Windows 10 RTM In 6 Weeks

Billly Gates writes: Ars Technica has the scoop on a new build with less flat icons and a confirmation of a mid July release date. While Microsoft is in a hurry to fix the damage done by the Windows 8 versions of its operating system, the next question is, is ready for prime time? On Neowin there's a list of problems already mentioned by MS and its users with this latest release, including Wi-Fi and sound not working without a reboot, and users complaining about tiles and apps not working in the new start menu.

Comments

Re:Linux Mint 13 (Maya) MATE desktop demo

[BronsCon]

I answered the questions as asked. It's not the fault of the Linux community that Autodesk does not offer a native version.

There's no confirmation of the release date.

[Anonymous Coward]

This synopsis is in error. The article linked does NOT confirm the release date, only still says it's a rumor.

MS Paint

[nmb3000]

I hadn't seen them laid out so clearly before, but now that I have, all I can say about the original Windows 10 icons (middle row) is oh my god.

Seriously, what happened here? When did we go completely off the rails and let pea-brained designers start throwing this kind of bullshit around, calling it "modern" and "clean". No shit it's clean -- that recycle bin probably took all of 30 seconds to draw with the Line tool. No, faster probably, since they were just pulled out of the Windows 1.0 archives.

I look at those three rows of icons and truly cannot fathom why someone would ever choose (especially) the second or third rows. They're low contrast, simpleton drivel that doesn't even do a good job of representing the objects they're trying to depict. Whoever created them should be fired, along with the manager that approved them.

In fact, Microsoft would be well-served by firing the whole damned "UX" group and replacing this new-age cargo-cult mentality of user interface design with a scientific approach of usability studies and research. You know, that thing they used to do. Let Google and Apple waste their time with that hipster crap if they want to -- normal people and business just want to get shit done and you don't get off on the right foot to do that by making all your icons indistinguishable pale pastel blobs.

Re:MS Paint

[ArmoredDragon]

Not exactly. Microsoft's "theme" now is flat UI. A lot of people think that means it just looks clean and simple (like what Google has been doing since...forever,) which is wrong. Flat meaning there's no sense of depth. So no shadows, no overlapping, no gradients, no sense of 3d whatsoever. The only differentiation between UI objects is a solid color change.

Having a flat UI is easy to scale. But IMO it is very uninspired.

GP says it's a hipster design that Google and Apple have been doing. Apple yes, Google no. Apple did copy Microsoft, however that was after Microsoft really badly learned from (but did not copy) Google. Microsoft dropped the skeumorphs Google doesn't use flat UI's. For example, open up chrome, and notice a gradient over the button bar, notice how the tab corners overlap, etc.

Google's new Material Design specifically includes both overlapping objects and shadows. Simple in appearance? Yes. Flat? No. But it still scales to different resolutions just as easily as a flat UI.

Re:MS Paint

[Bite The Pillow]

Yes, exactly. They want the same UI everywhere, from a phone to a 4K display. Which is stupid, but exactly their stated plan.

If it seems uninspired to you well, that was not part of the plan.

Adding shadows and other indicators becomes tricky when scaling, given different potential backgrounds and contexts, so they went to the lowest common denominator. Obviously Google and Microsoft chose different paths, but yes exactly planning for a unified interfac is what caused Microsoft to fuck things up starting with Windows 8 and aalmost anything 2012 or later.

Re:MS Paint

[Tailhook]

art blogs

Uh huh.

Art blogs.

Pretty much do exactly the opposite of anything advocated on art blogs and you're going the right direction.

Google ... started

The latest Android has icons are so abstract they are effectively meaningless. The clock looks like a pie chart; they can't even suffer the hour tick marks that might assist in conveying "clock." The "text" app is a huge left double quote — so out-of-context that it has no association with the concept of "communication." The Google Drive icon is a three color triangle that bears zero resemblance to any sort of storage concept. Basically you must read the label of every icon and slowly try to associate these pictorial abstractions to their actual purpose. In reality users are just memorizing the locations of these meaningless icons, and if you were to rearrange their locations they'd be totally lost.

It sucks. It's stupid. And I'm 100% certain there is a cabal of "art" fucks behind it.

Think of Stop signs

No. Don't think of Stop signs. Stop signs aren't trying to convey an association to anything. You can't buy and eat a box of "stops." Many, many road signs use useful pictographs to convey things; a vehicle skidding due to ice; immigrants hand-in-hand running across a road, the silhouette of a bounding buck.... GUI icons need to convey association; storage, trash, communication, people, news, dates and times, etc.

Trying to boil all these things down to abstract vector art is idiot.

Re:MS Paint

[nmb3000]

What you describe is skuemorphic design which objects mimic real world objects which is the old way of doing things.

Yes and no, I think. I don't think icons generally get classified as skeuomorphic since they just represent targets or classes of entities. Another poster mentioned the Android clock icon -- I don't think the Windows 7 date/time icon was made to resemble another material or object -- it's just a pictogram that clearly presents the idea of a calendar or clock. Compare that to the Android clock icon. I suppose that sort of looks like a clock if you already knew what it was, but it's certainly not clear. In my view that icon has failed at expressing any clear idea and is therefor a failure. Which one do you think a new user would more quickly identify as the way to bring up a date/time widget?

Compare this to one of Apple's absurd interfaces. This day calendar program is clearly trying to emulate a physical day calendar, complete with leather stitching and yellow lined legal paper. This is what the current trend has pushed back against, and that's probably not entirely a bad thing. You can take emulation like this too far, and Apple almost certainly did with their suite of apps.

But I don't think the current "UX" trend has as much to do with a severe over-correction to skeuomorphs as it has to do with flat, near monochromatic designs being a lot simpler to scale and make look uniform on a wide variety of screen sizes and pixel densities (as others said). It might be easy but it looks like shit and is about as usable.

Re:Linux Mint 13 (Maya) MATE desktop demo

[epyT-R]

They're not going to do that. Their goal is to turn out complete projects ASAP and get paid. Certified acad drafters command high premiums so companies who employ them are willing to spend thousands on workstations. No one is interested in crippling that for politics.

Re:Linux Mint 13 (Maya) MATE desktop demo

[BronsCon]

How do they do that? Have more users. How do they do that? Have more applications. How do they do that? Have more users. How do they do that? ***ERROR: Infinite loop detected.

By that logic, nothing new should ever be successful.

The real reason they skipped Win 9

[Anonymous Coward]

Win ME was awful. Win XP was generally considered serviceable. Vista was a disaster, even had to Microsoft execs complaining about it in public. Win 7 was OK (although no XP). Win 8 is, well, Win 8. The trend was becoming apparent and people expected Win 9 to be acceptable again. So Microsoft decided to skip Win 9 and jump to Win 10 and have a back-to-back disaster with Win 8.

Re:Open Source Windows

[Billly Gates]

Oh please coming from a long time linux and freebsd user.

The costs to fly consultants to fix broken IE specific sites like SAP, java applets that look for XP and crap out on other platforms, wine bugs, lack of AD support for lockdowns, and help desk Temps to sort through the angry users, documents created with Libre office looking funny to potential clients with Office, are pure madness to consider! Don't give me the garbage about how users were supposed to save as .docx with no macros. Many are drooling idiots who will want to reprimand your ass for ca using this etc. Wine config? Yeah good luck with a 1,000 users including HR who have a weird java applet where people don't get paid if an error arises ;-)

I am not saying this as a troll. Linux has it's uses for specialized servers.

But if people wanted to be freed they would have last decade. Windows is reliable now since NT came and gets shit done

Re: Marketing-driven deadlines

[Anonymous Coward]

That's why it'll be free to upgrade to for a year.

How do I XP it ?

[dargaud]

Genuine question here: I've been using Linux for most things for the past 15 years. For exactly 3 programs I still need Windows, so I run XP in a virtual machine. But I've been warned that the next versions of my progs won't support XP anymore, so I'll have to jump to Win10. Since I don't give a shit about any of the 'advancements' that have occured since then, how can I remove all the gimmicks and simplify the Windows user interface to make it like XP, simply ? Is there some Win10 to XP converter to keep me from trudging through endless options and shitty tweaking downloads ?

Re:Open Source Windows

[trparky]

Windows is reliable now since NT came and gets shit done

Other than the fact that the system contains legacy code that's chock full of security bugs dating back to the early 1990s. Supporting legacy software is why Microsoft can't change and in the end, it's going to kill them. Other companies that are smaller and more agile will kill Microsoft.

Microsoft sees the writing on the wall, they know that the end is near. You can see that in how they are making apps for the iPhone and Android devices. Things like Office, OneNote, Skype, Outlook, OneDrive, etc. They aren’t making these apps for other platforms just for the sake of making them available, they are making them available because they need to or they’re dead.

The computing industry that we have today is not a Microsoft dominated industry anymore and Microsoft knows it. They sat on their desktop monopoly for too long and the rest of the industry flew past them while they were sleeping.

Re:Marketing-driven deadlines

[exomondo]

Speaking of marketing, what's with this "RTM" term?

RTM is Release To Manufacturing.

Why not just use "FS", as in For Sale.

Because it's Release To Manufacturing, not For Sale.

Re: Marketing-driven deadlines

[Rob Y.]

It's free to upgrade for a year, because they need it to become the new 'standard' - fast. They need people writing apps that'll run nicely on the mobile version. And, if the rumors are true, they're planning to make up for all those free upgrades with a hefty OEM price for new computers (isn't it nice to be able to extract Monopoly rates when you need it). $109 OEM for the home version, $149 for Pro. Makes Chromebooks look better and better - not to mention Linux loaded on your old PC.

Not to say that'll keep people from buying laptops with Win10. Unless somebody sells the same hardware with Ubuntu for $100 less...