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Data From Windows 10 Feedback Tool Exposes Problem Areas
jones_supa writes: Two weeks in, and already a million people have tried out Windows 10 Technical Preview, reports Microsoft, along with a nice stack of other stats and feedback. Only 36% of installations are occurring inside a virtual machine. 68% of Windows 10 Technical Preview users are launching more than seven apps per day, with somewhere around 25% of testers using Windows 10 as their daily driver (26 app launches or more per day). With the help of Windows 10's built-in feedback tool, thousands of testers have made it very clear that Microsoft's new OS still has lots of irksome bugs and misses many much-needed features. ExtremeTech has posted an interesting list of the most popular gripes received, them mostly being various GUI endurances. What has your experience been with the Technical Preview?
Data From Windows 10 Feedback Tool Exposes Problem Areas.
It is now headline news when a software release works as designed.
In a VM. Said hey, it has a new huge start menu. Saw nothing else exciting and haven't booted it since.
Only 36% of installations are occurring inside a virtual machine. 68% of Windows 10 Technical Preview users are launching more than seven apps per day, with somewhere around 25% of testers using Windows 10 as their daily driver
Those are indeed problems.
How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
Guess no compelling reason the ever upgrade to windows 10. I'm staying at 7...
I don't really trust Microsoft and I'd rather not use it. Unfortunately, I seem stuck with Microsoft because of all the games and software on the PC. :(
If it weren't for Linux and the hectic pace of major distributions delivering new versions at least once a year, would Microsoft feel compelled to do the same?...
I installed W10 on an old fliptop that had windows 8 RC1 on it. my 16yo teenager exclaimed: "you mean it won't boot on me every couple hours? sweet!" I haven't seen the fliptop nor my son for more than a few minutes since...
.....have pretty much peaked, where the consumer market is concerned. In fact Windows peaked (imho) with XP SP3......Of course it still had some serious issues that Win7 fixed , but nothing revolutionary......and could have been added on via updates and patches......
The UI is where is all the action is at at the moment.
Finding more efficient ways of doing what we always did with our computers.
The type of people who would have the know-how to, and be willing to, download and install beta copies of windows are not typical windows users, and this is reflected in the types of requests.
Configurable wallpapers for virtual desktops? A better multi-boot menu? Give me a break. What percentage of Windows users do you suppose even know what a virtual desktop is? I am pretty sure if I asked my wife or mother their eyes would glaze over.
It's kind of embarrassing almost to see these types of things in the Top 10 issues, while I am sure there are many more worse problems that the average users will run into often. Is the VPN setup and wireless configuration in Windows 10 as horribly crippled as it was in Windows 8 for example?
* Windows 10 looks fine in pictures, but using it gives me a headache. I can't find a theme that's acceptable. UI is too colorful and the tile background colors still don't make sense.
* Why can't I move applications between virtual desktops? You had it in PowerToys for Windows 95.
That constitutes a "daily driver" machine? (BTW, I appreciate the car analogy.) But I only launch one or two apps each day; most of the time I'm resuming already running apps. Do they have to reboot each day as part of this tool?
The ModernUI is optional now, and disabled by default. Metro Apps run in a window.
I'm starting to think GNU is the problem with "GNU/Linux" these days.
Same as Windows 8.x
There is no support for 1280x720 screen resolution on the Metro/Modern full screen apps. You get a "switch to higher resolution" error (1024x768) work fine so we are talking about 46 pixels.
Oh, and the "PC Settings" app, which is a Metro/Modern app works just fine and scrolls for sections not visible. I just don't see a big technical reason that this cannot be enabled. It's all about the 720 versus 768 part.
When i first tried the consumer preview of window 8 it basically unusable, most of what i need for work did not work and UI was annoying, being taking away and brought back on a whim.
At least this is usable, i have no issue with the UI, is it different, yes, but not too different. The live tiles thing is gimmicky, but i don't have to use them, there could be more control ever the style and size of the icons (some you have a few size option and some only a couple, i would like to be able to resize them all how i want).
But it is usable, I didn't think id be able to use it as daily driver when i installed it has a dual boot but holy crap, not only can i use it as my daily, since i was able to get all my software working properly, but some of the software is quite a bit faster when starting and logging in.
That being said, i dont totally disagree with alot of the complaints, would be nice if they simply added a control panel link in PC settings, its a nice ui for changing lockscreen and whatnot but i had to add a shortcut to the control panel to my start menu, that works good enough i suppose but shouldn't be necessary, i don't care about the search and task buttons on the taskbar, but i can see how being able to move or even get rid of them would be nice for some
all in all i look forward to the final product this time, i hated 8, never installed in on anything, or for anybody, nor would i recommend it. but for an everyday user, or someone i work with who wants to know what they should buy, at least i wont have to tell them to avoid this like the plague or ebola or win8.
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More specifically, it is governed by the Continuum feature, which means that when you go mobile (for example detach the screen unit from a hybrid device's base), it will switch to Modern UI. The apps that you have open are arranged nicely depending on the use case.
Continuum is not available (yet). My tablet running Windows 10 thinks it is a desktop.
But you can change a setting to get the Start screen back instead of the Start menu.
All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
They had similar levels of data collection on the tech previews and betas of 7 and 8, and switched it off on the RTMs. I don't think even MS has the desire and capacity to collect that much data from a billion computers.
Trying to become famous by taking photos. Visit my homepage please.
Who the hell puts a list of top 10 things in the wrong order?
Politics; n. : A religion whereby man is god.
So far, I've found it works fine.
Halfway through the quests after I dinged 90 last night, looking forward to the Horde title.
Oh, you mean "MSFT" ... um, nobody wants to "upgrade" from Win7 dude.
Nobody.
Seriously, go talk to Clippy. Maybe he can help you.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Continuum Transfunctioner, a device whose mystery is only exceeded by its power.
This is kind of sad, I've had two USB3 ports for the last 4 years on my eight core Win 7 machine, in addition to all the USB2 ones.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
So you mean this will stop when the final version is released?
The worst thing for me is the desire of windows 8 to sync everything to the cloud.
It stresses me to read every message/configuration option (some translated very bad) because i don't want anything accidentally in the microsoft cloud.
I (just) want software (O.K. an operating system) and not (rental) services.
There are far too many issues to count.
Half of the "menus" (are they even menus, or panels, or what?) for networking are flat out blank. Click on the ethernet connection to find out IPv4/IPv6 addresses and link speed? NOPE! Just a blank panel!
Opened up "Games" app, which launches what looks to be something similar to the XBox dashboard. Any games in there? NOPE! None! It just lists what I played on the XBox and what my achievements were on there. Any games on Windows 10? Comes with NONE apparently! Go to the store, download some free games. Are they then listed in the "Games" app? STILL NOPE!
And speaking of those downloaded games. None of them would remain stable for more than 60 seconds. These are basic games like Minesweeper, Mahjong, ya'know, the things that came with Windows 7? Also, their load times were in the 2-5 minute area. Yeah, that's right. It takes about 2-5 minutes to even get the games up and running once launching, then about 60 seconds of play before they crash out. Funny enough, while Minesweeper was "loading", I opened up Chrome and visited http://www.michaelv.org/ and played a game of Minesweeper through there while still waiting on the local native application to work.
Better customization of the start menu is absolutely needed. The menu is literally backwards. Windows 7 has a left/right split panel for the start menu, just like Windows 10 does. The problem? In Windows 7, the left half is the customization area for custom applications, with the right half being for static items (like control panel, computer, documents, etc). In Windows 10, this is reversed, with the static items being on the left, and the fully customization items being on the right.
Speaking of the customization items. You get the choice of normal desktop apps of either having a 1x1 or a 2x2 grid icon, nothing else. The 1x1 is simply an icon (no text), and the 2x2 is too large. Why not a 1x2 where it has the icon on the left and text on the right?
And this was just the beginning. The more I use it, the more the problems just seem absolutely endless.
Win10 relays on the 2 bit - 4 bit - 8 bit - 16 bit - 32 bit - 64 bit history to produce a Gatesian 64 bit op sys that can run in 8 x 8 bit multi tasking microkernels.
Ha ha
So Windows 7.1 has cleared alpha then.
My experience was that the installer never got past the loading icon in VirtualBox...
-Myke
That's the biggest complaint right now, you can't unpin search and tasks. I suppose MS wants you to use Bing come hell or high water. And you just know they won't fix it.
Data protection. One reason why MS has lost its appeal isn't just because of the rise of mobile. Its because MS has stopped innovating in useful ways around the OS. Bringing back the start menu and windowing of store apps is great but really represent fixes rather than enhancements. Major GUI tweaks are mostly gimmicky at this juncture. Most typical users spend their time using apps not switching between them.
A windows file system that deals with bitrot, provides quick system restores, and bulletproof data recovery is long overdue. If ZFS and Btrfs can exist in the Linux world with a small budget, I'm sure the largest software company in the world can pull off a nextgen file system too. Protecting data on PCs is still ad-hoc, Most consumer users can't be bothered to automate their backups even with existing utilities in Windows. They do silly things like back up manually to USB keys... occasionally. The vast majority don't have secondary drives.
PCs should just do data protection right out of the box without user input. Ideally the OS should even encourage the existence of secondary drive with a notification upon first use. (scold the manufacturer as inferior product for not putting it in with a warning... your data isn't safe) Sell Windows with cloud backups as a built-in feature (with opt in question during initial use). Hook customers in with free backups for first year.
Add more robust virus and spyware protection. Create a far better firewall (something like peerblock's list system baked into the system). Make it easier to clean out the system of unwanted apps... without having to reinstall everything again. Windows store is a step in the right direction but it shouldn't mimic Apple's and Android's Orwellian control freak model (that also sucks up the profits of app developers) Reverse the model. Apps that are installed in windows instantly also become store apps aligned to their personal account. This way anyone can install anything on their system and immediately have a full system recovery even if the hardware dies. Get the job done.
With the rise of mobile, at this juncture Microsoft is no longer in a monopoly position. The DOJ should allow it to add security and data stability features to the desktop without having a cow. If competing companies don't like it, tough. Free enterprise. Either do it better or get out of the way of those that can.
Addendum: Data protection also includes protecting one's data from prying eyes of corporation and government organizations that forget the human right to privacy. Mass surveillance is a human rights violation even if its being done against another country. End industrial scale back doors. Period. This would require open sourcing windows already. (not the same thing as free) The NSA , by proxy politicians, seem intent on destroying American technology jobs (since no one with half a brain stem would trust American tech to protect their data at this point) . Ergo - companies have to put the power to protect data in the hands of users. Encryption should be on the client side. Updates should be from servers were the code being updated is visible to everyone. Code should be compiled locally before first use. (and checksums validated). There should be no way for a company to update a remote computer without user agreement. This by extension makes it harder for government to do so. Its still not foolproof (since the KGB... uhmmm... NSA... is sneaking things into firmware and probably even hardware but MS should be at least doing its part. Tech companies like MS (Apple, Google, etcl) need to top taking orders on data sharing from a government that has clearly overreached. Combine efforts to show corporations can also be a force for good political change too. Taking this stuff to court until laws exists make it legal for manufacturers to produce protects that make it impossible to spy out of the box. If the spooks, fbi, et al.. want to gather intelligence, do it the way they used to do it. Physical infiltration. Leg work. Human resources. We are not here to serve the government. The government is here to serve us. I'd rather have criminals and terrorist get away with it more often than a Orwellian surveillance state. Cries about "the childen" and "terrorism" aren't justification to take our freedoms away.
Only use a local account, and Microsoft's cloud services are disabled.
Highly doubtful. Remember, when there was little to no competition, they let IE6 stagnate. Only the introduction of Firefox, Safari and Chrome gave them the kick to actually start improving IE again. Windows would be 'handled' exactly the same way.
Thanks for the info, i knew this. But I've reverted back to win 7 and I'm happy. And I will stay away from windows 10 (apart from putting it in a VM).