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Microsoft Releases Windows 10 SDK

Posted by Soulskill on from the tools-to-build dept.

An anonymous reader writes: Microsoft today launched developer tools for the Windows 10 Technical Preview, including a software development kit (SDK). Developers can use the new tools, currently in preview, to start building universal Windows apps for Microsoft's upcoming operating system. A universal Windows app is Microsoft's verbiage for an app that can run across different form factors, including PCs, tablets, and phones. Developers can publish these apps in the Windows Store, which will be available across all types of Windows 10 devices.

69 of 133 comments (clear)

  1. Last week I tried to write a Win8.1 universal app by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    It turns out I had to write the UI twice: once for tablets/desktops, and once again for "Windows Phone".

    IDK about you, but if I were advertising a "Universal" SDK, it would mean that one app would be able to write without any code changes between platforms - with the optional ability to change UI layout according to form factor, but graceful degradation otherwise.

    God fucking dammit.

  2. So does this mean.... by SeaFox · · Score: 5, Funny

    Even "desktop" applications are going to have over-sized text and clunky controls now?

    1. Re:So does this mean.... by hcs_$reboot · · Score: 5, Funny

      "desktop" applications are going to have over-sized text now?

      MS devs get older, you insensitive clod.

      --
      Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
    2. Re:So does this mean.... by Billly+Gates · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Windows 10 has an adaptive UX and user control api to get around this problem.
      Haven't used it yet but plan to fire a vm tonight and play with it.

      VS 2015 supports android and linux development with cordova. No really you did not miss read that. I like this newer Microsoft

      --
      http://saveie6.com/
    3. Re:So does this mean.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      I've moved on to a Mac for home use.

      And I bet you're one of the hundreds of people who log on to online forums every day bitching because X or Y program doesn't work properly for your Mac and how do you get it to work or when is the Mac patch due, right?

    4. Re: So does this mean.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      So nothing that you'd use in an office. You know, those places where grown ups work.

    5. Re:So does this mean.... by peppepz · · Score: 1, Insightful

      VS 2015 supports android and linux development with cordova. No really you did not miss read that. I like this newer Microsoft

      The all new Microsoft that, as expected, is conspiring to lock Linux out of people's computers by means of the so-called SecureBoot?

    6. Re:So does this mean.... by dave420 · · Score: 1, Troll

      Big whoop. Microsoft is just not insisting that OEMs produce motherboards with SecureBoot which can be disabled. That's it. If you want to get upset over that, no one will stop you, but a fair few people will laugh at your misdirected rage-fest.

    7. Re: So does this mean.... by gbjbaanb · · Score: 1

      But the offices you mention are all running windows 7 (with a fair few running XP).

      None but a very few will be running Windows 10 for about 5 years.

    8. Re:So does this mean.... by Merk42 · · Score: 1, Troll

      They aren't forcing OEMs to do it, Microsoft is giving OEMs the choice and software should be about choice, shouldn't it?

    9. Re:So does this mean.... by peppepz · · Score: 1, Insightful

      They are removing from users the choice of installing an operating system other than Windows on their hardware of choice.

    10. Re:So does this mean.... by peppepz · · Score: 1

      This is unacceptable for so many reasons, do I really need to enumerate them all, once again? We've already gone through this when the "new" Microsoft forced on the OEMs (and therefore the users) the so-called Secure Boot restriction for Windows 8; back then all Microsoft supporters claimed that it wasn't a big deal precisely because there was the warranty of being able to disable it.

    11. Re:So does this mean.... by Merk42 · · Score: 1, Troll

      If you buy hardware that you can't disable SsecureBoot on, it's the because the OEM chose to not because Microsoft forced them.

    12. Re:So does this mean.... by gstoddart · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Yeah, right "do this or you can't sell machines with our stuff".

      That's not really a "choice".

      Once again, Microsoft abuses it's position in the market, and everyone acts like it's the OEMs who chose to do this.

      Sorry, but no ... the position this was a choice of the OEM is crap.

      --
      Lost at C:>. Found at C.
    13. Re:So does this mean.... by ConceptJunkie · · Score: 1

      That's fine until MS gives them a break on the Windows license if the SecuteBoot can't be disabled. OEMs will lock out alternate OSs at the drop of a hat if that happens.

      But, hey, it's all about choice.

      --
      You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
    14. Re:So does this mean.... by iampiti · · Score: 1

      You joke but I fear this will come true. After decades of refining the interface for use with a keyboard and mouse we will get "one size fits all" programs which will be equally unsuitable for both desktop and mobile devices. If anything they'll be more tuned for touchscreens since that's where the future seems to be.
      Call me a luddite if you want but I think that the desktop oriented and touch oriented interfaces in Windows 8 and 10 should have been kept separated. In the Windows 10 preview some applications have a touchscreen oriented interface and others have a desktop one. In a mobile device you should get only the formers and in my desktop I should get only the latter.

    15. Re:So does this mean.... by peppepz · · Score: 1

      If I buy hardware with so-called SecureBoot, in any form, it's because Microsoft forced the OEM to implement it. Don't make it look like Secure Boot was a misfortune fallen from the sky.

    16. Re:So does this mean.... by exomondo · · Score: 1

      They are removing from users the choice of installing an operating system other than Windows on their hardware of choice.

      If by "they" you mean the OEMs (not Microsoft) and you have an example of an OEM who has actually done that then yes perhaps you may have a point. But if your hardware "of choice" doesn't have the ability to choose what operating system you put on it then obviously you chose wrong.

    17. Re:So does this mean.... by peppepz · · Score: 1
      Certainly I can't tell you about specific negative effects from the so-called Secure Boot, since the lack of a way to disable it is a proposed feature of Windows 10 which, as you certainly know, hasn't hit the markets yet. I could tell you about the large amounts of malware that I have had to remove so far from Windows 8.1 update 1 machines notwithstanding their so-called Secure Boot feature in place, but I suspect that wouldn't be the kind of story that you want to hear. As for pointing fingers, when somebody gets eaten by a lion, I don't point the finger to the lion, but to the person who opened its cage. Bear with me.

      What's my complaint, you ask. My complaint, I'm sorry if it wasn't clear, is not being able to install the software that I want on the PC that I own. Everyone around here has understood perfectly what's going on: the so-called Secure Boot adds no security on a system where the user is able to install third-party software (or his own) and therefore it is merely an obstacle put in place by Microsoft (not the UEFI forum, not the OEMs, not anyone else) to make it harder for end users to replace Windows with something else. Being upset for this is not an "emotional problem against Microsoft", it is a very pragmatic stance. If anything, if you want to see something emotional, it's calling a company which behaves this way as "the new Microsoft that supports Linux", which is the reason I bothered to write my original comment. And that's, of course, a perfectly acceptable emotional behaviour; we'd be robots without emotions. A less laudable kind of emotional behaviour is making personal attacks about the richness of my vocabulary. Yes, my English skills are limited. But being able to master a wider portion of the English language won't help me when I get a blinking cursor because I tried to remove Windows, or because a malware has modified some image measured by the so-called Secure Boot infrastructure.

    18. Re:So does this mean.... by peppepz · · Score: 1

      What happens when your PC is restricted by the so-called Secure Boot scheme is well known. The problem we're discussing here is the potential impossibility to disable it induced by Microsoft into future computers.

    19. Re:So does this mean.... by peppepz · · Score: 1

      And the OEMs provide a switch to turn it off.

      That's not true any more. That's the news. People will install Linux on their laptops, find out that hibernation isn't working because of the so-called Secure Boot restrictions, get angry, and just give up Linux and go back to Windows and its world of post-boot malware.

      That is the OEMs choice, just like is their choice whether to even give you access to the BIOS.

      Impossible, no machine could ever be sold without the capability to boot from an external device, as this would prevent installing Microsoft Windows on it.

      We've seen the same thing with default BIOS passwords before too, the hysterical idiots crying "what if the OEMs dont tell us the passwords?!".

      Actually, what we have seen is that people saw the so-called Secure Boot as the unuseful and harmful thing that it is, and a limited number of Microsoft supporters labeled them as hysterical idiots pointing at the fact that it could always be disabled. Well, now it's no longer true, as widely expected by the hysterical idiots.

      Blaming Microsoft when the onus is on the OEM is obvious stupidity or intentional malicious misdirection.

      Leaving aside the fact that "leaving the onus on the OEM" already is an anti-competitive, anti-consumer and anti-free software behaviour, since you are less malicious than me, can you give a non-malicious explanation about why the requirement of being able to disable the so-called Secure Boot is being lifted now? What problem are MS trying to solve? The rising wave of hypno-malware that induces users to enter the firmware setup utility on their machines and disable boot restrictions?

    20. Re:So does this mean.... by peppepz · · Score: 1

      A statement is true when it's always true, not when it's true sometimes and sometimes not. You didn't even bother following the line of reasoning.
      Microsoft supporter: "SecureBoot is useful and gives no problem to the user"
      Me: "No, it's unuseful and here's how it harms the user"
      Microsoft supporter: "Eh, but you can always turn it off"
      Me: "Not anymore."

    21. Re:So does this mean.... by peppepz · · Score: 1

      Absolute, 100% rubbish! Show me an OEM that does not provide the ability to turn secure boot off.

      I don't know if you're the same Microsoft supporter as before, but in case you aren't, I'll repeat that we are talking about "designed for Windows 10" machines which aren't for sale yet.

      Impossible, no machine could ever be sold without the capability to boot from an external device, as this would prevent installing Microsoft Windows on it.

      Wrong again, they can easily install it and then lock you out of the BIOS.

      No, because that would prevent the user from buying copies of future versions of Microsoft Windows.

      Bullshit. The OEMs should be held accountable if they make the choice to produce a product that doesn't allow secureboot to be turned off. Why are you so desperate to defend the OEMs as some blameless, unaccountable entity?

      Because the OEMs are known not to care about letting the users fiddle with advanced boot options. They are also known to make firmware that, for example, will crash the machine from SMM when running a non-Windows OS: I've owned such PCs (that bug was meant to be a fix to make Windows 2000 run on that hardware). If the machines they make don't boot Linux, it's because they don't care, or haven't the resources to support Linux, not because of malice. But it's Microsoft who put these hurdles for them (and the users) to overcome. It's their decision that will lock people out of their own PCs, not the disinterest of the OEMs, which has always been there and is not changing.

      Do you also blame Google for not forcing everybody who makes Android devices to provide an unlocked bootloader and root-level access on phones?

      Yes of course. That's where I usually lose most of my karma points.

      can you give a non-malicious explanation about why the requirement of being able to disable the so-called Secure Boot is being lifted now?

      Less overhead in the certification process perhaps

      You've just admitted that there's "overhead" in the overall process of the OEM to add an option that disables the so-called Secure Boot. Hence, OEMs that want to get rid of this "overhead" WILL remove the option. Thanks for proving my point.

      but likely pushed by the OEMs as a way to try and sell both their Windows and Linux offerings separately rather than just one and have the user dual-boot it.

      That is, to keep Linux out of of the users' PC as I've been stating from the beginning!

      If MS wanted to stop Linux they would be offering huge discounts to OEMs to not ship Linux (and Android) devices and to only ship Windows.

      My friend, in this world pressures against OEMs are the norm, not an exception.

      In recent years despite Linux on the desktop being offered pre-installed from big box retailers, available in the form of ChromeOS, available pre-installed systems from Dell, HP, Lenovo and others, free of charge, easy to install and even with the ability to try *without* installing the desktop PC userbase has *still* rejected it, it hasnt made any gains at all.

      I'm not denying that Linux users are a minority. I'm stating that they risk to become zero thanks to these dirty tricks. And this will harm the market of Linux on the servers, too, because of the way how people become Linux contributors. And I'm stating this in a comment which, if you bother to read, was meant as a response to someone who said "Microsoft supports Linux now".

      If they really wanted to lock out alternative operating systems they would have done it decades ago when they actually saw Linux on the desktop as a threat.

      They have been doing stuff like this endlessly for decades. Remember Bill Gates' "we should make ACPI Windows-only" in the 90s?

    22. Re:So does this mean.... by peppepz · · Score: 1

      Wrong. It does prevent the kinds of malware and rootkits that operate by modifying the bootloader.

      1) Whatever it does, it can be nullified by malware that gains root-level access AFTER the OS has booted (which is the norm). And if the malware managed to modify the bootloader, of course it has already gained that access, hence no effective protection is added, UNLESS you are running a machine that doesn't allow unsigned software to run (EXEs, batch scripts, stuff written by the user) that could have been installed or patched by the malware. But clearly this is not Windows as we know it today.
      Moreover, locking down the machine (this is the only firmware behaviour authorized by Microsoft when the so-called Secure Boot restriction is violated) is arguably the worst outcome for desktop users, as they will be left with no way to service the machine (beyond running "rescue partitions" which of course are static and therefore can't contain anti-malware software), and with no access to their data.
      2) Malware that operates by modifying the boot sequence is extremely rare today, because it must target specific hardware, and is associated with government-sponsored attacks. Of course, three-letter agencies are only a piece of paper away from having their malware signed with legitimate keys.

      and harmful thing

      Cite specifically the "harm".

      Read the thread. I'm no parrot.

      Well, now it's no longer true, as widely expected by the hysterical idiots.

      And being hysterical idiots you and the rest of them still haven't figured out that in fact it is still true, in fact unless some OEM makes the choice to not include the ability to turn it off it will remain true.

      "Unless" is they key word here.

      Describe exactly how the OEM being responsible for their product is "anti-competitive, anti-consumer and anti-free software behaviour", because that does not make any sense in any context whatsoever.

      Imagine that I am an operating system vendor and I want to sell an OS. Describe exactly what I have to tell my customers before I sell them my OS.

      Imagine that I know an unskilled person (grandma) running an old version of Windows that is no longer supported on an otherwise perfectly fine machine. Describe exactly what I have to tell her before I propose to install Linux, or a commercial OS costing less than the new version of Windows, on her PC.

      Imagine that I am a student and I've heard about this Linux thing. I'd like to try it on my PC that I bought off a shelf a couple years ago. Describe exactly what I should do to try Linux on my machine, fix it when it doesn't work and add new features to its kernel.

  3. Re:Last week I tried to write a Win8.1 universal a by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Why would you even do anything for the windows phone platform? It was a stillbirth.

  4. Re:Last week I tried to write a Win8.1 universal a by magarity · · Score: 1

    Your own subject title refers to 8.1 while TFA is about 10.

  5. Re:Last week I tried to write a Win8.1 universal a by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    It's just another example of poor naming.

    For 8.1 there were Universal Apps which are the one project, multiple heads, common core code.

    For 10 there is UAP which is one project, one set of code with an adaptive UI if desired.

    See windows-10-developer-tooling-preview-now-available-to-windows-insiders for more info on Adaptive UX and UAP.

  6. Re:Last week I tried to write a Win8.1 universal a by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Pretty much this.

    One of the best things about CSS is you can create rules that will target various hardware types, resolutions, bit-depths and so on.
    Sadly so very few people actually use it because so many don't even know it exists, or the developers in question are those awful kinds that create bandwidth-wasting desktop websites instead of creating actual good websites in the first place that dynamically allocate resources based on hardware type, a thing that has existed for years now.

    Visual presentation should never have to interfere with HOW a program works.
    A window manager should mangle and twist a UI to fit any screen, even if you don't want it to, in order to force developers to DEAL WITH IT PROPERLY.
    The use of off-screen loading by setting UI elements beyond screen resolution can be done through setting a flag on said UI elements.
    All this minimum-width window crap pisses me off.
    Especially Chrome. Fuck you, you don't get to decide what size my windows should never shrink beyond.

  7. Re:Windows is obsolete. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    That's some funny stuff! Recent stats like these show that Windows isn't just popular, it's still the dominant OS, even when considering the millions upon millions of non-Windows mobile devices out there.

    Of those 1.37 billion web requests, over 58% came from a Windows system. Even Windows 8.1 alone has more users than OS X does in total, and that's one of the most despised versions of Windows!

    The desktop is still king. Windows is still king. Everything else is a joke compared to them.

  8. Why? by Anon-Admin · · Score: 1

    Windows phones and Tablets are less than 3% of the market. Why even develop for such a small market share?

    Android (Which is linux) has 51% of the phone market and 61% of the tablet market.

    It's not the year of the Windows Phone or Tablet, just like it is not the year of the linux desktop. :P

    1. Re:Why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      ... because 3% of a huge market is still a big number...

    2. Re:Why? by Billly+Gates · · Score: 3, Informative

      Because if this doesn't flop it means you write one app that also runs on tablets and mobile devices in addition to desktops.

      MS screwed up 8 big time with this as you needed to make a different app targeting mobile. Since on the desktop your app marketshare was small it made little sense.

      10 will be like macosx with annual .1 updates with no windows,11. In time it will be Microsofts universal platform with the marketshare

      --
      http://saveie6.com/
    3. Re:Why? by Billly+Gates · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I tried 3 times Windows 8.1 on a new build I did last summer. I am typing this on Windows 7. I agree Windows 8.1 is crap.

      Windows 10 is still a work in progress. I can tell you from the 1st preview on VMware Workstation it is improved. Cortana search was annoying but the start men is back. The notification center is actually more desktop friendly and an improvement over 7. Windows Explorer now has cmd prompt here and powershell here which is nice. command prompt is translucent and supports cut and paste and looks like a Linux terminal :-)

      Time will tell. Many die hards such as myself will need a reason to upgrade. I think a bigger crises than XP awaits MS by 2020.

      But in time yes Windows 10 will have this marketshare for developers to target.

      --
      http://saveie6.com/
    4. Re:Why? by Billly+Gates · · Score: 1

      He's the ultimate true believer. So far Win10 TP (build 10041) is far, FAR worse than Win 8.x. That metro garbage (call it modern or universal if you want to) is always gonna be crap. Windows is making itself into a giant turd, in hopes of selling phones no one wants of, and their overpriced surface stuff which is barely selling... Time to invest in Apple!

      Take it off. You do know you can unpin from the start menu. FYI build 10041 switched from the Windows 95 API to XAML so some features still need to be re-added back

      FYI I HATE FLAT & UGLY. But it is here to stay. Look at MacOSX Yosemite and web sites? Look at your newest Android? Windows 10 is at least adding color back and some shadows and some build screenshots show aero in the taskbar and start menu too.

      So it is modern light so to speak but I do not mind tiles if they are not 8 closed door syndrome IN YOUR FACE flying everywhere when you go to a corner or use a trackpad. It truly is the worst UI ever made and I am in agreement.

      We will see. As the years go bye and people stop confusing anti realism with anti skuemorphism it will get better as 10.1 , 10.2 get released by the time Windows 7 goes EOL.

      --
      http://saveie6.com/
    5. Re:Why? by bloodhawk · · Score: 1

      desktop Linux had a far smaller share of the market when everyone on Slashdot was screaming that developers should be supporting it. MS are targeting write for a single platform for them. they may only be 3% of phone market and 5-10% of tablet but they are still 90%+ of the desktop market. An app that with little or no effort runs on all 3 is a win win for developers.

    6. Re:Why? by MrL0G1C · · Score: 2

      'Agent ransack' is a good replacement for windows search - I haven't used Windows search since I installed windows 7, it is an abomination.

      --
      Waterfox - a Firefox fork with legacy extension support, security updates and better privacy by default.
    7. Re:Why? by DrXym · · Score: 1

      3% does not translate to the number of people who will use your app. And porting an app to another platform is a NON-TRIVIAL task. Even if an app is written with a cross-platform tool (e.g. Cordova, Unity etc.) and relatively small it must still be tested, packaged, signed, uploaded and approved on the other platform and supported. This is a time sink and unless it pays off in terms of revenue it simply isn't worth it.

    8. Re:Why? by gstoddart · · Score: 1

      I tried 3 times Windows 8.1 on a new build I did last summer. I am typing this on Windows 7. I agree Windows 8.1 is crap.

      Actually, that's not what I was saying. I think Metro is complete crap.

      Once you remove the romper-room interface, make it run with a classic Windows look, and generally disregard what Microsoft thinks was "innovative", the OS itself is just fine.

      But the entirety of that start screen, the second set of apps which do the same job as the desktop apps (but badly) ... that I think is complete garbage. Especially for a desktop machine.

      I think the lesson here is that, to me, Microsoft is too focused on the eye candy and the glossy crap which doesn't add to my experience. Trying to foist a touch interface onto me is annoying and useless, especially since I don't run it on a touchscreen.

      The rest of the OS seems just fine to me.

      The stuff I hate is little more than a re-worked version of the useless "Active Desktop" crap they have been trying to push out for years ... and keep having to disable because it's a security risk. They had it in '98, they had it in XP, they had it in Vista. It's a cute gimmick for about 10 minutes.

      I just think it's sad that all of the things they think are cool and innovative are the things people spend the most time removing. They seem to be actively trying to tell desktop users that their new way is so awesome, but all it does is piss people off.

      The reality is, the underlying OS is pretty well done from what I can see. Especially now that it looks like something usable and familiar instead of the crap it looked like by default.

      --
      Lost at C:>. Found at C.
    9. Re:Why? by maestroX · · Score: 1

      Time will tell. Many die hards such as myself will need a reason to upgrade. I think a bigger crises than XP awaits MS by 2020.

      Many die hards need an incentive to stay on MS platforms.
      Ditching studio with C# for Xcode & Objective-C is no longer desperate, HTML5 is the universal platform supported by all the major vendors.

  9. app store only = fail by Joe_Dragon · · Score: 1

    app store only = fail

    1. Re:app store only = fail by WinstonWolfIT · · Score: 1

      8.1 I know for a fact supports sideways deployment which I've used for business development. 10.0 most certainly will have this covered.

  10. Slightly off topic, but... by westlake · · Score: 3, Insightful

    .... don't you think it's about time to retire the stained glass window in favor of the real Windows logo?

    The gag was never particularly original, clever or funny --- and what passes for geek humor isn't known for aging well.

    1. Re:Slightly off topic, but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      A broken window is a broken window. What's is exactly your problem?

  11. Re:Last week I tried to write a Win8.1 universal a by WillAffleckUW · · Score: 1

    See, you tried 8.1 and then to get it working under 10.

    You should have coded for 8.1, recompiled under Win 9, and then pushed the Win 10 build.

    --
    -- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
  12. Re:Last week I tried to write a Win8.1 universal a by WillAffleckUW · · Score: 1

    But how long until they kill it?

    Well, I think the internal code name is Bertha, so give it a few years of failure before they kill it.

    --
    -- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
  13. Re:Last week I tried to write a Win8.1 universal a by Billly+Gates · · Score: 4, Informative

    Windows 10 has an adaptive UX framework to get around using css hacks

    --
    http://saveie6.com/
  14. Re:Last week I tried to write a Win8.1 universal a by ArcadeMan · · Score: 2

    This is Microsoft, not Google. So it's going to last either a few months or a few decades.

    --
    Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
  15. New APIs introduced by Bite+The+Pillow · · Score: 2, Funny

    New APIs introduced, from

    #if(WINVER >= 0x0600)

    WINBASEAPI
    BOOL
    WINAPI
    SwitchToMetro(
        );

    #define SwitchToDesktop()

    #define IsUserAPirate() (false)

    #ifndef _NTOS_
    #if defined(_M_IA64) && !defined(RC_INVOKED) // #define LinuxIsStupid() (true) // issue 872354,
    caution, Kurt got fired for this.
    #endif
    #endif

    LONG
    __cdecl
    MakeTheUserAcceptMetro (
            __inout LONG volatile *Penor
            );

    #endif

  16. How quaint, a new Windows SDk by JoeyRox · · Score: 1, Troll

    If it was 1995 I'd be really excited right now!

  17. Good luck for Windows 10 SDK by fajar.jaya.f · · Score: 1

    Good luck for Windows 10 SDK , may be useful to the user throughout the world .

  18. Write once... by richrz · · Score: 2

    Beta everywhere.

  19. Re:Last week I tried to write a Win8.1 universal a by Keruo · · Score: 2

    Except google, though they kill products which people actually use.

    --
    There are no atheists when recovering from tape backup.
  20. Re:Only "Windows Runtime" APIs by avandesande · · Score: 1

    It wouldn't make much sense to have an adaptive runtime for 32bit since tablets and phones are all 64bit.

    --
    love is just extroverted narcissism
  21. Re:Last week I tried to write a Win8.1 universal a by gl4ss · · Score: 2

    well what it leads to is just apps being first developed on 7.0, then having stuff fixed for 7.5, then being rewritten for 8.0 and then again the project reworked for 8.1 and then a total rewrite for 10.

    so fucking universal!

    and yes, the thing is, this is the _exact_ same marketing stuff they were hyping out with wp8 and windows 8. they were showing slides of how it's all unified and you get the same app running on everything and all that. they made such a big deal about it, despite you never going to be able to run wp8 apps on your win8 tablet(unless said tablet is a x86+vt and you have the sideload package and you run the wp8 emulator on said tablet, which is basically more trouble than running android apps on said x86 computer).

    it's a mess. wouldn't trust them about this before they have phones, tablets and the desktop out and the sdk to do it out and it actually can run the same app on everything.

    --
    world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
  22. Re:Last week I tried to write a Win8.1 universal a by Gadget_Guy · · Score: 1

    It's true that Microsoft have dropped some products quickly (and their support for APIs can be faddish), but they have also supported a lot of products for very long times. In fact, some of your examples seem a bit out of place with Flight Simulator lasting 24 years and Encarta lasting 16 years.

  23. Re:Last week I tried to write a Win8.1 universal a by davester666 · · Score: 1

    Really? It has some kind of mechanism that converts between a touch-based app and a mouse/keyboard based app?

    Because they are fundamentally different. Not that you can't use the same UI for both, but one or both REALLY sucks unless the UI is rather specific to the input methods.

    --
    Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
  24. Re:Last week I tried to write a Win8.1 universal a by DrXym · · Score: 1, Informative
    Which is great if you use Windows 10 and only Windows 10. Not so great if you want to target other versions of Windows, or other operating systems. Sadly, the lowest common denominator for that kind of work is HTML+CSS with some kind of wrapper such as Cordova.

    Microsoft is their own worst enemy. They're trying to break into mobile apps and this is now their THIRD set of APIs for doing it. This amount of churn is extremely annoying and frustrating for devs. At least when Google produces new Android APIs they tend to be incremental and where necessary they'll even backport them.

  25. Windows by johnsmith2708 · · Score: 1

    I think, it would be better, then windows 8, because most people still use Windows 7 nowadays!

  26. Re:Last week I tried to write a Win8.1 universal a by Wootery · · Score: 1

    Well, we're really discussing dropping platforms, not specific products. It doesn't inconvenience many developers that they've stopped working on Encarta or the Flight Simulator series.

  27. Re:Last week I tried to write a Win8.1 universal a by dave420 · · Score: 1

    It's universal in the sense that it works on any machine/device running Windows 10. That's about as far away from a mess as you can get. It only becomes a mess if you insist that it magically fixes things which happened in the past, which just makes you look rather foolish ;)

  28. Re:Last week I tried to write a Win8.1 universal a by Daniel+Hoffmann · · Score: 1

    For several versions Android required that too, until they came up with fragments in (if I am not mistaken) Android 4.0 which works well enough for touch (and touch only) devices.

  29. Re:Only "Windows Runtime" APIs by gbjbaanb · · Score: 1

    But it is a very pertinent question - of all the things released, a huge amount of them are written with a win32 API and then wrapped with the WinRT API (or at least, it used to be that way).

    For example, I'm looking at code to search through Word documents in .NET, and it appears Microsoft has catered for my needs - there's an IFilter API that is designed for exactly this, and yet its a native COM interface (and no .NET wrapper!!). I found the same for the transcription APIs and a few others. It seems the Windows team doesn't like .NET and only releases their features in native formats.

    So, has this changed and the Windows team been kicked into developing WinRT only APIs, or will I still see native ones coming out with wrappers developed by the developer team?

    I'm not convinced universal apps will create excitement - not if this is the 3rd API that devs have have to learn, you get bored with learning stuff that becomes quickly obsolete only so many times, and many users will still be developing for Windows 7, for many years to come. Universal apps are meaningless if Win7 still has to be supported.

  30. Write once, run everywhere by wendyo · · Score: 1

    Now we can have ransomware for our phones.

  31. Re:Last week I tried to write a Win8.1 universal a by rossdee · · Score: 1

    "well what it leads to is just apps being first developed on 7.0, then having stuff fixed for 7.5, then being rewritten for 8.0 and then again the project reworked for 8.1 and then a total rewrite for 10."

    There was a Windows 7.5 ?

  32. Re:Last week I tried to write a Win8.1 universal a by Shirley+Marquez · · Score: 1

    PlaysForSure was the worst. Not only because their actions contradicted the name, but because it took away things that people had already paid for. It's different from discontinuing Zune; sure they weren't making any more of them, but the Zune you already owned still worked.

    Flight Simulator had a good run. So did Encarta, until the internet and Wikipedia made it obsolete.

  33. Re:Last week I tried to write a Win8.1 universal a by Shirley+Marquez · · Score: 1

    There was a Windows Phone 7.5, and even a mostly ignored Windows Phone 7.8 that was thrown out as a sop to the owners of Windows 7 phones that would never be upgraded to Windows Phone 8. There was no desktop Windows 7.5.

  34. Re:Last week I tried to write a Win8.1 universal a by rsclient · · Score: 1

    I've got several apps in the store. Most of the UI code is fully shared, and moderately adoptive to screen size. In a few places, I needed something special for one or the other.

    My trick is that the 8.1 universal apps have two mainpage.xaml files (one for desktop, one for phone). I just make a shared UserControl. Each MainPage just has one object, which is the shared control

    (BTW: I work at Microsoft, but not in the group that does XAML; my way works but that doesn't mean there isn't a better way)

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  35. The low road. by westlake · · Score: 1

    A broken window is a broken window. What's is exactly your problem?

    The problem I have is that it encourages unusually stupid and frivolous posts, even by Slashdot standards.

  36. Re:Windows is obsolete. by GreatDrok · · Score: 1

    "Of those 1.37 billion web requests, over 58% came from a Windows system. Even Windows 8.1 alone has more users than OS X does in total, and that's one of the most despised versions of Windows!"

    Lets think back to 2000 or so when around 99% of web requests were coming from Windows and think about just how far Windows has fallen in that time. While I agree that Mac OS X isn't really setting the world on fire (and I say that as a Mac user) I do see an awful lot of Macs out there and far more than there were in 2000 so Apple has certainly made up a lot of ground. Also, consider that when you're sitting at a desktop you're likely using the web a lot, but a phone is just occasional use so the fact that 42% of web requests aren't coming from Windows tells you a lot about how much kit is out there that is connecting to the internet. The important change since 2000 is that you could barely manage on the web without IE on Windows. I know, I was a Linux user then and browsing was very painful at times. These days, the web is much better to use because it has to handle all these different browsers on phones and alternative desktops. The thing that kept Windows at the top for all of the 90's was the fact that alternatives couldn't get a shoe in the door. These days, it is very easy to drop Windows. If you want a nice desktop, a Mac is a really good place to go because you get a real desktop OS without all that touch screen, phone UI rubbish shoved into it. You want a phone that works well as a phone and has lots of software? Android and iOS have you covered. Windows has lost the software high ground and the only reason it still has 58% of web requests going to it is simply inertia. MS is desperate to slow the slide but it keeps on going down. I've used Windows 10 and I don't see anything there that will stop this process if they can't get devs to actually put out apps that are unique to Windows and attractive. I don't think they can get back to the heyday of the 90's and having lived and worked through it, I don't think they ever should because we're in a much better place today with real choice. MS should be happy that they still have any customers under the circumstances given just how badly they treated everyone when they were on top.

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