Latest Windows 10 Preview Build Brings Slew of Enhancements

Deathspawner writes: Following its huge Windows 10 event last Wednesday, Microsoft released a brand-new preview build to the public, versioned 9926. We were told that it'd give us Cortana, Microsoft's AI assistant, as well as a revamped Start menu and updated notifications pane. But as it turns out, that's not even close to summing up all that's new with this build. In fact, 9926 is easily the most substantial update rolled out so far in the beta program, with some UI elements and integral Windows features seeing their first overhaul in multiple generations.

Comments

meh

[McGiraf]

meh

Ugly as it can be?

[cpotoso]

Ugly as it can be? All decoration gone? Why does everybody have to copy Apple? I understand copying when it is beautiful, but apple is now engaged in making computer graphics look like an X11 system from the 1980s and everybody else is following suit. Awful... truly awful.

Re:Ugly as it can be?

[Dutch Gun]

Sigh... I absolutely agree about the conclusion. But it's a stretch to say this trend is copying Apple. Windows 8 came out long before Apple's new "flat" look came out, unless I'm aware of a trend that started before that in the Apple camp.

Seriously, though, I'm already completely sick of this "flat, clean, simple" trend. But more importantly, the usability is often worse, sacrificed on the alter of the new aesthetic. In the new design language, button borders are uncool, so they've simply done away with them in many cases, and don't offer any indications of what you can click, or where clickable regions are. Windows 8 was particularly bad with this, so we'll see if Windows 10 does any better, despite using the same basic theme. I understand that aesthetics are important, but they should always, always, always take a back seat to functionality and usability.

With any luck, after a few years, when everyone else gets sick of flat, uninspired graphics, someone will create a new, "retro" look and start adding some bevels, gradients, gloss, and transparency back into the UI.

God, what drivel ...

[gstoddart]

We were told that it'd give us Cortana, Microsoft's AI assistant

OK, I'll preface this with a "get off my lawn" to get it out of the way.

But I have to say, I have precisely zero interest in this. The more I read TFA, the more I cringe.

After setting Cortana up, which involves telling her your name, and adjusting some other minor settings, sheâ(TM)ll be good to go. If the respective option is enabled, sheâ(TM)ll always listen out for âoeHey, Cortanaâ, at which point your question can be asked. In the example below, I asked, âoeHey, Cortana. Could you please show me the weather?â, at which point she queried the Internet and spit back the accurate info â" without me having to state a specific location.

Talking to Cortana is finicky at best. After stating âoeHey, Cortanaâ, Iâ(TM)ve found that Iâ(TM)ve either had to keep talking right away to be heard, or have her say, âoeHey, Robâ and then me have to click the microphone icon again to speak. It seems some thresholds need to be adjusted, because in the current implementation, itâ(TM)s easier to avoid potential hassle and just go find such information online.

I don't want my fucking computer to feel like it's on a first name basis with me. I don't want to talk to it. I don't want my computer constantly listening to and parsing everything I say. I sure as shit don't want that crap integrated with an ad platform.

If I want to see the weather, I'll go to the tab I keep open with the weather.

This is a bunch of dreck I can't see myself wanting to use, which is mostly a "make pretend" version of AI which is at best a shortcut to search. I don't see the value in voice commands -- in fact, I see great nuisance in it (like in Offices, or just everywhere).

This sounds like an OS which is heavily focused on "teh social" integration with XBox, with the new lame-ass crayon interfaces Microsoft seems partial to, and a bunch of dorky features which seem like they're trying too damned hard.

I don't see any of these features being useful, I see them as being pointless eye candy, which is full of gimmicks I don't see myself using in the long run -- in fact, I see me disabling as many as possible.

I'm afraid Microsoft's "vision of the future" is a glimpse into hell. At least half of those features sound like shit which will slow down the machine and add zero benefit.

Now, seriously, get the fuck off my damned lawn.

Re:God, what drivel ...

[jones_supa]

You can disable her.

But why get an OS of which you have to disable half of the features? I don't want Modern UI, I don't want to send information to Microsoft to help to improve my computing experience, I don't want a Windows Live Account, I don't want SkyDrive, I don't want Cortana.

Me no want anything! Waaah!

Re:Have some!

[corrosive_nf]

Right click on the task bar.
Select the "Search" option.
You'll now see three new options for what to do. To make it go away altogether hit "Disabled."

Re:Full Screen Start Menu!

[Anonymous Coward]

To make explicit the concept that the Start Screen is nothing more than a full screen Start Menu, a maximize button on the Start Menu transforms it into the Start Screen. Finally, the vertical Start Menu users can shut the fuck up about it!

There's still a UXtard in Redmond who needs to be shot for making the resizable start screen nonresizable in 9926. The 9879 build was resizable, so you could make the useful part of it (the list of things on the left, even with the atrocious waste of vertical whitespace) taller. 9926 gives you two options: scroll like a motherfucker or fullscreen shit,.

The start menu of 9926 can be *FORCED* to be as resizable as it was in 9879 as follows: Create a DWORD32 named EnableXamlStartMenu in HKEY_CURRENT_USER>Software>Microsoft>Windows>CurrentVersion>Explorer>Advanced and leave (or set, if it already exists) its value to 0.

Now if only there were a way to restore the wasted vertical space in the task manager. Sigh. The W10 task manager is good, it's just utterly wasteful on space. On W7 I can see damn near everything running. On W10, the UXtard with the vertical whitespace fetish won the debate. For fuck's sake, we gave up the Status Bar in Firefox 4.0 because 10 pixels was too much space to waste... and we got this shit - in Firefox, in ribbons, in Win8/10, and even in goddamn Google's Material Design / Android - in return.

Re:Change for change's sake

[afidel]

The problem is the previous build was visually different while being MORE functional, this build is less functional if you have 19+ years of Windows experience. The previous build had the Windows 7 Start Menu with the addition of a live tiles dock area to the right, it added new useful functionality to the familiar and functional paradigm, the new build is basically a shrunk version of the Start Screen with all the crap that entails and which the majority of users have derided as being less functional on desktops (still the VAST, VAST majority of Windows machines). We had actually started plans for a Windows 10 rollout to our enterprise based on earlier tech preview builds, but those are now on hold and will be cancelled if they don't reverse the insanity. We can just keep using Windows 7 for the next 5 years.

Re:Wiped my Grub though.

[hairyfeet]

.Jesus Tap Dancing Christ on a damned cracker are the FOSSies on this site so dang ignorant that they are actually gonna bitch that when A NEW OS IS INSTALLED it actually gives you a motherfucking way to boot the damned thing? Really? Does Grub ask if you wanna keep the Windows bootloader? FUCK NO IT DOES NOT so have some damned common sense and realize when you install a new OS you need a fucking bootloader! For fuck's sake the FOSSies is getting as bad as the damned knee jerk partisan political hacks, rushing to cheer or fucking boo without even understanding WTF they are cheering FOR or booing AGAINST, its just "us VS them" with no damned brains involved!

And FYI you are previewing a build of a CONSUMER OS, its NOT made for those that load custom bootloaders, ok? its NOT FOR YOU so don't bitch when an OS designed for the masses doesn't assume that you know about loading custom bootloaders and leaves you to deal with it, that is Linux way of leaving the user with their ass flailing about in the dark, NOT the Windows way, again don't like the Windows way? ubuntu is just a hop to your left, enjoy the biannual update deathmarch and drivers getting crapped on,the rest of us will be enjoying an OS with 10 years of free updates WITHOUT reinstalls (which now even Ubuntu advises you to do, even Canonical couldn't fix the clusterfuck that is the Linux update process) where the drivers work from RTM to EOL as my Hairyfeet Challenge has shown, now celebrating 8 years of FOSSie fail.

Now for those that actually care about Windows 10 and isn't just here to bleat on about ubuntu prostituting porcupine or whatever the fuck the latest one is called, or the "new hotness" distro, Mint? Elementary? Who the hell knows, more damned distros than bad coffee in a food court these days, but back to Windows 10...for those that do not know the way I like to test a beta OS is as follows, which I think gives us the best idea how it will run, I call it the "If it can run on that" test as I take the weakest system I current have (oh and for the guy who didn't understand CPUs on the last Windows 10 article...a first gen Core 2 Duo is NOT, I repeat NOT slower than an AMD E350, the E350 was to compete with ATOM and gives the performance of the Atom+Nvidia ION chipset so even if you have the shitty Intel IGP when it comes to raw CPU power your C2D curbstomps an E350) so here is the specs followed by my impression..

AMD E350, 8GB of RAM (the only thing that could be considered not below average, but fuck I scored 2 4GB sticks for $30, how could I pass that shit up? Does NOT affect the performance of the OS enough to consider it a major factor, as Win 10 is pretty RAM light) with a 320GB 5400 RPM drive, currently running the latest build, whatever the fuck that number is...Cortana...cute idea, pretty voice, SUCKS on accents, will probably not use if I can help it as it just doesn't seem to be there yet. Reminds me of Dragon Naturally Speaking as it seems like something you will have to "train" and I can type faster than I can train the damned thing. New Icons....OMFG will SOMEBODY pretty please hire somebody with damned taste to work on icons? It reminds me of a bastard child of KDE 3 and those tablety Windows Mist8ke flat shaded abominations, blech. I see an icon themepack for my netbook in the future, yep those be fugly.

Now for the important shit...how does it run on hardware so slow? WOOOO HOOO YEAH!!!! Don't ask me how they did it but this thing boots crazy fast, it seriously gives my Windows 7 desktop which is several orders of magnitude a run for its money on boot time, battery life? Meh, I'd say its added maybe 20-30 minutes maybe with the new battery saver on, but its an old battery so really not surprising. When you are dealing with ULV SOC like Intel Atom and AMD E series they either idle or go full bore, not really much tweaking you can do there, would probably do better on one of the new mainstream lappys like a Haswell or Vishera chip.

Control panel...I'm REALLY mixed on this one, as the default that comes