen but that's clearly not going to happen. The use cases are thin - and they're just plain uncomfortable to use. What the world really needed was better trackpads.
MS should remove Metro from the desktop and license WP8.1 for tablets.
Windows needs to have windows. With "windows" being rectangular application client areas on the screen, ideally resizable with UI elements common across the system for closing, moving, and resizing.
Hierarchical start menu.
I've JUST started using 8.1 for a project at work, and I'm constantly blown away at how much of a compromise the Metro Interface is. The defaults make it hard to find the things I'm used to, like the control panel, while the new interfaces are lacking in the features I need. Getting to basic features now takes more time than in WIn7. There are no advantages to the interface, and big detractions.
Just as companies held onto WinXP for a LONG time, I think they will do the same with Win7- there's just no huge incentive to upgrade. Home users are already turning towards iOS. MS has a hard road ahead of themselves if they want to regain what they once had.
I don't mind the start screen too much, but a proper start menu is a good start, and bringing Metro apps to the desktop is a start. The library for metro application actually has a long of good ideas in it, so expanding it beyond touch applications is a good idea.
The toughest part is that Windows 8/8.1 came with some really noticeable kernel and userland performance improvements. The switching between metro and the desktop is pretty smooth on all the hardware I've used. If they get back the power user desktop functionality, it's a good start back.
You put your grubby mits on my nice clean monitor and you're pulling back a bloody stump.
Are you fucking people blind? Smears and fingerprints drive me nuts!
Metro apps running in resizable windows on the desktop.
So, desktop apps. What's the difference now?
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Well, Unix systems had virtual desktops for around 20 years now. I wonder what other old tech they've put into it and crowing about inventing it.
What about industrial businesses? My company is just finally minimizing XP to only a handful of lab computers and ones necessary for legacy support such as our single remaining Windows 2k system. We are struggling to get one more system moved to Windows 7 (under the guise of a faster computer and therefore less time waiting on the computations) and the application just doesn't work on that OS yet. The vendor is working with us to find a solution, but it may take several months (if ever) because they licensed the software from someone else.
The computer is a tool to do RF measurements and calculations and prepare presentations. I just got my first VNA with no floppy drive and more than one USB port! That is a big event.
I see nothing but potential. You have potential, and you have potential... Oh boy.
You get to buy metro apps from the Microsoft Store, so they can track everything you do!
Windows 9 will be the next the Windows 7, if you believe in markov models..
Windows 98: Good
Windows ME: Sucked
Windows XP: Good
Windows Vista: Sucked
Windows 7 : Good
Windows 8: Sucked
Windows 9: GOOD
"Recursive bipartite matching"- try it!
Title says it all.
It will be Windows greatest spyware ever!
Holy crap. First I've heard of Cortana. Googled it.. Is that for real??? It looks like Seven of Nine got fucked by Bob and this is the offspring. I can already see the protests from middle America. "Electronic boobies from Satan are sending us to Hell". How could anybody think that's a good idea?
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
No matter 8 or 9 comes after. In related news, I changed the name of my car from Fiat to Ferrari, but I am afraid it is still slow. The name change did not work.
I want an OS that:
1) Doesn't attempt to hide the workings of my computer from me -- in particular, don't hide the way that paths and directories really work. (As a bonus: remove the spaces from system directories, dammit, because I get real tired of escaping them when I access my NTFS partition from a real OS.)
2) When something goes wrong tell me what the fuck it was. "The internet connection has limited connectivity" doesn't tell me a damn thing. "DHCP timeout" tells me something. Include both messages, by all means, for the benefit of Grandma -- but Grandma likely can't fix her internet connection on her own anyway.
3) Don't be patronizing. Copying .mp3's to a phone shouldn't give a "Your phone might not be able to play this file, copy anyway?" message, and there are a thousand things like that in Windows.
4) Get rid of file locking, or at least allow an override. I can decide whether a file is sufficiently "in use" that I shouldn't delete it.
5) Don't attempt to push other MS products (cloud services, "stores", and the like) on me, and don't keep spewing Windows Media Player etc. icons around after I delete them once.
I find it funny that MS is now the only major OS vendor that isn't running on a UNIX base. Seems like an uphill struggle as the world passes them by. They should do an Apple and virtualise the old Windows code in a classic environment and switch to a UNIX base. Or just stop trying to make operating systems altogether and focus on software.
"I have the attention span of a strobe lit goldfish, please get to the point quickly!"
The problem with Window 8.x (and Office 2013 / VS 2012 etc) is how they are breaking established UI conventions for no good reason and with very little payoff.
The Windows 8 Start screen, for example, takes the focus in a big way. The Start screen in Server 2012 is even worse; if I right-click to run a program as administrator, the context menu appears at the bottom of the screen. Talk about breaking context!
With Office, not only do we have the screen-stealing ribbon (not completely bad, but still...), all the tab titles are uppercase. The Microsoft style guide says this is a no-no; yet the Office team do it. The VS2012 menus are the same.
I'll agree that Win 8.x has probably the best Windows kernel ever. The UI is a turn off.
I'm hoping that Windows 9 brings back some vestige of Windows 7 UI whilst keeping the best bits of Win 8. Heck; if that's impossibly I'll gladly settle for a Window 98 UI. At least it was consistent, and didn't obscure the screen with useless tat.
The Amiga had virtual desktops in 1985.
I expect Microsoft to continue to use 'My' when the correct word is 'Your'. The way people talk to two-year-olds.
Says a lot about how Microsoft views their customers.
I just wish there was another popular OS and I'd be done Windows completely. Many of my clients will stay as long as possible on 7 and then begrudgingly move to 9. OS changes are happening way too fast and not offering up something better. As mentioned earlier, they blunder with every other OS. Here's hoping 9 is the XP or 7 equivalent of a new, sustainable OS and have it hang around a while.
What to expect? I expect nothing. Literally. I switched to FreeBSD a decade ago and never missed a beat.
Switch to FreeBSD or Linux and you'll be just as happy, more secure and not owned by the man. They have games there too.
Many reactions will depend on the actual version number in Win9... will it be 6.3, 7, or 9?
...it won't have a single thing I need.
-Styopa
Captain cloud services is now CEO of MS and they were already headed down the wrong path. So get ready for a cell phone and Xbox-live level of ongoing nickel and diming. Buy it and forget it? HELL NO! That died with Windows 7. And then 6 months later, Linux will explode and MS will make half the stuff they tried to charge for free (see Windows 8.1 patch, lol).
I can't figure out if I'm just too old and grumpy or if operating systems are just desperately uninspired. I remember how exciting a new OS used to be. Couldn't wait to learn about it. To get your hands on it. To install it. To customize it. To get things just right. It has been a good decade since an OS -- OSX, Windows, Linux, etc -- made me do much more than groan and think "maybe I can skip this one and the next one will be interesting". The most thought I find myself giving any of them, now, is to wonder just how much stuff they're going to fuck up that I'm going to have to learn to deal with.
I think the last thing I ever got excited about, OS-wise, was when I gave up on everything and said "I'm sticking with XFCE as much as possible" -- and that was less glee than exasperation.
Missed opportunity. Windows 8 tried to tell users what they were supposed to want. 9 would be a good chance to give users what they actually want (hint: a usable desktop that 'just works' goes a long way)
all I want to know is will I be able to buy a retail copy for less than $50 without having to play the OEM/System builder/school edition/illegal download copied to a disk to look like the real thing/whatdidImiss game?
It's interesting. I've been to many customer sites in the last few years and every one has macbooks. There was one rogue windows lenovo user. I'm sure that here are many windows users and in fact while talking to out customers they have boo koo (s) amount of windows users but it seems that always the admins/managers have macbooks. Always. again, Always. In fact, I can't even remember If I have ever seen WIndows 8.1. Maybe at a best buy?
Zoid.com
If I look at it's UI and think, "1990's AOL called and wants its interface back"... I'm not interested.
I! Tego Arcana Dei.
I'm still using my XP and Win98, I bought a Win7 laptop couple years ago and hearing all about Win8, I sure glad I got Win7. I know some people that when Vista came out, they immediately abandoned their XP but saved their files (which most were no good under Vista). Then Win7 came out, they did the same thing again (which I don't blame them for doing so). But they also abandoned Win7 for 8 and suffered problems. Win7 is fine and can do everything (these people are not developers, mostly use Office and surf the web). I don't get it, why do some people do that? I can somewhat understand about getting a new car that has various gadgets to impress the chicks. But a computer?
mfwright@batnet.com
Windows had this too, it was just never a default part of an official release. It was a part of PowerToys or some such as I recall. It didn't work that well at times but it just needed some evolving.
I fixed windows on my system, I forked out $$ and installed Directory Opus. Now I'm happy with Windows, much more so than with Mac.
Can't we just start talking about Windows 10 already, and how it will fix the problems with Windows 9?
And will it have minecraft as the default user interface? (it should, get 'em while they're young)
To use more memory. Admittedly you can solve that with the 64 bit XP if you have hardware it supports, or you can get server 2003 which is similar to XP, or you can roll back to Win2k to get away from the fucking stupid memory ceiling in XP if you have more than one core (I've still got a 6GB Win2k machine lurking in storage to run some legacy software every couple of years).
If you don't need more memory, as with a couple of receptionists computers in my workplace, XP does the job up to at least MS Office 2010.
Matrox had one back then that was half decent but it got broken by later versions of MS Windows. Nvidia still has a multiple desktop thing packaged with Quatro cards which has gone in cycles from perfect to flaky and back again. The MS one was proof of concept and may have worked initially but it turned into a certain blue screen timebomb a while after it had become abandonware. There were various others that worked for a while but nothing you could use for the long term.
It's almost as if it was a purchase requirement for a sale and abandoned later, but I suspect it's more a series of projects that were not maintained.
Microsoft should buy GP Software and employ John and Greg to make Opus the default Windows interface... How people use Windows without Opus is beyond me...
Two world rebuttal
"Linux Fanboy"
What I want for Windows:
- the possibility to delete files even if they are in use
- Unix tools available (find, grep, ssh, rsync, gpg, git) out of the box
- support for Linux file systems (ext2, ext3, ext4, brtfs)
- support for Lvm and dm-raid and cryp LUKS
- sshfs to mount file systems over ssh
- get rid of device letters
- CUPS
- virtual desktops
- software updates that do not take 2 hours and require x restarts
- repository for hardware drivers, so I don't have to hunt down drivers from vendors
- a terminal emulator that does not was ported from 1991 DOS
- dialogs that can be resized, all the time
- boot manager that supports alternative systems (GRUP can start Windows and Linux, and have auto-setup)
- possibility to re-assign keyboard keys without registry hacks
- get rid of the registry
- possibility to just copy Windows to a different computer
- recognition of my second hard disk in Windows Install (seriously, I cannot install Windows 7 to my second hard disk)
- get rid of the System-Partition
http://www.mueller-public.de - My site http://www.anr-institute.com/ - Advanced Natural Research Institute
Nah. It took a long time to get used to the flatness of Windows 8 (and still looks boring), but the level of transparency in W7 is in my opinion too high (after getting used to 8). Pity they went nuts fixing it.
It is what it is.
Make it free, like OS X. Most desktop users simply want up to date software on their old hardware. Nothing else (politics etc) matters.
Why does it matter whether Windows 9 will be acidic or alkaline?
I've had it with your crap, bigmouth: See you here http://yro.slashdot.org/commen...
APK
P.S.=> You've been messing with me for weeks - time to mess with you (looking @ your post history, you screw with everyone 99% of the time too) & time for some payback to you (for everyone, not just myself) - just to humiliate the hell out of a dickwad like yourself... apk
The only thing worse than Windows is iOS.
Time to pay up again, fuckers! That's what it's all about.
Maybe Ballmer's patent-free BSOD in 3D?
Windows 8 is actually really good, it's the start screen on non-touch devices that is crap. Fortunately taking two minutes to download and install Classic Shell resolves that problem.
for Windows 10 of course.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
All I care about is- can I finally create a path+filename+extension location longer than 256 and still have Windows Explorer work? Or is this bug still dictating the names I can give my libraries?
It's a simple question.
I am *quite* sure the answer is no, \so what do I care about Windows 9?
Answer- I don't.
Windows 7 is still humming along, thanks.
"Windows" an important platform and need to correct their mistakes.
Windows için Gerekli Programlar
Load of crippleware.
i doubt Nadella will fix the biggest problem at Microsoft: high licensing fees.
Remember kids, if you're not paying for the service, YOU ARE THE PRODUCT THAT IS BEING SOLD.
I noticed you are struggling to deal with it. Perhaps I can help.
My God can beat up your God. Just kidding...don't take offense. I know there's no God.
Can bored 12 year olds still hack into them? Bored 12 year olds want to know.
What I expect, nay demand, is that Microsoft give Windows 9 away for free as way of apology for forcing that abomination upon us.
Why would you? You *could* compare to Windows 7/8 *IF* they supported that old hardware, but chances are you'd run into an issue finding drivers for the sound or possibly LAN devices.
So what's the OS that gives you much of the latest goodies *AND* works well on the old hardware? If it's Win7/8 then feel free to install that, but if it's a modern version of Linux you'd be an idiot to install an old version.
Windows 9 changelog New and exciting in this release -IE replaced with Firefox -Notepad replaced with notepad2 (please use Notepad++ for power users) -Office is deprecated, consider switching to Libreoffice -cmd is deprecated, to be removed in a future release. Please consider using Conemu -7-zip is the default for archive handling -A new POSIX subsystem to gradually replace win32 crap 100% compatible with cygwin. Cygwin is expected to fly performanwise. -Process hacker has replaced windows system monitor. - Visual studio for other languages other than D is deprecated. A new release throws away all the crap, make the Shell thin and usable with D. -C# is deprecated, use D (not Java, they are competitors). We will re-introduce C# through mono. We failed. -Gnu guix is supported -If you want to use C/C++ consider moving to mingw. We have already moved. -Get your updates faster through portable apps. -Paint is here to stay -Windows media player leaves. VLC is the default player. -SEH patents have expired. Who cares, new in this release DWARF-3. -The GatesBot will build latest versions of over 1000 FOSS apps/libraries nightly for your pleasure. Get them through msys2. -We love FOSS, we have more recent versions than Linux distros. Have a nice day.
One of the fun things with a Linux install, it's fairly portable across hardware so long as you're using a generic enough kernel. If you want to install the exact same thing on 5-6 machines you can just do one, get it where you want it, and then clone the drive (or copy the files and reinstall GRUB). Heck, you could have it all on a thumb drive and move between machine with that.
The only place I've really run into issues is sometimes when switching between systems that use an nVidia VS ATI binary driver.
Whoa! How can you use 8 workspaces?
I've been using virtual desktops since the 80s. I typically run with 30 (5x6) but I had to upgrade to 36 (6x6) as 30 just wasn't enough. At any given time I'll have several thousand windows open or iconified, (Mostly, though far from exclusively, emacs and xterm.) Typically with 600 or so processes. (Mostly servers or background deamons.) Of course I'm using Linux as Windows just can't support my workload without crashing...
It's a hardship using Macs with OSX's 16 workspace limitation. 8 though. Whoa man. That's so tiny... How do you do it?
I think they need to have a touch screen with textures, soft and squishy, rough and scratchy, wet and sticky. could add a whole new dimension to touch screens.
I think this is going to finally be the year of the Amiga desktop!
planet texture maps and more
How easily I can wipe the it off the system and replace it with a Linux distro.
Dear friendly helper person, please help me make Win 7 explorer look and act more like win2000 explorer. I gave this search up a long time ago but you have breathed some new life into my quest. I've been using Win7 for so long I kind of forgot how much I hated the new file explorer when I migrated from W2K.
Please share, my good man!
All you "I'm gonna stick with Win7" people just STFU; We all know you will U-turn so hard the skid marks will emboss the asphalt.
I bet you are the same lot that said you'd boycott WinXP because it had on-line activation back in the day but got it anyway and began singing its praises instead.
You don't have a choice so stop lying to yourselves.
As we have seen, all it takes is for hardware vendors to pull driver support, then you WILL be using Win9.
MS are lucky they never got WDM to work otherwise we'd have drivers that weren't OS dependent and I could still be using Win2000!
Sandboxing and automatic updates. Those are two of the most critical features of the "Windows Store" apps.
All store apps run with extremely low privileges, and are only given access to the resources that they specify at installation. They can't read, much less wrote, most of the file system. They can't open arbitrary device handles. They can't enumerate running processes, much less open handles to them. They can't log your keystrokes (while the app lacks focus) or record your network traffic (except for the traffic to or from the app). They can *never* have Administrator powers.
All of this has two important effects. First, you can be sure that the apps are pretty safe to install, because there just isn't much that a Trojan app could do. Second, you don't have to worry much about the app being compromised by a remote attacker, because even if the attacker gets arbitrary code execution within the app there's basically nothing serious they can do with it. Worst case, you can uninstall an app (and guarantee that you get all of it).
The other key difference is the ability to do automatic updates. It's long been noted that while Linux's software repositories and package managers make keeping all your software current an easy process, on Windows you have practically every single app installing its own update mechanism... or not having any update mechanism and hence people run all manner of outdated versions. It's an extra burden on the developers and an inconvenience for the users. The store offers a built-in way to publish updates, notify users of updates, and even install updates automatically in the background if the user so desires.
There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
1) Use the command line, if this is important to you. Graphical shells for Linux sometimes do this too; it's not a Windows-exclusive thing. It's mostly just a way to implement symlink-like behavior (put your pictures on the external drive, but make them still reachable from your user profile) without actually exposing a symlink interface (which NTFS actually supports, BTW). It's not like you can't find the real paths easily, anyhow.
2) I mostly agree, though there's basically always a way to find out what the actual error was. For example, the built-in network troubleshooter will tell you what it finds (and whether it was able to fix it or not), although it takes a while to run. Worst case, check the event log. All kinds of stuff winds up there but you can often find what you're looking for with only a little filtering.
3) That message appears when a Media Transfer Protocol (MTP) device does not report that it supports a file type and you try to copy it anyhow. Since MTP allows reporting supported file types (among other things, this allows automatic conversion of media files by sync utilities), it really is the responsibility of whoever wrote the device's MTP implementation to report its supported file types correctly. In the case of a smartphone, that may just be everything but the PC doesn't know that. For the record, copying an MP3 to my phone does *NOT* give that warning, although copying an EXE does.
4) Never going to happen. File locks are an OS-enforced security feature. Yes, it would be nice if the OS wee to go check what process has the handle open and tell you (starting with Vista, Windows will do this under *some* circumstances but it could really be more common). Ideally, it would then (assuming you have sufficient privileges, which may be as-is, may be Administrator, or may be something like SYSTEM) offer to close the handle for you, unlocking the file. Of course, this risks crashing the process that had the handle open - an obvious example would trying to delete the executable of a running process - but it would also be an acceptable option to just kill the process (again, assuming you have privileges). Sure, Linux gets by with its file access system, which has no way to lock a file (you can change the permissions on it if you own it or are root, but that won't stop somebody else who already has an open file descriptor from reading or writing to the file) but file locks have been a part of the Microsoft file system access paradigm for practically as long as they've been writing operating systems, and developers in the Windows world use them and rely on them. Changing that behavior in some drastic way would have a major impact on the security (and sometimes the simple correctness) of software written for Windows.
5) So what, MS should just assume that everybody who might ever want to store files in something like Box or OneDrive should already know about them, have downloaded and installed them, and that MS should never offer to integrate one of their products with another of their products unless you explicitly tell them to? Do you also object to Android automatically adding your Gmail account if you sign into it when setting up the phone, or to KDE opening AmaroK by default when you double-click a FLAC file? Oh, and if WMP is "spewing" its icon about, you have a definite case of PEBKAC. The only WMP icons on my machine are for launching the program itself (in Start or ont he taskbar, probably on the program binary too); all of my media files have icons from my preferred media player and have had those icons ever since I set the file association to that media player. Are you telling WMP to re-associate itself with its playable file types? Because it does not do that automatically...
There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
Barb your lies, stalking, and libel have been torn apart by your antics http://slashdot.org/comments.p... with proof you can't deny (your own words and actions did you in quoted and shown there).
Barb your lies, stalking, + libel have been exposed http://slashdot.org/comments.p... with proof you can't deny (your own words & actions did you in shown quoted there).
Barb your lies, stalking, + libel have been exposed http://slashdot.org/comments.p... with proof you can't deny (your own words & actions did you in shown quoted there).