Slashdot Mirror


Microsoft Announces Windows 10 Build 14328 With Windows Ink, New UI (theverge.com)

An anonymous reader writes: Windows Ink is one of the many new features rolling out to beta testers as part of Windows 10 Build 14328. The build includes the new Windows Ink Workspace, providing access to new and improved sticky notes, a sketchpad, and a new screen sketch feature. There's also a new digital ruler you can use to create shapes and draw objects freely. The UI of the Start menu and Start Screen have also been tweaked. The most used apps list and all apps UI have been merged into a single view, creating a less cluttered Start menu. Microsoft also moved power, settings, and file explorer shortcuts so they're always visible. You can now bring back the fullscreen all apps list in the Start Screen, and you can toggle between the all apps view and your regular pinned apps. If you want things to feel less like a desktop PC, you can auto-hide the taskbar in tablet mode. Microsoft has detailed all of the new features found in Build 14328 in their blog post.

14 of 141 comments (clear)

  1. Re:The right direction by cfalcon · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Microsoft is going in the WRONG direction. Their insistence on alerting the mothership every time you compile, open notepad, open your media player, view photos... it isn't good. At all.

  2. I'm giving up Linux for Windows, too. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I've been a Linux user for about 2 decades now, and I've never been more disappointed with it than I am today.

    Linux used to kick the living shit out of Windows. Linux didn't crash several times a day. Linux didn't suffer from numerous serious security problems. Linux offered more advanced filesystems and other functionality. Linux provided a better experience, with more choice.

    But I fear that those days are now long gone. Since Debian started using systemd, I've experienced a number of problems caused by it. There have been several incidents where I've done routine updates, and rebooted due to the kernel being updated, only to have the boot process break thanks to problems with systemd.

    The Linux desktop experience is awful. GNOME 3 is atrocious in every way. Unity is too dumbed down. KDE is too bloated. Xfce has kind of stagnated. Hell, I still have trouble getting my video drivers to work reliably at times!

    I recently bought a Surface Pro 4 for my wife, and she thinks it's absolutely great. I've started using it now and then, too, and I'm loving it. I can't believe how much better it is than Linux is today. It boots each and every single time I've chosen to reboot it. The software works flawlessly with the hardware. The Windows 10 desktop environment isn't great, but I'd much rather use it than GNOME 3 or Unity. The stability is great.

    I'm now thinking of getting myself a Surface Pro when my current computer dies. I never thought I'd say this, but I don't feel like I'm wasting my time when I'm using Windows 10. I do feel like I'm wasting my time when I use modern Linux distros, especially with how fragile they've become, and how terribly the UIs have devolved.

    And, no, I'm not "shilling" for Microsoft. I'm not getting paid for this comment expressing my opinion. But if you know whom I should contact to get paid, please let me know!

  3. Re: Who cares? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I'll never understand the antipathy and general shit that Outlook catches. It's the best goddamned email client on planet Earth.

  4. Re:Haven't seen someone use Windows... by SScorpio · · Score: 2

    I'm guessing you haven't seen the Microsoft Surface. My wife's last laptop was also a convertible that came with a Wacom digitizer. Her current one is still a convertible, but if she wants to draw she uses an external Lenovo USB monitor that has digitizer in it.

  5. Re: Haven't seen someone use Windows... by sexconker · · Score: 2

    Microsoft always looks backwards. They never innovative.

    Looking backwards is the only way they can see the competition, because:

    A: MS is so far ahead of them!
    B: MS is going in the wrong direction!

  6. Re: Who cares? by Nethead · · Score: 2

    Really? The company that I work for got bought by a French multinational. Now I'm a Lotus Domino admin with 73 servers across the globe. I was just getting use to Exchange too.

    --
    -- I have a private email server in my basement.
  7. Re: Who cares? by Lumpy · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Yep and tons of companies are switching to alternatives. Microsoft is losing it's grip fast.

    --
    Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
  8. Re:The only thing I care about by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    Is there an official option to turn off all Telemetry yet?

    No. Windows 10 still phones home regularly, sending who-knows-what data about you and your documents to Microsoft. Because Microsoft refuses to discuss exactly what data is being transmitted, and because the packets going back to the mother ship are encrypted so we can't look at them for ourselves, the only safe assumption is that your private data, every keystroke you type, and the contents of your files are being vacuumed up to feed the NSA machine.

    Microsoft could end the speculation very easily by offering an option to transmit telemetry data in the clear, so people could examine what's being sent. If it's truly innocuous statistics, like "User 1959028 ran NOTEPAD.EXE," they shouldn't have any problem doing that. If, instead, the packets are more like "User 1959028 ran NOTEPAD.EXE to open file c:\corporate_data\CocaColaRecipe.txt whose contents are..." then I can see why Microsoft wants the packets to stay encrypted. They don't want anyone knowing what's being collected and that's the part that's deeply troubling.

  9. Re: Who cares? by Nethead · · Score: 2

    It was explained to me like this: Domino is a database that tried to become an email system. Exchange is an email system that tried to become a database.

    I'm just glad that I'm not supporting 30k users over 100+ sites with sendmail/exim/postfix and whatever for calendaring and a pile of shell/perl scripts written over 20 years. There really is no freeware solution for a desktop client based system. As bad as IBM and Microsoft can be, at least they are there after you've paid hundreds of thousands to them for licensing.

    But if you want to have 'fun', try to find a book on the current version of Domino (9 or even 7.) I would much rather be running an Exchange system, there are so many more resources out there for it. (Powershell and Exchange can do so much!) Domino just doesn't see Active Directory at all, hardly does LDAP. My mail/calendar/trouble ticket/CapEx/whatever system doesn't play with my DHCP/AD/file systems at all. But that's what I get working for a 125 year old French company, at least I get 4 weeks of vacation.

    --
    -- I have a private email server in my basement.
  10. Re:Who cares? by Darinbob · · Score: 3, Informative

    I've met quite a few Mensa members who were dumbasses too. Anyone who uses their Mensa card as proof of their being smart should be unqualified to be a Mensa member.

  11. Microsoft is batshit insane by WaffleMonster · · Score: 3, Informative

    Just so I understand Microsoft has a full blown remote access trojan baked into their goddamn operating system enabled by default to exfiltrate whatever MS feels like from you without your permission or knowledge.

    https://technet.microsoft.com/...

    They force updates and collect data from you without any ability to opt out but hey at least you can now doodle all over your screens.

    Thank god we are starting to see a real uptick in people bailing on MS. They deserve nothing less than bankruptcy.

  12. Punchline from that link: by justthinkit · · Score: 2

    Hello,
    Thank you for your email. Please find the requested information attached.
    Best Regards,
    Microsoft Privacy

    Sounds good so far. Hmm. The attachment is a Word Document which contains screenshots of the type of data they collect but not the data itself. Now keep in mind, I have disabled every single privacy option on this Windows 10 install and the events (1.2 Million of them!) are only for a 6 day period on a minimally used machine.

    --
    I come here for the love
  13. Outlook users are top posting gits by tepples · · Score: 2

    Some of the crap that Outlook catches is related to its habit of encouraging top posting. This refers to a reply at the top of an e-mail, with the original quoted in its entirety at the bottom, rather than the older practice of replying below the relevant sentence.

  14. Re: Who cares? by mcswell · · Score: 2

    I haven't retired yet (maybe by the age of 80 I'll be able to), and like you I use TBird at home, but I (still) have to use Outlook at work. And like you, for most purposes I prefer TBird. I guess the biggest reason is a plugin called Nostalgy, that makes filing emails *so* much easier. Nothing like it for Outlook, afaik, so I spend half my day (it seems) scrolling up and down through my Outlook folders. But I will say that search in Outlook is much better than in TBird. Search in TBird is excruciatingly slow, so slow that I downloaded the (free) MailStore app, which makes searches almost instantaneous. If there were a way to integrate (as in "put both into a single program") MailStore and TBird, it would leave Outlook in the dust.

    Btw, don't get me started about that *&*--!^#@ ribbon... The only thing worse is the new interface in Adobe Acrobat DC. (So I use PDF-SChange Editor at home.)