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Microsoft Sees the Future of Windows 10 as Sets, Ditching Windows For a Tabbed App Interface (pcworld.com)

Microsoft said Tuesday that it plans to overhaul Windows 10, with a browser-like, tabbed application view dubbed "Sets" that groups apps and files by project. From a report: Think of Sets as a mashup of existing and emerging Windows 10 technologies. Take Windows Explorer and the little-used Task View within Windows 10, mix in the newer "Pick up where you left off" and "Timeline" features, and wrap it all into a single-window experience. The idea is that every task requires a set of apps -- Mail, a browser, PowerPoint, even Win32 apps like Photoshop -- and those apps will be optionally organized as tabs along a single window. But that's not all. Microsoft knows that one of the most difficult things to remember isn't what you were working on a week or so ago -- browser histories help with that. It's remembering all of the associated apps and documents that went with it: a particular PowerPoint document, that budget spreadsheet, the context an Edge tab provided. The idea is that the delayed Timeline feature will eventually group and associate all of these into a Set, so that when you open one, Windows will suggest the others, too.

302 comments

  1. Haha by ArchieBunker · · Score: 5, Funny

    You mean like this? https://d2.alternativeto.net/d...

    --
    Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
    1. Re:Haha by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well played, sir. Well played.

    2. Re:Haha by cmaurand · · Score: 1

      Nah. Looks more like a refinement of Windows 8. In other words, it looks sort of like Unity. Not a good paradigm. Still like MATE

    3. Re:Haha by CaptainDork · · Score: 1

      Well done.

      --
      It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
    4. Re:Haha by cayenne8 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Hmm..sounds like the new "ribbons".....bleh!!!

      --
      Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
    5. Re:Haha by AmiMoJo · · Score: 5, Interesting

      More like multiple desktops, which I thought Windows 10 was supposed to support anyway. Every free desktop certainly does.

      Multiple desktops sounds better than this in every way. Just needs some updates to better support multiple monitors and it would be perfect.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    6. Re:Haha by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      If it doesn't have telemetry tied to its suggestions, then I don't want it. ; )

    7. Re: Haha by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Or Chrome OS

    8. Re:Haha by sproketboy · · Score: 2

      That looks better than what they show now.

    9. Re:Haha by Rob+Y. · · Score: 5, Informative

      Or like 'Activities' in KDE, which is like multiple desktops - but much more. So much more that nobody understands it or uses it. But hey, it's really powerful. Too bad I only use my KDE-based system to browse the Internet.

      --
      Posted from my Android phone. Oh, I can change this? There, that's better...
    10. Re:Haha by MightyMartian · · Score: 0

      Yes, but with much blockier icons and fewer colors.

      --
      The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
    11. Re:Haha by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Clone of Gnome 3 and Wayland

    12. Re:Haha by sconeu · · Score: 2

      Was I the only one who liked the 3.1 "Program Manager" feature? I used to group all my docs/applications/etc... into one program group per project.

      --
      General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
    13. Re: Haha by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This exactly

    14. Re: Haha by sensationull · · Score: 1

      Yay tabs,now everything is a fucking browser. Well done MS now everything is jus a soup of metooooo nonscence because original thought is basiclly illegal. Gutless dodos you to will be extinct if you follow Natella down the me to rabbit whole.

    15. Re: Haha by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The really sad thing will be all the linux distros copying this ux ui nightmare scenario. Tabs are cool though not having hopes up when win10 cant even display properly or remember last positions.

    16. Re:Haha by JohnStock · · Score: 1

      No, it's not the same thing at all.

    17. Re:Haha by K10W · · Score: 1

      Hmm..sounds like the new "ribbons".....bleh!!!

      I think it is all in the implimentation. I could be good but knowing how MS often impliment these things it wont be I'm guessing. I do have some KDE workspaces set out in a way similar to how this could be used albeit not tabbed per se. With multiple virtual desktops with the panes oganised as task orientated workspaces, session history and so on I can work on multiple tasks which each require several applications open without clutter or confusion and switch between them and pick up where I left off regardless of whether the machine was in sleep or shutdown cold state.

      If they did this right it would enable me to use my windows boxes in the same way so I wouldn't write it off until I've seen it. Still on Win7 myself though since it works for what I need it for and I use arch or slackware boxes for stuff where I dislike win7.

    18. Re:Haha by Reziac · · Score: 1

      Ditto, because that's the only part of it I can figure out!

      --
      ~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
    19. Re:Haha by Reziac · · Score: 1

      Yeah, I missed that, sufficiently that for a while I used Program Manager on Win95. After a certain point it got awkward, but damn, it was handy sometimes.

      --
      ~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
    20. Re: Haha by erik.opnemer · · Score: 1

      Who's copying who? Ion has been around for ages, now there is Notion.

  2. WTF? by RightwingNutjob · · Score: 2

    Is this going to be the MS version of Gnome 3?

    1. Re:WTF? by Captain+Splendid · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It sounds to me like they want to turn everything into a browser.

      --
      Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
    2. Re:WTF? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Remember when they did that with Internet Explorer/Explorer.exe?

    3. Re:WTF? by Entropius · · Score: 4, Funny

      INTERN~1 was easily the worst browser of its era...

    4. Re:WTF? by ourlovecanlastforeve · · Score: 1

      This is what corporations do.

      You take them to court to make them stop doing a thing, so they wait a little while and do it again.

      They're like a bad dog waiting to steal your dinner from the table as soon as you walk out of the room.

      There's no way to stop them because they hire throngs of asshole legal jockeys to find out ways around the legal system so they can do whatever they want.

      See also the "baby bells" fiasco.

    5. Re:WTF? by slazzy · · Score: 1

      total~1 was

      --
      Website Just Down For Me? Find out
    6. Re:WTF? by MightyMartian · · Score: 0

      It's about the only way they're going to get anyone to use Edge, by making it the GUI.

      --
      The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
    7. Re: WTF? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Are you mentally ill?

    8. Re: WTF? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Disregard that, I am mentally ill.

    9. Re:WTF? by sn0wflake · · Score: 0

      Nah... because people will actually use this interface instead of crappy Linux :D

    10. Re: WTF? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's nearly 2018. Will our species ever reach the point that OS/manufacturer hate is seen to be as stupid as it is?

  3. Just Die Already by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Subject sums up my thoughts.

  4. Or in other words... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Microsoft wants to turn Windows 10 into Chrome OS.

    I wonder what the pro-Microsoft, anti-Chrome fanboys will say about that?

    1. Re:Or in other words... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I wonder what the pro-Microsoft, anti-Chrome fanboys will say about that?

      Isn't that an empty set?

    2. Re:Or in other words... by rtb61 · · Score: 1

      They both invade you privacy like you have no right to it what so ever, not at any time of the day or night. The only thing of any interest to most smart tech buyers is where to buy a corporate licensed version of Windows anal probe 10, the one without the anal probe, the actually secure version where you can stop M$ installing software against your wishes the second you try to connect to the internet.

      --
      Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
    3. Re:Or in other words... by dddux · · Score: 1

      I'm against Chrome and I'm not going to say anything because I'm using Debian. Windows is long forgotten thing of the past for me. It should be for everyone else, too, but apparently it's not. Well, everybody has a cross to bear... I ditched mine.

      --
      "It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." - Jiddu Krishnamurti
  5. STAHP. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    No. Just no. Trying to do this "task-based" B$ is not what's needed for "real work". Kiosks, sure. Users who just do one thing, sure. Real users that do real work though? Hell no.

    1. Re: STAHP. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Those users shouldn't use Windows in the first place.

    2. Re: STAHP. by Darinbob · · Score: 1

      I would argue that users only doing single tasking also probably shouldn't use Windows either and get something simpler instead.

    3. Re:STAHP. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      No. Just no. Trying to do this "task-based" B$ is not what's needed for "real work". Kiosks, sure. Users who just do one thing, sure. Real users that do real work though? Hell no.

      Or, Microsoft could take the approach they are and make this new thing optional sort of like how Windows 10 can easily switch between desktop and tablet modes. Then, users can decide for themselves, and even try both out. Maybe the new approach works better for some things, while the traditional approach works better for others. I hope Microsoft learned from the Windows 8 debacle and continue to make this optional, though.

    4. Re: STAHP. by sensationull · · Score: 1

      Yes! Why is this AC. Mod this up.

    5. Re: STAHP. by MBGMorden · · Score: 1

      Outside of movie editing and some extreme scientific work, the business world in general universally uses Windows.

      There are too many very specific tasks with niche software that is only available on that platform.

      --
      "People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
  6. Reinventing the Taskbar by tepples · · Score: 5, Insightful

    From a caption in the featured article:

    This is the traditional (and effective) way of working with multiple documents within Windows 10: Snap View. Sets would slim this down to just one window.

    I'm not sure how cutting this down to one window would help. If I'm reading a document and taking notes on what I read, I want to have the document and my notes and side by side, each in a 960-pixel-wide window on my 1920-pixel-wide PC monitor. So unless Sets offers a similar option for a side-by-side view, I don't see how I could adjust myself to its workflow.

    Essentially, Microsoft is reworking the Desktop Windows Manager within Windows 10 to enable app switching via tabs, versus more traditional windows.

    I thought Windows already had that since Windows 95 and Windows NT 4, and it was called the Taskbar. Keeping a particular task's windows together is part of multiple virtual desktops, which GNU/Linux has had for well over a decade and Windows recently gained.

    1. Re:Reinventing the Taskbar by 140Mandak262Jamuna · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Keeping a particular task's windows together is part of multiple virtual desktops, which GNU/Linux has had for well over a decade and Windows recently gained.

      Comparing Linux/Unix X windows work spaces with Win10 workspaces is patently unfair. Win10 workspace has absolutely no customization, no discernable different between work spaces. Does not have "sticky" windows. Can not relocate a window from one work space to another.

      Back in 1994 when I got my first HP-UX, I set it up with SIX work spaces, each with its own wall paper, its own name. The sticky dock at the bottom would let me switch to any desktop directly without cycling through all desktops.

      I am currently using some ancient window manager xfwm that has more ability and customization and fast response than win10.

      Win10 workspaces is the perfect example of too little too late.

      --
      sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
    2. Re:Reinventing the Taskbar by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think Microsoft's thought process is "Fuck you! You should be doing all your work on a phone like millenials, so we're going to turn your computer into a phone and you're going to fucking love it!"

    3. Re:Reinventing the Taskbar by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      which GNU/Linux has had for well over a decade

      Over a decade? MAC OSX has had SPACES for over a decade, and they were Johnny come latelies.

      I recall using multiple virtual desktops under X-Windows back in the 1980s, long before Linux came on the scene.

      As for Linux, try something like fvwm2 or fvwm95. I've been running it with (6x7) 42 virtual desktops, but that's just not enough any more...

      With Linux I have uptimes of years, often with thousands of windows (open and iconified), and somewhere over 500 processes (just for little o'l me). Unfortunately I have yet to find a version of Windows that would let me utilize even a few virtual desktops before it crashed.

      And what does microsoft roll out instead of stability? More stalkware crap. Like they weren't spying on us far too much already!

      No Thanks!

    4. Re:Reinventing the Taskbar by rogoshen1 · · Score: 1

      I sincerely hope they don't foist this trash on users without nagging them incessantly to use it, and leave it optional.

      (maybe have an option in settings letting you choose between "retarded cluster-fuck-mode" and "leave things well enough alone-mode"

    5. Re:Reinventing the Taskbar by Anonymous+Brave+Guy · · Score: 1

      They had that option in settings all along. It was the part where you declined the upgrade from Windows 7. :-)

      --
      If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
    6. Re:Reinventing the Taskbar by omnichad · · Score: 2

      Like a phone? More like their own history. The whole reason they named it "Windows" is because of the ability to have better multi-tasking relative to DOS.

    7. Re:Reinventing the Taskbar by thegarbz · · Score: 3, Informative

      Can not relocate a window from one work space to another.

      That one is untrue. Hit Windows+Tab then you can drag whichever application to and from whatever workspace you wish.

      The sticky dock at the bottom would let me switch to any desktop directly without cycling through all desktops.

      Not sure why that's relevant, hitting the Windows+Tab button brings up a list of the desktops, you don't need to cycle anything, just click the one you want. You even have a live preview of it.

      Win10 workspaces is the perfect example of too little too late.

      Actually windows 10 workspaces is a perfect example of a little bit to appease a few. It's not heavily advertised, not heavily featured, and by-n-large not at all missed by the majority of non-windows 10 users, not to mentioned not actually used by the majority of windows 10 users either.

      To be honest I've never seen the appeal. Though at one stage I was doing some work that was benefiting from the idea of having two setup discrete work spaces, so I bought a second monitor and never looked back.

    8. Re: Reinventing the Taskbar by Brockmire · · Score: 1

      Windows had virtual desktops since Tweakui days. The problem as I see it, hardly anyone wants or uses 4 or more workspaces and so they don't put any resources or fundamentally design around it. Your in the minority. Stick with your ancient manager if it works for you.

    9. Re: Reinventing the Taskbar by Brockmire · · Score: 1

      Buddy, you're doing it wrong.

    10. Re:Reinventing the Taskbar by tepples · · Score: 1

      It was the part where you declined the upgrade from Windows 7.

      Not in the "red X means proceed" era of GWXUX.

    11. Re: Reinventing the Taskbar by 140Mandak262Jamuna · · Score: 1
      95% of the features of MS Office is not used by 95% of the people. That did not stop them from adding yet another gazillion word art. Windows work spaces and singleton windows make it very difficult it use it. So many windows apps will launch a new window in the original workspace, not in the current one. There are tons of problems.

      Microsoft could not do it. The problem comes from the root windown concept in its even manager and all the mouse and keyboard events need to flow down from the root window. It never envisaged a windowless root into which window managers can plug in and despatch events.

      --
      sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
    12. Re:Reinventing the Taskbar by 140Mandak262Jamuna · · Score: 4, Informative
      I understand you don't need it, most casual users wont need it.

      I have two full hd monitors. In win10, I maintain six work spaces. One running full screen remote desk top on a windows server. Two more running full screen sessions on two linux servers. Then one work space for development, code editing, running consoles. One more to run the regression suites and the validation scripts. Then the main one for browsing and internet and email and presentations

      The desktop is 128 GB, 32 core machine. Two of the servers are 256GB 32 core machines. The last linux server is 1TB memory 40 physical, not logical, processors. Every pull request I approve takes about 600 processor hours of certification testing.

      By the way, each of the full screen sessions on linux servers run the four work spaces, each work space is 3940 x 1080 pixel. I use the equivalent of 24 screens each 1920 x 1080.

      Very few people use as much screen as I use. Very few people are willing to pay as much as I am willing to pay. I will pay top dollar and defray your development costs. Then you can sell the technology to every one else for pure profit.

      --
      sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
    13. Re:Reinventing the Taskbar by reboot246 · · Score: 1

      I can see your point. We work with a spreadsheet and a mapping program open side-by-side. We have to be able to see both at the same time. Switching from one to the other is a no-go.

      I like tabs for some things, but not work.

    14. Re:Reinventing the Taskbar by LazyBoot · · Score: 2

      Does not have "sticky" windows. Can not relocate a window from one work space to another

      What would you call this then?
      https://imgur.com/sT5mxZA

    15. Re:Reinventing the Taskbar by Anonymous+Brave+Guy · · Score: 1

      What's GWX?

      Oh, that's right, it was one of those things people were complaining about that never got installed here because all our computers were set not to install updates automatically...

      --
      If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
    16. Re:Reinventing the Taskbar by johannesg · · Score: 1

      Back in 1994 when I got my first HP-UX, I set it up with SIX work spaces

      Back in 1985 we had different workspaces (we called them "screens") on our Amigas, each with its own resolution and color depth. And switching between them was instantaneous, rather than invoking a long, painful drawing cycle like your HPUX machine did a decade later.

      Eventually some other OS might stumble on the power and elegance of AmigaOS, but I'm not holding my breath...

    17. Re:Reinventing the Taskbar by michael_wojcik · · Score: 1

      I recall using multiple virtual desktops under X-Windows back in the 1980s

      Hmm. I'm trying to think of an X11 window manager with virtual desktop support from the '80s. vtwm was released in 1990, so it doesn't quite qualify. Same is true of tvtwm, I believe (and I think that also was a single virtual desktop like swm, as described below).

      uwm (the original, non-reparenting, beloved Ultrix window manager), mwm (Motif), awm (Ardent), cwm (IBM's Cambridge window manager for Project Athena) ... none of those offered multiple virtual desktops, as far as I can remember.

      swm (Solbourne) had a single virtual desktop, larger than the screen; the screen was a viewport onto it, and you could pan the viewport around. Not multiple desktops, though.

      Pretty sure the window manager I wrote circa '99 (now long lost) didn't have virtual desktops either. It wasn't really a big thing then. Many people running X11 had multihead workstations.

      Some OSes had virtual console devices and let you start multiple copies of X11 on them and hot-key between them. Obviously that's not the same as a virtualizing window manager, though. And I can't offhand think of any in the '80s that did this, though maybe IRIX did? It seems like the sort of thing SGI would implement for the lulz. (Like fsn. "This is UNIX! I know this!")

      Ah, X11 in the '80s and early '90s. So many options, and so much more interesting than Gnome-versus-KDE.

    18. Re:Reinventing the Taskbar by Reziac · · Score: 1

      Exactly. I spend half my time with parallel windows of one thing or another, including browsers. Why would I want a desktop where I can only see one thing at a time? why do we have oversized or multiple monitors, again??

      --
      ~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
  7. If its like any other UI by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    They have designed since Windows 7 we can expect it to be an epic fail.

    1. Re:If its like any other UI by Hal_Porter · · Score: 1

      Pretty much. Now they've gone back to a start menu from a start screen you can tell that the people who pushed the start screen at Microsoft are going to push some new UI innovation which will irritate everyone outside of Microsoft.

      Well a few tech reviewers will write articles where they cut and paste phrases from Microsoft's press release and say 'much better than the old Windows way of doing things' in return for a swag bag from a hot girl at Microsoft PR. And then go back to using their Macbooks.

      A few people will point out that for people who actually use Windows at work it is vastly inferior. Or for people who use Windows at home and are not that technical it is completely baffling.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

      Microsoft will ignore this of course and push it out by auto update. And then they'll notice that strangely their share of all devices browsing the net, already level pegging with Android, has dropped a bit more as non technical types flee to Android, iOS, macOS etc. Technical types will figure out hack to revert the changes or head for Mac or Linux. Corporations will pay for downgrade rights to older MS OSs.

      Microsoft will insist everything is fine for a while, and then introduce a new OS which claims to roll back the changes but which does not. Amusing comics will be drawn.

      https://www.penny-arcade.com/c...

      Market share will continue to l fall, but technical types who need Windows will stick with their hack. Or rather a newer version, because Microsoft broke the first one with the new OS release. Or move to Mac because they want to be able to build apps for Android and iOS, the only OSs that really matter commercially now that the WIndows ship is sinking even faster than before. If Google were smart at this point they'd offer something which is a bit more capable than a Chromebook, AndroidBook for example, to try to hoover up some of those people fleeing Windows but who don't want a Mac and can't use Linux but they probably aren't. Apple will probably do something stupid to put people off Macs, analogous to their decision to solder in ram and SSD on all new models to stop people upgrading them. What that will be I'm not sure. Switch the whole keyboard to a larger version of the TouchBar for example.

      Finally Microsoft will release an OS which really does roll back most of the changes, the way Windows 10 has a start menu with a load of 'tile shit' embedded in it that no one uses but it's sort of OK because it has the Win32 apps people actually use there too. Corporations will still try to pay for downgrade rights, and Microsoft will tell them they can't anymore.

      And then the cycle will start anew! It's the circle of life!

      --
      echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
    2. Re: If its like any other UI by Miamicanes · · Score: 1

      The worst part is, unlike Windows 7 - vs - 8/10, Windows 10 users can't say "no thanks" and refuse the change. Eventually, Microsoft will make it a mandatory update & ram it down everyone's throat.

      Unless, of course, KDE or Gnome for Windows gets taken seriously by someone like Adobe (and Gnome/KDE *themselves*), and Windows users start running KDE/Gnome Desktop in a full-screen Windows window as the penultimate 'fuck you' towards Microsoft. Once apps like Photoshop are Gnome/KDE-native, it would only take one major annoyance by Microsoft to get users to ditch Windows entirely.

      Microsoft appears to have learned *nothing* from its Windows Mobile debacle (where they had the #1 mobile OS with capabilities that were *years* ahead of Apple & Android... then threw it all away and rendered themselves *irrelevant* as a mobile-device OS). Microsoft appears determined to render themselves equally-irrelevant in the non-phone realm (but will probably take most of the market for "real" PCs into their grave with them... the desktop/laptop market can't survive another "Windows 8" debacle).

    3. Re: If its like any other UI by Hal_Porter · · Score: 1

      Microsoft appears to have learned *nothing* from its Windows Mobile debacle (where they had the #1 mobile OS with capabilities that were *years* ahead of Apple & Android... then threw it all away and rendered themselves *irrelevant* as a mobile-device OS). Microsoft appears determined to render themselves equally-irrelevant in the non-phone realm (but will probably take most of the market for "real" PCs into their grave with them... the desktop/laptop market can't survive another "Windows 8" debacle).

      Yup, that's what convinced me to move from Windows Mobile to Android. Both are kind of klunky in terms of UI but very flexible (custom Roms, replaceable launchers), and have lots of hardware vendors and lots of software companies support them. Meanwhile Windows Phone had a new UI, but didn't run any of the old software. It wasn't flexible and MS had to pay HTC and Samsung to make the devices because they never had an market share and eventually bought Nokia and turned it into their in house Windows Phone vendor.

      It never got anything like the support from third party developers that Windows Mobile did - most of the WIndows Mobile ones moved to Android/iOS and never looked back.

      And in the end MS killed off Windows Phone. Unfortunately they wrecked Windows 8 trying to get people to use Metro apps in the meantime.

      I'm still not 100% convinced that they won't kill desktop Windows in much the way they killed Windows Mobile. Which would be a shame.

      --
      echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
    4. Re: If its like any other UI by sn0wflake · · Score: 0

      I love reading delusional Linux fanatic comments that still believes anybody gives a single fuck about anything Linux ever. Now you expect people to install some Linux crap that probably crashes 5 times during installation instead of using Windows. Go compile yourself :D

    5. Re: If its like any other UI by Miamicanes · · Score: 1

      It has nothing to do with Linux per se, and EVERYTHING to do with the fact that KDE and Gnome (ok, Cinnamon, which as I understand it is Gnome 3 with Gnome 2 functionality restored) increasingly replicates Windows' UI better than Windows *itself* does.

      Gnome and KdeWin are potentially a way to take control of Windows' UI future in a way that tells Microsoft, "We're staying with Windows... for now, at least... but piss us off even just a little, and we're bailing on you for good."

      Truth be told, Windows' handling of proprietary binary drivers beats Linux's handling (or more precisely, its refusal to handle them) hands down. As companies like Qualcomm and MediaTek increasingly come to dominate hardware, we're going to *need* Windows' superior driver model (that doesn't automatically break all existing binary drivers every. goddamn. fucking. time. the kernel has even the *tiniest* change made to it, the way Linux does).

      The fact is, we *need* Windows to not suck (and not self-immolate), if only to keep Linux on its toes and ensure x86/amd64 architecture has viable future. If ARM wins, ${deity} help us all, because the open(-ish) hardware architecture we know as the "PC" just doesn't exist in ARM-land. ARM shit is all proprietary, locked down, and massively empowers vendors over users. ARM doesn't even have a fucking mandatory baseline standard for "partition a hard drive in a way that allows it to boot any arbitrary OS"... literally everything is vendor-specific. If companies like Qualcomm had their way, PCs as we know them would cease to exist & we'd all be reduced to appliance-users who can do what the vendor explicitly chooses to allow, and nothing more.

    6. Re: If its like any other UI by Miamicanes · · Score: 1

      The most tragic thing about Windows Mobile is that 5.x and 6.x were ugly as sin... but at their core, it was a good, stable, reasonably well-implemented (by real-world evolutionary standards, at least) OS. 7.x was going to be as pretty as Cupcake/Donut/Eclair Android.

      As a practical matter, it was almost more de-facto "open" than Android is now. Sure, you can build AOSP from source, but if you want a device that can actually work as a non-crippled & dysfunctional "Android" phone, you need Google's very, very proprietary binaries. And hardware that doesn't lock you out of the bootloader. And compiled binaries from the SoC vendor... which unlike x86/AMD64 Windows, has basically zero compatibility with drivers for different kernels... change so much as a compiler-optimization flag, and existing binary kernel modules go "boom".

      Microsoft *could* (and *should*) have had an official "App store", but like Android, WM imposed no mandatory restrictions on what you could download & run.

      All MS *really* needed to do with WM7.0 was release it, and in WM7.5, they could have documented (properly) the way for third-parties to write things like a "phone" app (and added a C#.netCF API to allow apps like that to be written in C#.netCF).

      If they'd stayed on course & done that, they would have probably gotten 80% of first-gen Android users to come back after one Android phone (because first-gen Cupcake-era Android phones WERE pretty dire compared to what WM7.0 was supposed to be). But no... Microsoft bought Danger (Sidekick OS), wasted a year porting it from Java to C#, then dumped WM for an inferior new OS that was superficially-prettier, but couldn't even do most basic BLUETOOTH-related things properly (a deficiency that pre-existed with Sidekick).

      Microsoft NEEDS Bill Gates to pul a "Steve Jobs", come back and save Microsoft from itself. Pretty much every single thing Microsoft has done since Gates left MS has been bad. Windows 95's UI changes were genuinely "bold", "courageous", and a definite step in the right direction. Windows 8 (and Metro, and everything since) was NOT.

      Microsoft has totally come unhinged, and they're destroying PCs with their craziness by refusing to acknowledge that the way people use high-powered desktop & laptop computers with multiple monitors is fundamentally different from the way little kids & tech-clueless adults use tablets, and trying to force a "One UI for All" policy on everything just degrades desktops & laptops into big, oversized tablets.

      What Windows really needs is something akin to Android Fragments, so you can make one UI for tablets, one for real computers, then let the OS sort things out at runtime.

    7. Re: If its like any other UI by Hal_Porter · · Score: 1

      Windows 95's UI changes were genuinely "bold", "courageous", and a definite step in the right direction. Windows 8 (and Metro, and everything since) was NOT.

      Couldn't agree more. Microsoft's ability to design user interfaces peaked around the Windows 95 period but the old kernel was terrible. The NT kernel was good, and Windows 2000 adopted the 95 user interface. XP was a bit ugly but OK. Vista was crippled in terms of speed. Windows 7 was basically something that looked like XP but had handy updates. Windows 8 was a complete mess. Windows 10 is to Windows 8 what 7 was to Vista, but none of the Metro stuff is worth having.

      The odds are the next thing they do will really suck.

      --
      echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
  8. New Coke is objectively the best Coke by spun · · Score: 1

    All our taste testing and focus groups agree, people like New Coke better! Pepsi won't keep eating our lunch once we release this tasty masterpiece! Everyone will love it, and surely no one will complain, we just can't go wrong with this new direction.

    --
    - None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
    1. Re:New Coke is objectively the best Coke by PhantomHarlock · · Score: 1

      Except in this case there is no Pepsi to compete with them. They'll shove it down your throat and you'll like it...

    2. Re:New Coke is objectively the best Coke by sycodon · · Score: 1

      I don't know...my company was just purchased by Lockheed.

      They are big Mac and Linux fans. I think most of the infrastructure servers are Linux.

      Funny...I started with an Apple II, then Apple III, then various Macs, then to Windows for 20 years. Now, I may end up back on a Mac.

      --
      When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
    3. Re: New Coke is objectively the best Coke by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "They are big Mac and Linux fans."

      Nerds do love their McD's.

  9. From the people... by squiggleslash · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ...who brought you the Ribbon. And Windows 8's "Tablet interface for desktops".

    --
    You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
    1. Re:From the people... by CaptainDork · · Score: 5, Insightful

      This.

      The first thing people do is go for the old Windows 7 desktop look and feel.

      --
      It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
    2. Re:From the people... by SeaFox · · Score: 2

      ...who brought you the Ribbon. And Windows 8's "Tablet interface for desktops".

      And even better, since it will be part of Windows 10 you're already on track to receive it -- as part of those updates you can't decline like you could before.

    3. Re:From the people... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      The first thing people do is go for the old Windows 7 desktop look and feel.

      Indeed it is.

      Windows 8 is a steaming turd of ugly if you don't track down like "Classic Start Menu" and tweak the UI in a bunch of places to get back a useful OS.

      At this point, I utterly refuse to upgrade to Win 10 for any purpose whatsoever, and if I'm forced to what it really will do is my Windows machine will become a VM running on a Linux box.

      Microsoft have demonstrated time and time again when they come up with a fancy new UI, it's pretty much garbage. Please, don't give me the same crappy interface I'd have on a little mobile device on my multi-monitor desktop setup. It boggles the mind how MS can be so utterly fucking clueless about the fact that many of us don't work on mobile devices.

    4. Re:From the people... by SlaveToTheGrind · · Score: 1

      And Bob.

    5. Re:From the people... by Jason+Levine · · Score: 1

      Are any of those people old school enough to also be The People Who Brought You Microsoft Bob?

      --
      My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
    6. Re:From the people... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Bob was a joke, but honestly I would rather take Bob any day over Windows 8, 10 and that new idiotic tabbed crap.

    7. Re:From the people... by squiggleslash · · Score: 1

      ...oh and let's not forget Clippy!

      In fairness, Bob was never forced upon users who wanted a recent version of a Microsoft product. Clippy, the Ribbon, and the Windows 8 Tablet-for-Desktop UI are another matter however...

      --
      You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
    8. Re:From the people... by hazardPPP · · Score: 1

      Microsoft have demonstrated time and time again when they come up with a fancy new UI, it's pretty much garbage. Please, don't give me the same crappy interface I'd have on a little mobile device on my multi-monitor desktop setup. It boggles the mind how MS can be so utterly fucking clueless about the fact that many of us don't work on mobile devices.

      Microsoft isn't unfortunately the only problem. (G)UI designers, especially for operating systems (i.e. the desktop, whatever you want to call it) seem to have something up their ass...some kind of insatiable urge to re-design everything, to make "better" things that have been figured out and work. Microsoft isn't the only offender here (although they are the ones with the most impact due to their market share), look at GNOME 3. Or look at what KDE was doing with Plasma before reverting to "folder view" (i.e. the traditional desktop) as the default in one of the recent versions.

      The funny thing is that mobile devices have also adopted a version of the traditional desktop, despite having the opportunity to start fresh and having to work with a different input method (fingers not mice and keyboards). Think about it, your Android device has a desktop...icons you tap to open things, a button you push to see all the windows which are open, and to switch between them...this is because this approach makes sense and is intuitive.

      Why do people keep having the urge to reinvent the wheel? Just for novelty's sake? "I am so smart and it's not invented here" syndrome?

    9. Re:From the people... by Anonymous+Brave+Guy · · Score: 2

      It looks like you're trying to mock Microsoft. Would you like help with that?

      --
      If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
    10. Re:From the people... by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      ...who brought you the Ribbon. And Windows 8's "Tablet interface for desktops".

      While the latter is an absolute turd, the former has been a fantastic step forward in usability which has seen adoption of computers by non-technical people majorly increase, technical people who actually bother to learn an interface benefit from a large reduction in worthless clicking (and if you were keyboard shortcutting then you shouldn't notice any difference anyway), and an idea that has proven so popular that it has been widely adopted by a wide range of other software.

      If you call the ribbon some kind of disaster, then sign me up for more disasters.

    11. Re:From the people... by swb · · Score: 1

      It's absolutely proof that they have run out of ideas and are merely iterating needlessly and calling it "advancement".

      Is there anyone out there who feels that the existing "window" paradigm has fundamentally run past its expiration date and that they are not getting anything done because of it? *And* that this somehow is the solution?

      I'm kind of inclined to think that some major Microsoft investors should start asking a lot of fucking questions about how much is being wasted in the Windows division of Microsoft's business trying to re-solve what are essentially solved problems. My guess is they could lay off a huge chunk of the staff and greatly improve the quality of the software that is produced by eliminating this redundant churn.

      Jesus fucking Christ, the software industry already nearly (or actually) collects fucking rents on their software, why are they wasting their own profits on stupid reinventions of user interfaces every 18 months? They aren't needed and really aren't wanted, either. Lay off most of these people, direct the others to fix the outstanding bugs, bask in the greater profits and user satisfaction from a stable interface.

    12. Re:From the people... by chuckugly · · Score: 1

      Is there anyone out there who feels that the existing "window" paradigm has fundamentally run past its expiration date ....

      I do, but this sets thing doesn't look promising. I'd like it if they would basically make the desktop work like the docking/tabbing/subdividing windows inside Visual Studio. That seems like a really nice way to organize things for me.

    13. Re:From the people... by CaptainDork · · Score: 1

      My Windows 10 desktop looks and feels just like my Windows 7.

      --
      It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
    14. Re:From the people... by tbuskey · · Score: 1

      The first thing people do is go for the old Windows 7 desktop look and feel.

      One size doesn't fit all. Even Apple has a different UI for desktop and phone/tablet.

      I used to have fvwm2 on one screen with 4 workspaces and gnome on the other with 4 workspaces on Redhat 9 (pre fedora). You couldn't move apps from one screen to the other, but you could have your browser up on one side and go through the workspaces on the other side. I was able to have ~ 100 things open. Browser, email, editor, some xloads and mostly xterms. It was way better than the xinerama across the 2 screens.

    15. Re:From the people... by CaptainDork · · Score: 1

      I did all that on a Novell server (3.11).

      --
      It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
    16. Re:From the people... by LinuxIsGarbage · · Score: 1

      ...who brought you the Ribbon. And Windows 8's "Tablet interface for desktops".

      While the latter is an absolute turd, the former has been a fantastic step forward in usability which has seen adoption of computers by non-technical people majorly increase, technical people who actually bother to learn an interface benefit from a large reduction in worthless clicking (and if you were keyboard shortcutting then you shouldn't notice any difference anyway), and an idea that has proven so popular that it has been widely adopted by a wide range of other software.

      If you call the ribbon some kind of disaster, then sign me up for more disasters.

      I find it interesting that 10 years after it was introduced, the bitching still continues about ribbon. Done correctly it's a good interface. Excel is one such application. Yes it's different, yes it takes some getting used to, but it's so much better:

      -Contrary to popular belief it doesn't "waste so much space". The vertical space used by the default toolbars and menu in Office 2003 is identical to the space used by the Ribbon. Plus double clicking the tabs (or pressing Ctrl+F1, or clicking the arrow at the right end of the tab bar) will collapse it to just the tab names and make them act like drop down menus. Plus the Ribbon can cope with narrowing screen width much better.

      -The buttons don't randomly move around. Toolbars are great because they are customization. Unfortunately most customizations are accidental. So People end up accidentally dragging toolbars around, so the icons aren't in the same order on any two PCs. Any users will somehow make it so there's one toolbar per line, wasting more vertical space.

      -There's far fewer clicks than digging around the menus, or only looking at tiny little icons in the toolbar. Commonly used functions are very prominent.

    17. Re:From the people... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      People keep bitching about it because it's terrible. We had a fully functioning menu system in previous systems that worked well. You knew roughly where to find things you might want, even if you hadn't used that function before. There were hotkeys that were used for most things you were likely to do regularly and if you had to use the mouse to find things, you didn't have to move it all about the screen in order to find it. It was under the menu bar and a small amount of scrolling.

      With the ribbon, you have to move the mouse all over the screen to get at things you might need, but most of the time, it's a pain in the ass as you're not necessarily wanting to do the top few things that MS put there based on frequency.

      What's more, with the previous system, there is no clicking at all. You just hit alt+f or whatever the menu is assigned to and you can then scroll down, you don't have to even remove your hands from the keyboard.

      The Ribbon is a really good example of stubbornness and incompetence of design. The idea was terrible and should never have made its way into a finished product. That was the moment I refused to buy anymore copies of Office, including that $40 copy that my employer offers students and staff.

    18. Re:From the people... by aybiss · · Score: 1

      Please no, not the transparency! The way I can't move windows around in the taskbar to keep things grouped, the way things want to pin themselves there so I can't run two instances of them... The first thing people on Windows 7 do it go for the old Windows 2000 desktop look and feel.

      --
      It's OK Bender, there's no such thing as 2.
    19. Re:From the people... by mcswell · · Score: 1

      "The vertical space used by the default toolbars and menu in Office 2003": Only an idiot kept the default toolbars. I had no toolbars whatsoever, because they required mousing (IIRC), and I prefer leaving my hands on the keyboard. Besides, the toolbars did nothing that I couldn't do with the menu. And the menu auto-hid (and of course the Ribbon can too, but when it's open it's huge).

      If someone wanted to make improvements to Word, a good place would have been (and would still be, to this day) the section numbering system. Try to get legal numbering (1, 1.1, 1.2, 1.2.1...). It has never worked since Word version 1, and if anything it's worse now than it was ten years ago. (For the record, LaTeX does this correctly without breaking a sweat.) Or for a trivial fix, make dialog boxes automagically avoid covering the part of the Word window that contains the cursor and the part that contains the search term you just found. Or...

      I could go on. But I won't. The Ribbon is a mess; it contains lots of stuff I never want to use, and doesn't contain stuff I do want.

    20. Re:From the people... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      +1

    21. Re:From the people... by mtf.indo · · Score: 1

      well, i'm the fresh meat here, trying to understand all of this. Need help and lil slowly explenation, thank you www.mtf.co.id

    22. Re:From the people... by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      Only an idiot kept the default toolbars

      You have just called 99% of the users idiots, and thus failed at interface design.

    23. Re:From the people... by swb · · Score: 1

      The real problem is that they seem to be caught on this idea of "how people use the computer" and then assuming and corralling users into a single model.

      IMHO, the world of computer display technology is expanding faster than the window/display management is evolving to manage it.

      As an example, a 43" 4k display can be run at 100% (as in zero) scaling and have the same dot pitch as a typical 1920x1080 display, which means you're left with a single desktop that functions as a stack of 4 of those 1920x1080 displays yet Windows has no method for managing that display space well natively. I use third party software that lets me split the display logically and manage window locations.

      If there's anything missing from Windows, it's recognizing that we're not in a single screen world or at a single display resolution.

    24. Re:From the people... by chuckugly · · Score: 1

      Yeah my main monitor is a Dell 43" 4K which I use in conjunction w/ a 20" 4:3 in portrait that happens to have basically the same dot pitch - like I said the Visual Studio model would (IMO) work fantastically for a workspace like this. I agree, we're not all the same, and as long as they make this sets thing opt in, well , maybe it's a step in the right direction as far as giving people options goes. If they try it out wit the intent to herd us all into it - blech.

      In other news, the world doesn't need another Chromebook Microsoft, kill 10S with fire.

    25. Re:From the people... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Contrary to popular belief it doesn't "waste so much space". The vertical space used by the default toolbars and menu in Office 2003 is identical to the space used by the Ribbon

      Menu: "Click File, then Save."
      Ribbon: To save, click the "Square thing with small square thing."

      Ribbon wasn't an attempt to make the UI more usable.

      It was an attempt to eliminate the costs associated with internationalization and localization. You don't need to pay people to translate the word "File," or "Save," nor do you need to need to find words (Looking at you, Germany!) that withinfittingofamenuoptionframewidth don't exceed the original developer's expectation for the maximum width of a menu option.

    26. Re:From the people... by LinuxIsGarbage · · Score: 1

      Contrary to popular belief it doesn't "waste so much space". The vertical space used by the default toolbars and menu in Office 2003 is identical to the space used by the Ribbon

      Menu: "Click File, then Save."

      Ribbon: To save, click the "Square thing with small square thing."

      Ribbon wasn't an attempt to make the UI more usable.

      It was an attempt to eliminate the costs associated with internationalization and localization. You don't need to pay people to translate the word "File," or "Save," nor do you need to need to find words (Looking at you, Germany!) that withinfittingofamenuoptionframewidth don't exceed the original developer's expectation for the maximum width of a menu option.

      In Office 2007, File menu was replaced with Office orb menu (that user testing confused with a decoration so it was replaced with a "File" menu in 2010).
      Save has a generous sized icon (good for high res screens) and the word save.

      There's still lots of words in Ribbon. The tabs, sections within the tabs, and most icons have text too. So I really don't know what you're talking about.

    27. Re:From the people... by LinuxIsGarbage · · Score: 1

      What's more, with the previous system, there is no clicking at all. You just hit alt+f or whatever the menu is assigned to and you can then scroll down, you don't have to even remove your hands from the keyboard.

      Hotkeys are still there. Hit Alt and they show up. I believe they even tried to keep them as close as possible to the hotkeys from Office 2003.

    28. Re:From the people... by Reziac · · Score: 1

      Job security. If you can't invent something new, sell it to the management, and cause customers to require both new versions and ongoing support -- WE DON'T NEED YOU.

      In a saturated market, there's no money in more-of-the-same.

      --
      ~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
  10. Multi-monitor setup by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I wonder, how well this "everything in one window" model will work in my workflow, which uses multiple monitors for organizing and grouping windows. Not to mention the added screen estate to accommodate everything....

  11. Reinventing the wheel? by Locke2005 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Isn't the task bar already functionally equivalent to a tabbed view of apps?

    --
    I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
    1. Re:Reinventing the wheel? by Entropius · · Score: 5, Insightful

      No, because it's already been in use for 20 years, and thus can't be a Bold New Thing for some team at Microsoft that needs to justify its existence to management.

    2. Re:Reinventing the wheel? by ChunderDownunder · · Score: 1

      It sounds like virtual desktops but bound to a window so you can compare workspaces side by side.

    3. Re:Reinventing the wheel? by roc97007 · · Score: 1

      Exactly. It's not a Bold New Thing unless it makes you re-learn how to get your work done.

      --
      Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
    4. Re:Reinventing the wheel? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That, in turn, sounds exactly like KDE Plasma Activities.

    5. Re:Reinventing the wheel? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So you're saying it's not "disruptive" enough?

    6. Re:Reinventing the wheel? by Entropius · · Score: 1

      One of the best parts about Linux is the split between the OS and particular desktop environments. I think Unity does things in a pretty terrible way and is not at all good for the way I work. So I don't complain about it; I just use lxde instead.

      With Windows you don't have that choice, at least not easily. When Microsoft decides that something will suck, there's rarely a supported alternative to the suck.

    7. Re:Reinventing the wheel? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This is the same thought I had when browsers came out with the new fangled tabs. I already have friggin tabs in my taskbar. I dont have to pull up the whole browser and then find which of the tabs I am looking for, they are all right down there with all the other tasks im working on in the task bar.

    8. Re:Reinventing the wheel? by omnichad · · Score: 1

      Used to be, before they collapsed the tabs down to icons to be more like the Mac. Though now it's more like my current browser with 30 tabs open.

    9. Re:Reinventing the wheel? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's only the same if you always run all windows maximized, and never ever need to use two windows at the same time, say one as a data source or reference and another one to actually work in.

      This is a terrible idea, I have no doubt it will soon be standard. Score another one for the drooling idiots, and another black eye to the people actually despite everything, still trying to get shit done on windows.

    10. Re:Reinventing the wheel? by roc97007 · · Score: 1

      So you're saying it's not "disruptive" enough?

      I'm pretty sure that's not what "disruptive" was supposed to mean.

      --
      Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
    11. Re:Reinventing the wheel? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Tabs wouldn't be so bad except for the fact that many of us like to tile our windows. I love putting two windows side by side on my widescreen monitor. It makes both of them reasonably wide and tall so that I get the best experience out of that with minimal fuss. I can have a total of 4 apps open like that across my two monitors which comes in handy for things like comparison shopping online.

    12. Re:Reinventing the wheel? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hammer on nail...

  12. Can they let me move the tabs to the bottom? by rsilvergun · · Score: 5, Funny

    Maybe let me customize the tab bar with some quick access buttons. Make one of the icons the Windows logo. Then put a clock on the bar, and make it blue. And add some more quick access icons next to the clock. Oh, and make all the tabs icons so I can fit a lot of them on the screen. It'll really be the future.

    --
    Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
    1. Re:Can they let me move the tabs to the bottom? by apoc.famine · · Score: 4, Funny

      A major issue is that current aspect ratios make vertical space really valuable. Get my tabs and toolbars off the top and bottom of the screen and put them on the side, so I have more vertical space to work with.

      Monitors are already far too wide to comfortably read edge-to-edge text. Use that wasted space and give me a few more lines vertically! That'd be innovative! (Cough, ubuntu, cough.)

      --
      Velociraptor = Distiraptor / Timeraptor
    2. Re:Can they let me move the tabs to the bottom? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They better implement lazy loading with these tabs. Otherwise I eventually will have over 300 applications starting for each session. Never mind, even if they implement such a feature, the antivirus company will break it and forces the loading of everything at the same time.

    3. Re:Can they let me move the tabs to the bottom? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's been an out of the box feature of at least win2k - win7.

  13. Future of Windows 10 is iOS and Android by JoeyRox · · Score: 3, Interesting

    With Windows 10 relegated to business and engineering-only roles.

    1. Re:Future of Windows 10 is iOS and Android by CaptainDork · · Score: 1

      And home desktops.

      --
      It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
    2. Re:Future of Windows 10 is iOS and Android by DogDude · · Score: 1

      With Windows 10 relegated to business and engineering-only roles.

      Leaving iOS and Android with people who play games and watch videos on their devices? Is that a bad thing?

      --
      I don't respond to AC's.
    3. Re:Future of Windows 10 is iOS and Android by tepples · · Score: 2

      I thought the home "desktop" was becoming a tablet running a smartphone operating system with a Bluetooth keyboard. Or at least that's how it appears in a couple Discord servers I'm in, where a few regular users rely on help from others and cannot experience PC games because they rarely if ever have access to a PC.

    4. Re:Future of Windows 10 is iOS and Android by CaptainDork · · Score: 1

      Dunno.

      I can jack with a Windows desktop.

      Smart devices are too sandboxed and walled garden except for Youtube and Facebook benging.

      I'm a retired IT guy and I do the things you'd expect.

      Gaming isn't one of them.

      --
      It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
    5. Re:Future of Windows 10 is iOS and Android by tepples · · Score: 1

      I'm a retired IT guy and I do the things you'd expect.

      You make a good point.

      So that makes four niches for PCs: business, engineering, home desktops used by gamers who play with mods, and home desktops that belong to practicing or retired IT personnel. Anyone want to list niches I forgot?

    6. Re:Future of Windows 10 is iOS and Android by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm a retired IT guy and I do the things you'd expect.

      i.e. less than 1% of users and irrelevant to generalizations about home desktop users.

    7. Re:Future of Windows 10 is iOS and Android by CaptainDork · · Score: 1

      Home desktops for Farmville.

      --
      It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
    8. Re:Future of Windows 10 is iOS and Android by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Digital Artists (Hobby or professional)
      Recording Artists (Hobby or professional)

      I've done both and while the tablets are *ALMOST* usable for both, I'd still rather have a real desktop with real applications and real hardware than a tablet with a shitty interface and hope and pray the stylus works better than a Wacom interface and/or dongle for AD/DA conversion.

      Exception being iPad Pro with apple pencil is actually nicer than any Wacom I've used short of the multi-thousand dollar options. MMV.

    9. Re:Future of Windows 10 is iOS and Android by nasch · · Score: 1

      I can jack with a Windows desktop.

      Smart devices are too sandboxed and walled garden except for Youtube and Facebook benging.

      Have you tried putting a different launcher on an Android device? There are some that do not at all resemble the stock launcher. And if you don't like any that are out there, you can write one yourself. I don't even know how you would go about trying to replace the Windows desktop manager.

    10. Re:Future of Windows 10 is iOS and Android by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      With Windows 10 relegated to business and engineering-only roles.

      Yeah lol with a touchscreen interface for servers. What a joke.

  14. iPadification by SuperKendall · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It's funny how iPadificaton of the desktop OS seems to be a threat constantly looming over the Mac, yet always lands on Windows...

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
    1. Re:iPadification by chuckugly · · Score: 1

      Wish I had mod points. Can't decide if this is funny or insightful though.

    2. Re:iPadification by roc97007 · · Score: 1

      "iPadification" is my new favorite word. It's so rich in meaning. It implies content consumer, not content creator. It implies an interface even a five year old could use, with all the implied limitations of that. It's a TV with a touch screen. Cool.

      --
      Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
    3. Re:iPadification by Freischutz · · Score: 1

      It's funny how iPadificaton of the desktop OS seems to be a threat constantly looming over the Mac, yet always lands on Windows...

      It must have decided after extensive contemplation that Microsoft is more deserving. I can't say that I will miss it, the iPad UI is one of the reasons I abandoned the iPad for a MacBook and I would do the same if I was an Android user since the Android tablet UI isn't a damn sight better. On the Desktop UI I can have multiple windows open, switch between them easily, size them as I want, navigating with the keyboard is quicker, easier and much less frustrating, especially when doing things like copy/pasting text and the apps are more powerful.

    4. Re:iPadification by krisbrowne42 · · Score: 1

      I highly doubt that iPadification will ever really truly threaten macOS in the ways people think - Apple firmly believes in different devices for different needs (if for no other reason than selling more devices). Microsoft is the one that's tried for over a decade to convince people that one OS should run on all their devices, as long as it's Windows.

      If anything, I suspect that the next iteration we'll see is a context-sensitive, display-backed gesture-board for Macs, like the magic trackpad but with visuals underneath or around the edges for smart-widgets per-app.

      While MS will still be trying to suggest you should be using your monitor at 30 degrees like an easel, or reaching up to your monitor, or whatever crazy RSI inducing UI they come up with next.

    5. Re:iPadification by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      It's funny how iPadificaton of the desktop OS seems to be a threat constantly looming over the Mac, yet always lands on Windows...

      It's hard to treat a threat seriously when it affects such a small portion of users none of which are businesses.

    6. Re: iPadification by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Is it possible that Microsoft has more courage?

  15. Dumbing down for the lowest-common denominator by sremick · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Because people apparently are too stupid to handle "windows" and can't handle seeing more than one app at once?

    R.I.P. productivity. At least for businesses. There's a reason I kicked Windows off my workstations at home 15+ years ago and have been running FreeBSD (yes) and Linux ever since.

    1. Re:Dumbing down for the lowest-common denominator by Bert64 · · Score: 0

      Depends what you mean by "productivity"...
      Different people do different things, a lot of users only ever run a single fullscreen app and occasionally tab between several such apps. With more and more software being browser delivered the number of apps is decreasing and some people only ever have a browser open.
      A lot of employees spend their whole day dealing with emails, and do so from within a web based interface. If they're not replying to emails, they're looking up information in browser-delivered applications. There are a great many office workers these days who would be better off with chromeos.

      --
      http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
    2. Re:Dumbing down for the lowest-common denominator by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "A lot of employees spend their whole day dealing with emails, and do so from within a web based interface. If they're not replying to emails, they're looking up information in browser-delivered applications. "

      Ah, you're talking about the people AI will have replaced before this ever happens?

    3. Re:Dumbing down for the lowest-common denominator by fahrbot-bot · · Score: 0

      Because people apparently are too stupid to handle "windows" and can't handle seeing more than one app at once?

      Well... Many people, especially the youngsters, are use to using smartphones and tablets, where you usually only see/use one app at a time. Maybe this is to emulate that, like the main window of some "productivity" suites where it lets you choose the more specific apps, like Microsoft Works did -- I think LibreOffice also has something like that (maybe others too) -- but also store your work as "projects".

      Not saying this is a good thing, just sayin'.

      --
      It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
    4. Re:Dumbing down for the lowest-common denominator by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Well... Many people, especially the youngsters, are use to using smartphones and tablets, where you usually only see/use one app at a time.

      And in the 1980's most youngsters were used to seeing only program at a time, but that didn't stop the introduction of windows-like graphic user interfaces. For example, in the 1980's I ran only a single program at a time on my Apple IIe. If I wanted to run a different program, I would put a new disk in the floppy drive then reboot the entire computer...

    5. Re:Dumbing down for the lowest-common denominator by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Most plebs use Windows like that. Everything is maximized all of the time.

      A subset of them know how to Alt-Tab between maximized windows.

      A subset of those know how to use snapped/side-by-side windows.

      Just don't expect any of them to work with windows that overlap and yet are visible at the same time, you know, like how GUI windows are supposed to work. Seriously. I'm a developer in a mostly-Windows dev shop, and it seems to boggle my coworkers' minds that I don't run most programs maximized. Especially web browsers. That really seems to set them off.

      Just about the only thing I run maximized is Visual Studio, because doing so lets me block out the other clutter on my machine and just focus on programming.

    6. Re:Dumbing down for the lowest-common denominator by Hal_Porter · · Score: 1

      Well... Many people, especially the youngsters, are use to using smartphones and tablets, where you usually only see/use one app at a time.

      It sounds like MS's attempt to push a tablet/phone UI onto desktop users with Windows 8. They ended up with the odd situation that people who were doing to buy a tablet or phone bought one anyway, and not from Microsoft. Meanwhile people who wanted a desktop machine mostly held off on buying a Windows machine with Windows 8 - they kept their Windows 7 machine, or they bought a Mac.

      And people who did buy a Windows 8 machine were often baffled by it

      How Real People Will Use Windows 8

      I bet a lot of these machines got returned inside the 30 day period.

      I remember my parents who had an liked iPads, iPhones and Android devices, not wanting a machine with anything but 7 on it.

      Now personally I didn't like it out of the box, but Windows 8+Classic Shell was fine. I set it up on the machines of people who complained about it, and they were happy. I didn't buy any machines with it on though - I stuck with Windows 7 on my laptop because that still works fine.

      I've got Windows 10 in a VM on my Mac and it's fine even without any third party hacks like Classic Shell. So it's probably OK for non technical types - they're not going to return it.

      And now it seems like MS have decided to try a new 'bold and innovative' UI. I reckon it will work out for them as well as Windows 8 did.

      --
      echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
    7. Re:Dumbing down for the lowest-common denominator by Darinbob · · Score: 1

      To be honest, there could be a use for this (and it is optional). Some of the humor comes from Microsoft again deciding unilaterally what the customers want which ultimately ends up a failure. But if you look at web apps, we already have different applications on the browswer in different tabs. This idea from MS is essentially that without a browser, you can have your Word "window" also have an Excel tab and a browser tab, etc. It is an interesting idea.

      I certainly prefer windows side-by-side myself; and putting separate "tasks" into separate desktops. However in a space reduced display (tablets, laptops with no external monitors) then the tabbed method could be handy. I just don't expect Microsoft to be the people to do this well.

    8. Re:Dumbing down for the lowest-common denominator by omnichad · · Score: 1

      It sounds like MS's attempt to push a tablet/phone UI onto desktop users with Windows 8.

      Which would have been fine if it was "tablet" mode for actually tablet devices - where we landed with Windows 10 and the newer MS Surface models. I don't know who was asleep at the wheel when they were supposed to debate how hard this would be to use/discover with a mouse.

    9. Re:Dumbing down for the lowest-common denominator by omnichad · · Score: 1

      you can have your Word "window" also have an Excel tab and a browser tab, etc. It is an interesting idea.

      Maybe interesting. But not useful. It's already annoying that new Excel/Word documents open in existing windows instead of new separate windows. It's seriously a pain if you want to compare two Excel spreadsheets side-by-side - worse if you want the other side to go back and forth between a word and Excel document. They decided to force Windows within Windows which is just inner-platform effect (Windows 10 has much better window positioning/management than subwindows in Excel).

    10. Re:Dumbing down for the lowest-common denominator by Hal_Porter · · Score: 1

      Another problem is they tried to force the new mode onto old users on devices that didn't support it well. Even now most new gaming laptops don't have touch screens. In fact even if I had a device with a touch screen I don't want to use it when keyboard and trackpad are something my muscle memory knows how to use efficiently. If they'd had tablet mode and non tablet mode, picked automagically by device type and allowed the user to override it, they'd have been fine.

      Of course Windows 8 wasn't really about tablets - it was an attempt to get people using Metro apps, so people would write Metro apps and thus produce some apps for the failing Windows Phone. It's the reason Windows RT on Arm devices only allowed Metro apps, prohibited Win32 ones and also locked out third party OSs via Secure Boot. Since there weren't many compelling Metro apps the net result that was people found out that Windows RT Arm devices were useless and didn't buy them.

      Windows 10 on Arm is actually going to be a very different beast. It allows Win32 Arm applications and even contains an JIT to let you run Win32 x86 ones. Now running Photoshop on a Snapdragon 835 via JIT with no SSE because of the threat of an Intel lawsuit is going to suck compared to running it on an i7, but at least they allow it.

      --
      echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
    11. Re:Dumbing down for the lowest-common denominator by omnichad · · Score: 1

      it was an attempt to get people using Metro apps

      A poor attempt. Making the apps work with the existing ecosystem was the only way to get buy-in. And look at Metro apps now. People use built-in Metro apps all the time in Windows 10 without realizing it.

    12. Re:Dumbing down for the lowest-common denominator by Hal_Porter · · Score: 1

      People use built-in Metro apps all the time in Windows 10 without realizing it.

      Well that's not quite the same thing is it? If I use Windows 10 and the control panel is Metro, of course I'd have to use it. But the apps I install and run on Windows, i.e. the reason I need Windows are all x86 or x64 Win32 or Win64 ones. I don't know any Metro apps I've installed and still use.

      --
      echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
    13. Re:Dumbing down for the lowest-common denominator by vtcodger · · Score: 1

      You're suggesting that in the (near?) future there will be AI bots that send and read email to/from each other with no humans involved ever? I guess that'll work and it won't much matter what OS(es) are used.since no one is reading screens or moving pointers anyway. But are you sure there is any point to such an arrangement?

      --
      You can't see ANYTHING from a car, You've got to get out of the goddamned contraption and walk...Edward Abbey
    14. Re:Dumbing down for the lowest-common denominator by omnichad · · Score: 1

      I thought the topic was Windows 8, not just RT. Trying to get people to use a tablet UI has nothing to do with that.

    15. Re:Dumbing down for the lowest-common denominator by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's all rotating AR cubes with app per side soon. Everybody wants to be able to seamlessly integrate random data table from the reality to the AR aware Excel, or automatically recognize data sources like stock market feeds from the street and link automatically the source to an analysis package. Just because.

  16. You know... by NecroPuppy · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I recognize that this is probably (long term) a good (or at least not bad) design decision.

    I can already picture how it's going to make certain aspects of dealing with tons of projects easier...

    But I can't say that I'm going to enjoy all the tech assist calls I'll have to deal with, from my coworkers who just want it to look / work like Windows 7 - some of which are the same people who just wanted Windows 7 to look/work like XP. (And also hated the Office ribbon.)

    --
    I like you, Stuart. You're not like everyone else, here, at Slashdot.
    1. Re:You know... by PhantomHarlock · · Score: 2

      But I can't say that I'm going to enjoy all the tech assist calls I'll have to deal with, from my coworkers who just want it to look / work like Windows 7 - some of which are the same people who just wanted Windows 7 to look/work like XP. (And also hated the Office ribbon.)

      Heh, that'd be me. I'm running Win 7 with the windows classic theme. I've found that almost nothing they've added since XP has added to my productivity, except optimizations under the hood. I have a double-height taskbar with quicklaunch icons across the top row, two monitors and all is good.

    2. Re:You know... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Windows XP with Office 2003 was the high water mark for Microsoft.

      EVERY change since then has been a disappointment.

      Large ship deck chairs sure take lots of new paint and are subject to infinite varieties of rearrangement, aren't they?

    3. Re:You know... by Reziac · · Score: 1

      Modernist.... I just installed WinXP on the 'new' everyday frankenputer. Win10 is why yonder box runs PCLinuxOS, for those rare times when I actually need a "current" OS.

      Oddity: WinXP-32bit on a 64bit CPU, as a new install, uses only about 75-100mb RAM. Seen this twice now. WTF.

      --
      ~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
  17. ... the context an Edge tab provided ... by CaptainDork · · Score: 1

    ... when the fuck did that ever happen?

    --
    It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
    1. Re:... the context an Edge tab provided ... by fahrbot-bot · · Score: 3, Funny

      ... when the fuck did that ever happen?

      Once, when it showed me this: Download Firefox

      --
      It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
    2. Re:... the context an Edge tab provided ... by CaptainDork · · Score: 1

      Oh, yeah.

      My bad. I used Internet Explorer, found it was totally useless, so I went for Edge to slow-load Firefox (and Chrome as a backup).

      Point taken.

      --
      It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
  18. What Date is it? by RobTowne · · Score: 1

    I really thought it was April Fools already, then I realized it was Microsoft we are talking about.

  19. Hasn't this already been invented already? by Entropius · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I mean... ... I have different directories for different things, and I know what programs (not "apps", fuck you) go with which files by the letters that come after the little dot in the filename that Windows, in all of its magnificent idiocy-provoking glory, doesn't even bother to show you. It doesn't take a massive amount of intellect to realize that filename.jpg is probably a picture, and that you can app it with whatever apps your appy ass apps appy pictures with. Apps!

    (Where is app luddite guy? I admit I only opened the comments here to see what that guy had written.)

    Why not stop trying to come up with radical new shapes for wheels ("I know! Maybe pentagons!") and focus on making their software not suck?

    1. Re:Hasn't this already been invented already? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The first thing to do on a new windows install is to open the explorer folder customization and change everything to its complement. Then you see all your files and their actual names.

    2. Re:Hasn't this already been invented already? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You don't seem very appy about this!

  20. Great for managers by 110010001000 · · Score: 1

    Great for managers and office drones creating yet another Powerpoint document explaining why sales are off by 10%. Welcome to the future of computing.

  21. Did MS not learn from Windows 8 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Or Gnome 3? What in the hell are they thinking?

  22. Welcome to OS/2 WARP by ArhcAngel · · Score: 5, Interesting

    OS/2 had a task folder option that let you create a folder on the desktop and drop shortcuts of any apps or files you wanted to open when that folder opened. This sounds like they are going to merge the ChromeOS desktop with OS/2 task folders.

    --
    "A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
    1. Re:Welcome to OS/2 WARP by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No need to troll for OS/2. This sounds like a return to Window 3.1. The whole thing is laughable. But if they want to shed some market share it's theirs to shed....

    2. Re:Welcome to OS/2 WARP by RoccamOccam · · Score: 3, Interesting

      The article mentions that the feature is very similar to Groupy which is now part of Stardock's Object Desktop. You may recall that Object Desktop started as a pretty successful attempt to bring the OS/2 Warp object desktop to Windows.

    3. Re:Welcome to OS/2 WARP by ArhcAngel · · Score: 1

      Yes, I used Stardock's Object Desktop for several years. In fact it was while I was using OS/2 that I discovered Stardock.

      --
      "A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
    4. Re:Welcome to OS/2 WARP by doconnor · · Score: 1

      I believe that feature was in OS/2 since they created the Workplace Shell for OS/2 2.0, several years before OS/2 3.0 (WARP).

  23. Sounds like they want everything fullscreen by Major_Disorder · · Score: 1

    I for one hate, Hate, HATE full screen applications! I currently have 7 programs running with 8 windows, on 2 screens and I can see at least part of all of them. This makes switching between application windows quick and easy, without having to run the mouse down to the task bar every time I need a different window.

    More change for the sake of change I think.
    Good thing I gave up on Windows years ago, so I don't have to deal with this stupidity.

    --
    First law of people: People are generally stupid.
    1. Re:Sounds like they want everything fullscreen by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Use autohotkey and key each program to a function key.

    2. Re:Sounds like they want everything fullscreen by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Sounds like you're a mac user. most windows users i've seen usually use their apps maximized, unless it something like a terminal window or some utility app that doesn't maximize

    3. Re:Sounds like they want everything fullscreen by amorsen · · Score: 1

      Overlapping windows don't work in any of the popular window managers anyway. Not in Windows, not in Mac OS, not in Gnome. You cannot have the window at the back be active so you can type in it, so you cannot use the contents of one window to do something in a different window.

      The only solution is to avoid overlapping and tile instead, but again, Windows, Mac OS, and Gnome all fail spectacularly at that too, although they are beginning to at least try.

      --
      Finally! A year of moderation! Ready for 2019?
    4. Re:Sounds like they want everything fullscreen by jbengt · · Score: 1

      Overlapping windows don't work in any of the popular window managers anyway. Not in Windows, not in Mac OS, not in Gnome.

      Really, not in Gnome? Have they taken that ability away in Gnome 3? Because when I used to use Gnome 2, that was one of my favorite improvements over Windows.

    5. Re:Sounds like they want everything fullscreen by omnichad · · Score: 1

      Only if you're stuck on 1080p or smaller. Once you go 4K, it's well worth it to open multiple windows on one screen.

    6. Re:Sounds like they want everything fullscreen by RhettLivingston · · Score: 1

      Virtually every windows user I know has more than one screen unless actually traveling with their laptop. And trying to get actual work done on a single 17" laptop screen makes you want to throw the dang thing.

  24. This could be bad... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I'll wait to judge it until I see it, but this could potentially wind up being a bigger fiasco than some of the ill-received new editions they've put out in the past for one simple reason that has nothing to do in particular with the nature of the change except insofar as they are changes.

    Whereas in the past you needed to go out and buy a new copy of Windows or a new PC that came with it, some Windows 10 users will go to sleep with one UI and wake up with another automatically because of the nature of it being a rolling release and the last Windows released in the traditional way.

    Imagine if people had gone to sleep one night with Windows 7 and woke up the next day with Windows 8.0's metro interface (Pre mitigating changes in a later point release). Yikes!

    Well, we always have Linux as a fallback if Windows get too crazy, I guess, provided Linux distros don't all blindly follow whatever Windows does (Which isn't a sure thing).

  25. Another crutch by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Nearly every Windows feature since NT/XP has been a crutch for some crappy aspect of Windows, or of computing in general. Problem is, the crutches create new problems. The biggest and broadest push, going on for the last 5+ years at both MS and Apple, is the push to abstract away the file system. They don't want you to have to think about where your files are or how they are organized. Problem is, then you can only organize and access that information in preset ways. The solution is what it has always been: organize your damn files. Organize your bookmarks. Create categories that make sense for your purposes using the highly flexible tools that all OSes already have.

    Sometimes search can substitute for this, but then you won't get a reminder of what you're supposed to be opening; you have to know already. Search works in email because email addresses can be searched and operate as de facto folders. There is no such convenient "project" metadata for documents and images.

  26. FFS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    FFS, I've got two big monitors, and I want to be able to look at more than one app at a time. Quit fucking with me!

  27. Uh... sure by mark-t · · Score: 1

    Except if they are replacing windows with tabs, shouldn't they start calling Microsoft Tabs?

    Which would probably run afoul of Samsung's trademarks... but I'm just sayin'...

  28. Which OS on laptops in stores? by tepples · · Score: 1

    Real users that do real work

    Those users shouldn't use Windows in the first place.

    Other than Windows, which operating system is included with laptop PCs from multiple manufacturers shown in major U.S. electronics showroom chains? Because System76 laptops aren't in showrooms, I can't try the keyboard and display before buying. And unlike with desktop PCs, negligibly few individuals build their own laptop from parts.

    Or did you mean MacBook?

    1. Re: Which OS on laptops in stores? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I mean ANYTHING but Windows.

    2. Re: Which OS on laptops in stores? by tepples · · Score: 1

      The intersection of "ANYTHING but Windows" and "laptops in stores" is MacBook. Is Windows so bad that Apple deserves a monopoly on laptops?

    3. Re: Which OS on laptops in stores? by loufoque · · Score: 1

      If you do real work on a computer, you should be able to install a real OS yourself.

    4. Re: Which OS on laptops in stores? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Dann near just give it time

    5. Re: Which OS on laptops in stores? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The real security team called and told me they're not very happy that I installed a real OS on my real computer to do real work. Something about "gaping security hole"...

    6. Re: Which OS on laptops in stores? by tepples · · Score: 1

      If you do real work on a computer, you should be able to install a real OS yourself.

      So I've installed a real OS on a laptop, only to find that two or more of WLAN, Bluetooth, audio, accelerated graphics, and suspend are broken while the real OS is running. Now what should I do to make this computer suitable for real work?

    7. Re: Which OS on laptops in stores? by sn0wflake · · Score: 0

      You only have four broken devices? Linux PnP sure has come a long way in 20 years :D

    8. Re: Which OS on laptops in stores? by loufoque · · Score: 1

      You should contact the manufacturer for defective hardware?

    9. Re: Which OS on laptops in stores? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Linux PnP is actually quite good now. It's systemd that makes the OS unsuitable these days.

    10. Re: Which OS on laptops in stores? by tepples · · Score: 1

      "Sorry, this product is warranted to run only Windows, not lie nicks."

    11. Re: Which OS on laptops in stores? by loufoque · · Score: 1

      Why did you purchase hardware whose specifications didn't suit your needs?

    12. Re: Which OS on laptops in stores? by tepples · · Score: 1

      Major U.S. electronics showroom chains don't list whether the specifications of each laptop in the showroom suit my needs. They don't even list which laptops are compatible with even one major GNU/Linux distribution.

    13. Re: Which OS on laptops in stores? by loufoque · · Score: 1

      So you blame retailers for not doing your research for you?

    14. Re: Which OS on laptops in stores? by tepples · · Score: 1

      How do people usually do necessary research? Does it involve making two trips to the showroom, the first to write down model numbers on paper (to take them to an Internet terminal at a branch of the public library for further research) and a second trip to make the purchase?

  29. In other words ... by fahrbot-bot · · Score: 1

    Take Windows Explorer and the little-used Task View within Windows 10, mix in the newer "Pick up where you left off" and "Timeline" features, and wrap it all into a single-window experience.

    Let's take a bunch of thing, including one no one uses, and put them all together, so you can work the way we think you should.

    It's remembering all of the associated apps and documents that went with it:

    Which is why we already have (sub) folders.

    The idea is that the delayed Timeline feature will eventually group and associate all of these into a Set, so that when you open one, Windows will suggest the others, too.

    There's nothing about that sentence that I like. Don't care about Timeline and have not *ever* wanted Windows to "suggest" things or liked it when it did. Didn't Microsoft learn anything from Clippy?

    --
    It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
  30. One good thing about Microsoft. by 140Mandak262Jamuna · · Score: 1
    When a company settles for Microsoft compatibility, it gets one great advantage. A large workforce already well trained in the user interface and will be productive immediately and hit the ground running. A consistent, predictable, reliable user interface that is long lasting, enduring, backward compatible release after release. Your work force gets increasingly productive without any retraining costs to the company.

    Oh! sorry copy pasted from the older report from Microsoft's paid shill Gartner. Please wait while I rummage through the ribbon interface on uncustomizable workspaces to find the latest report it asked Gartner to write.

    --
    sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
  31. Stupidest thing I've ever heard of by Rick+Schumann · · Score: 1

    Are people really getting so goddamned dumb that this is all they think they can handle? Dumbing it down to a preschool level?

    1. Re:Stupidest thing I've ever heard of by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Watch some Jeopardy episodes from the 90s and then watch some from 2017 and tell me people aren't getting dumber. Even Jeopardy questions have been dumbed down.

    2. Re:Stupidest thing I've ever heard of by IMightB · · Score: 1

      Never under-estimate the power of stupidity ... or greed.

    3. Re:Stupidest thing I've ever heard of by IMightB · · Score: 1

      Also, remember, If you try to make something idiot-proof, the world will make better idiots.

    4. Re:Stupidest thing I've ever heard of by IMightB · · Score: 1

      I always though that XP was the epitome of fischer-price like "even children" can use it looking UI's, things seem to be getting dumber.

    5. Re:Stupidest thing I've ever heard of by WallyL · · Score: 1

      I'd take the Windows XP look and behavior over Windows 10 behavior.

  32. Still beta then?

    (to add some more to the discussion: I want my OS to be stable, functional, get the hell of the way so I can do my work with the applications, you know, the things that make a PC useful, and more importantly, not to change UI every release. The constant change to Win10 is just one of the *many* reasons I will not consider it as a proper OS, you never know when you're going to wake up to an entirely new UI from the night before.)

    --
    So rise up, all ye lost ones, as one, we'll claw the clouds.
  33. Hell on earth by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I weep for every IT employee who has to try and explain these changes and how to use them to the masses.

  34. eek by roc97007 · · Score: 1

    So, Microsoft again tries to sell their user base on full screen applications. "Oh, we didn't make it appealing enough in Windows 8. We'll make it natter at the users while they're trying to get work done. You know, remember Clippy? They'll love it."

    Reading the description, it looks like Windows will become something like One Note All The Time.

    It also kinda reminds me of CRT terminals with job control.

    But we will see. I'm somewhat forced to use either Windows or Apple, because those are the platforms for Adobe CC. The Apple culture is really not a good fit for me; I don't like the idea of disposable computers. Maybe it's time to give Adobe the axe and go Linux full time.

    Really, Windows 10 is... usable. Why can't they just leave it the hell alone? Maybe write applications instead?

    --
    Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
    1. Re:eek by Gilgaron · · Score: 1

      I don't know if I'm just too old or whatever, but I've never understood the point of One Note, but I guess I was too cheap to get a laptop in college and just took notes on spiral notebooks. Certainly it doesn't seem to be useful for anything at work, but I still use the spiral notebooks even though I have a laptop...

    2. Re:eek by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      give Adobe the axe and go Linux full time

      Better go read up on Linux's shortcomings when it tries to go app-to-app against the Adobe suite of programs; your little 'fling' might become an exercise in frustration. If Win10 is usable on your computer, freeze it at that version -- if you can pull that off.

      Simply a word of caution as the road is littered with the remains of those who have attempted it before you...

    3. Re: eek by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I actually found the Clippy character semi-endearing. His advice was always worthless and sometimes I'd be typing and suddenly my words wouldn't appear because Clippy was taking over and telling me I was writing a letter or something when I wasn't and offering templates in a very endearing way, *but* the animated paperclip himself? He was kind of cool.

      Since then, they've ditched the character and kept adding similar "functionality" without the charm. I would have done the reverse, kept the character and stopped having him interrupt things with worthless advice. Maybe he could have been an animated screensaver with feative hats for holidays or something. :) Maybe he could be an optional overlay for Cortana where you can toggle an option and see him instead of the blue circle and have him say what Cortana would say, except in a goofy cartoon voice. I never use Cortana and took it off my taskbar, but I might be tempted to occasionally mess around with it for fun if I could turn it into Clippy. :)

      BTW, as an aside, at least for me, the Siris and Cortanas and Google Nows and Bixbys will get interesting to me when and if thry reach the stage where they are AI or close to it. I would say that it being able to hold a conversation where it could remember previois questions and conversion and answer things in the context of what came out before would be a good first step ("Hey, Cortana, who sings 'Close to the Edge'" "A rockband called Yes." "What cover is the album?" "Green."), then more personality and being able to fake having its own interests and views and whatever. Give me the impression I am talking to a friendly AI inside my PC, I'd be all over it. Right now, its just a voice interface for websearches with a few eastereggs that will open a browser and do a search based on words it thinks you said and didn't.

      Basically, currently level Cortana I try to disable as much as possible and do my thing my way. In 5-10 years I could see it advancing sufficiently so that it would be fascinating and that I would appreciate- provided I could turn it on and off on demand and still do things the way I'm used to when I want to.

      To me, the idea is interesting, but as with Clippy and Microsoft Bob, its still not capable enough to be anything except an annoyance. We'll see if it gets there eventually.

    4. Re:eek by omnichad · · Score: 1

      I don't like the idea of disposable software either. I'm going to run Adobe CS 5.5 until it won't run at all anymore.

    5. Re:eek by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I use it at work for personal notes. Its better then the ticketing system at least for remembering how i did that.

      User calls with odd problem, research it, test solutions, copy and past the odd solution into one note. Next time user calls the call takes much much less time.

      Its also good for coworkers who ask everyone, have you ever seen this app do this weird thing? Why yes I have one sec, here try this.

  35. Yay! by AntronArgaiv · · Score: 1

    Microsoft imposes their conception of what I use a computer for on me, once again.

    I'd never want more than one window open, and why would I need more than one monitor?
    Just like I'd never reference data in one window and use it to create something in another. Or view a schematic while ordering parts.

    Rule #1 of user interface design: "If it works, don't fix it!"

  36. KDE Activities by StormReaver · · Score: 3, Informative

    This sounds a lot like KDE's Activities.

    1. Re:KDE Activities by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That was my reaction too. It sounds like they're just adopting KDE 4 Activities about nine years late. It was more confusing than useful then, I'm not sure it's going to be useful now.

  37. Do they ever learn? by RhettLivingston · · Score: 1

    They want to repeat the Windows 8 fiasco so soon?

    I have a 4 core processor with 8 threads, 32 GB of memory and two displays. I typically have 8 apps open at a time and upwards of a dozen tabs on my browser. My desktop is clean, my apps are in my task bar, and most are assigned to hot keys. It all works fine. Stop messing with me.

    I am a user that has to see multiple apps at a time. I often have four apps visible on my two displays using side by side positioning. Quickly switching between them provides me nothing. They need to all be in front of my eyes. If I need to work with more, I'll get more monitors.

    Why can't they find other ways to innovate?

    My main computer interface right now is actually the Google Assistant. My Google Homes, phones, and chromecast devices control much of my home. After years upon years of wishing that Microsoft would support multiple sound (with separate volume controls), video, and other devices simultaneously from my PC without wires so that I could just have the computer directly control all of my environment, Google did an end-run on them. Now that the majority of my devices are handled by the assistant, all I need is a good service to be offered that either allows the Google Assistant to run on and control my PC or adds my PC to the network as a Google Assistant compatible device with a rich set of commands. Oh, and I need to be able to cast to my PC, not just from it.

    It makes me wonder where they think they are going to go with AR. AR needs to replace the desktop. I should be able to call virtual devices into existence in my environment and control them with my voice. Google Assistant is ready to do that - just add services. Cortana is not.

  38. These guys by grasshoppa · · Score: 1

    You have to wonder who's running the UIX division of Windows. Windows 8 was an unmitigated disaster. They tried to force feed a mobile interface on to the world of desktops, to predictable results. Absolutely no one was surprised by the blowback they got ( well, except the shills of course, and they were paid to be surprised ).

    Now this?

    I'm kinda get the impression they're willingly trying to destroy their desktop dominance.

    --
    Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
  39. God fucking dammit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Who is asking for this? Who?

    I'm looking at over 16 million pixels of resolution on two displays covering over 11 square FEET of illuminated surface. I wan't separate, independently positioned WINDOWS that I can arrange without constraints imposed by some Microsofty knucklehead's notion of how they're going to "fix" the desktop.

    Over and over again; open source, closed source, it doesn't matter: there is forever some god damn iconoclast hell bent on fuckin up the traditional desktop UI. And they never learn! Vista anyone?? WTF?

  40. 2560x1080 by nctritech · · Score: 4, Funny

    I did not buy a fucking 2560x1080 monitor to have one thing on the screen at all times. Go back to Mars, Microsoft.

  41. nice for desk jockeys, by swell · · Score: 3, Insightful

    like bookkeepers who work on spreadsheets all day or news reporters who use Word all day. What about real people juggling a variety of tasks including programming, photo manipulation, ecommerce and playing music? They'll have dozens of programs running where only a handful would do.

    This is a solution in search of a problem ... which doesn't exist.

    --
    ...omphaloskepsis often...
  42. Still ripping off Xerox PARC by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    This time via Compaq

  43. Is everyone super disorganized with their files? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I mean when i am working on a project i store all relevant files for that project in a folder dedicated to that project. This already gives me a specific idea of the programs required for said project. On top of that just because i open up one file for that project doesn't mean i need to open up any other programs for that project.

    If these are the "value added" features that Microsoft thinks users need, Maybe its time to hire a new board of directors, or at least replace their operating system executive managers. These are features for the features sake and will not help productivity, can you imagine computers bogging down just because you wanted to look at a pdf spec sheet and windows tries to spin up about 6 other programs you may need even though you just wanted to see if the product could be used in a completely different project?

  44. KDE activities and tabbed windows by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Good for Microsoft. Now they are copying KDE and Compiz.

  45. Re: Haha. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    It does, hit win-tab and it is part of that interface.

    Apparently

  46. My workflow has evolved by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I have built my multiple workspace desktop around my workflow eons ago. MS is still working on what-happens-after-pressing-Start, apparently.

  47. Microsoft are idiots .... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I hope to hell if they go down this idiotic path they'll still leave windows for those of us who aren't too stupid to use the fucking things.

    Pretty much all of my systems are multi-monitor for a reason, because I need to see more than one thing at a time .. I refer to one screen to finish what I'm doing on the other.

    This sounds like a terrible idea, arrived at by idiots, and which is once again going to be so heavily skewed to mobile devices and touch screens as to be useless for people who still have large screens and mice.

    As it is the fucking useless Start menu they introduced is a piece of shit if you're not on a touch screen or a mobile device. Sorry, I've got a 27" monitor and a mouse ... you don't need to use the entire fucking screen to let me find a fucking program.

    When Microsoft "innovates" the UI what they do is strip out huge amounts of utility for those of us who still use traditional desktops ... and I've got news for them, desktops in the workplace aren't going anywhere any time soon.

    Fucking tabs??? For an operating system called Windows??? What a fucking sad joke.

    Multiple windows has worked well for several decades. And no matter what the idiots in charge at Microsoft think, full screen apps that you can see one thing at a time is utterly fucking useless for people who do real work.

    Please don't waste my screen real estate by assuming I'm so fucking stupid that I can only look at one window at a time ... I'm not on a fucking mobile device, and I didn't buy a 27" monitor to run a single window.

  48. They never learn by ewanm89 · · Score: 1

    Didn't we try to teach them with metro that having everything running as full screen Windows is bad, that sometimes we want to be able to display multiple windows side by side at once? Even Android has the ability to show two apps at once now. MS please stop trying to go backwards.

  49. Oh no! More suggestions from Microsoft. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Isn't Microsoft already "trying to help us" enough? And now we'll have to deal with "suggestions" of other apps to use with the app we just started?

  50. Not all games' control schemes adapt well by tepples · · Score: 1

    Leaving iOS and Android with people who play games and watch videos on their devices? Is that a bad thing?

    It's not a bad thing for point-and-click games. It's a bad thing for games that aren't point-and-click.

    Games need to work on the device's stock input device in order to sell well. But the vast majority of iOS and Android devices have the touch screen and accelerometer as the only inputs usable by the application, and many genres aren't amenable to touch-only control. The devices themselves have buttons, but all are reserved for system features, such as application switching, sleep, and speaker volume control. So developers of games for iOS and Android have to adapt their games' control schemes to the touch screen in ways that often feel impractical. In my testing of two Android applications with on-screen gamepads (the Nesoid emulator and the free version of Pixeline and the Jungle Treasure), I kept making errors because without tactile edges to help me line up my thumb over the buttons, I ended up accidentally pressing the wrong one or pressing outside the active area of any button.

    What ends up happening is that developers severely cut down the gameplay complexity in order to fit the limits of a touch screen. A platformer might get turned into a continuous runner, such as Rayman Jungle Run or Super Mario Run, losing exploration elements that had previously been keystones of other games in the series. I don't see how, say, an Igavania such as Super Metroid or Castlevania: Symphony of the Night could be ported without severe compromise to the essential character of the franchise.

  51. Windows 8.2 by chakan2 · · Score: 1

    I don't get why Microsoft keeps wanting to change Windows into something that's not windows. That's the whole appeal of the OS. They bombed hard the last time they tried this, I'm not sure why they're bothering with another disaster like that one.

  52. ha-ha by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    idiots lol...

  53. A bunch of haters... by werepants · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I love to bash MS as much as the next guy, but this actually sounds like it could be useful. If you do any kind of real work on a computer, in terms of programming, or designing, or even writing and excel analysis tasks, you can probably appreciate how long it takes to get a setup configured to really get things done. At my job I have a couple possible coding setups, depending on which projects I'm working on. I also have a couple setups for data analysis work, again depending on the project. It takes time to pull up the right reference documents, arrange windows, configure things...

    It would be a damn cool OS feature to remember all the documents and applications I have up, where they are arranged, and allow me to take a "snapshot" when it is all ready to go. Next time I need to work on the same project, refer back to the snapshot, and I can be working instantly.

    To the extent that they are trying to provide that level of functionality, I'm interested. To the extent that they are trying to change the task bar to tabs just for the sake of change, this will be stupid.

    1. Re:A bunch of haters... by IMightB · · Score: 1

      It's called "Desktops" and the *nix world has had this for ages.

    2. Re:A bunch of haters... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Desktops merely remember a collection of applications. Unless I'm mis-reading the OP, they are talking about specific documents, specific web pages, and bookmarks in documents that point you to the exact relevant place in that document.

      That goes way beyond a typical Desktop solution. But do carry on, you appear to want to glory in proclaiming how *nix is superior to everything else. It's a common enough personal failing here on /.

    3. Re:A bunch of haters... by werepants · · Score: 3, Informative

      It's called "Desktops" and the *nix world has had this for ages.

      No, it isn't. Yes, I could keep a whole set of programs running on one desktop, and a different set on a different desktop. But that's not as useful as what I'm talking about. And, for what it's worth, I mainly develop in RHEL.

      What I want is almost more like a VM snapshot. Configure a state exactly, including all the applications and their positions in windows, and be able to shut it down or recall it with a single click. It's different than a desktop because it isn't a bunch of applications that are just sitting idle out of sight, and it's something that you can bring up easily after shutting the computer down, or when you haven't worked on a project for 6 months. It's different than a VM because you only want to recall the state of the workspace, not the state of the actual files, and an entire new VM is way overpowered for what this is.

      It sounds like KDE Activities are kind of like this. Some IDEs offer similar functionality in the way they manage projects or workspaces. But it really ought to be an overall paradigm for the OS itself.

  54. Ah, the mating cry of the "UX expert" by Chris+Mattern · · Score: 5, Funny

    "You know how to use it! We have to change that immediately!"

    1. Re:Ah, the mating cry of the "UX expert" by IMightB · · Score: 2

      Ha, Back in my day, we used to call the "W00t W00t" call, the mating call for sorority girls.

      Now that I'm over 40, I think that I like your's better.

    2. Re:Ah, the mating cry of the "UX expert" by mjwx · · Score: 1

      UX "expert" Mating cry?

      No, We have to kill their queen before it spawns.

      --
      Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
  55. Two browser windows side by side by tepples · · Score: 1

    A lot of employees spend their whole day dealing with emails, and do so from within a web based interface. If they're not replying to emails, they're looking up information in browser-delivered applications.

    Wouldn't they need the information that they are "looking up [...] in browser-delivered applications" in order to compose the emails that they write "within a web based interface"? If so, how does it help the employee's workflow to hide the "looking up" browser window when the email composition browser window is visible or vice versa, rather than letting the employee open the two browser windows side-by-side?

  56. Windows has a tabbed interface... by b0s0z0ku · · Score: 2

    Windows has a tabbed interface -- the tabs are just on the bottom of the screen, in the taskbar. Windowing has a lot of advantages -- you can choose how much real estate each program uses and use more than one at a time on a large screen.

    This looks like another attempt at pushing Windows 8's failed interface on the public.

    1. Re:Windows has a tabbed interface... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And this time, existing PC owners who have a working version Windows 10 won't have a choice to "upgrade" because the OS change will be pushed on all of them.

    2. Re:Windows has a tabbed interface... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      you can choose how much real estate each program uses

      Microsoft should decide how much of your real estate is ads, not you or your program!

  57. Optional by denbesten · · Score: 2, Informative

    TFA clearly states that this will be an optional feature.

    1. Re:Optional by sconeu · · Score: 2

      TFA clearly states that this will be an optional feature

      Until it isn't.

      --
      General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
    2. Re:Optional by markdavis · · Score: 2

      >"TFA clearly states that this will be an optional feature."

      Until it isn't...

      Kinda like the "optional" tabs-on-top in Firefox, which then became the default but you could easily switch it back with a simple/visible setting, which they then hid the control reversion in about:config, which they then later completely disabled, which we could work around with an add-on, which was then broken in 57, which we could then use a mess of external config files to get back..... whew. I know we are talking about Microsoft and not Mozilla, but the point is the same with the "UI Nazis" they get an idea in their head and despite HUGE opposition (like the stupid phone interface in MS-Windows 8) they keep on trying to force it down our throats, year after year, making it harder and harder. Most people finally give up.

      Or like the concepts of updates being optional...

    3. Re:Optional by WallyL · · Score: 1

      Or systemd...

    4. Re:Optional by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's worse than that. It would be bad enough if it WERE the same people trying to do the same thing time after time.

      The mistake people make is in thinking that corporate memory is a thing. Except in the most broad-brush way, it's not. In my own experience, what actually happens is that, a couple of years down the line, the original developer has followed their career and moved on to new things. So some bright spark fresh out of college with no experience but a massive amount of unwarranted self-esteem gets handed the job, and decides that they have this great idea for where to take the product. They enthusiastically sell their "new idea" to management, who meanwhile have been playing exactly the same game of musical chairs and erased what little corporate memory may have existed of what a disaster it was last time, and they in turn leap on the idea (not least, because you're clearly "not 'managing'" if you leave things the way they are) and push it for all they're worth.

  58. Couldn't you just spend by rsilvergun · · Score: 1

    the extra $50-$100 on a monitor with tilt?

    --
    Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
    1. Re:Couldn't you just spend by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      On a laptop? With 768 vertical (usual) pixels? If you are lucky, 900 pixels?

    2. Re:Couldn't you just spend by apoc.famine · · Score: 1

      At work I'm lucky to be beholden to IT purchasing decisions, so no. And at home, I'm on a laptop most of the time. Thus my Ubuntu shout-out. I love that they were smart enough to stick the taskbar on the left margin. Or if I put it there, I'm glad they are flexible enough to allow that. (I honestly don't know if that's stock or not.)

      --
      Velociraptor = Distiraptor / Timeraptor
    3. Re:Couldn't you just spend by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Bad solution.
      Give me that sweet 1:1 aspect ratio instead.
      Call it 19:19 if you really want to pump up those numbers for marketing reasons, I don't care.

  59. Xerox Compaq Tabworks? by NZheretic · · Score: 1
    http://www.supervinx.com/Onlin...
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TabWorks/

    TabWorks is a shell for Windows 3.x and Windows 95 and was developed by Xerox's XSoft division. TabWorks organizes files into tabs in a notebook-like interface. It was distributed with PCs from 1994 to around 1997 by several companies, including Compaq and NEC. The product was developed by XSoft, a division of Xerox PARC in Palo Alto, California, the prestigious computing research lab that invented the concepts of laser printing, the mouse-driven graphical user interface and Ethernet networking. The original concept of a tabbed book metaphor came originally from Xerox PARC. Tabworks was shipped in 1993. A business team was assembled to produce the product initially for Compaq Computers who was given an exclusive worldwide license. NEC also had an arrangement with XSoft. The software was created to replace the Windows Program Manager (PROGMAN.EXE) on Windows 3.x and Windows 95 installations. It resembled a tabbed 3-ring notebook metaphor making it easier for novice users to navigate Windows. Over 9 million copies of the software were installed worldwide making it one of the most popular pieces of software in the world. TabWorks was later acquired in 1996 by Citadel Computer systems who integrated it into their line of network security and desktop utility product lines. Citadel discontinued selling TabWorks in early 2001.

  60. Ugh by MBGMorden · · Score: 1

    Did they learn nothing from the Windows 8 debacle?

    --
    "People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
  61. Easier for MS to get data by fluffythedestroyer · · Score: 1

    I guess its going to be easier for Microsoft to receive data and probably to do with legal issues as well. The amount of data that Microsoft receives from Windows 10 is just insane. With this type of change I like I said, it could be easier and probably even more legal and such. Not an expert but We'll see with the changes in their licence over time.

  62. Wait, bookeepers aren't real? by rsilvergun · · Score: 1

    I might buy the notion that journalists are a figment of my imagination, especially after the last election. But bookkeepers? Consider my mind blown.

    --
    Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
  63. OMG its a change that will be optional Gee'z by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Everything I have read says its going to be a optional setting not a set in stone change. Its just making its way into the developer beta ring and I think some other third party application already offers something like it. Not the end of the world folks, maybe some actually want this feature?

  64. No by gx5000 · · Score: 1

    Just say no Kids.
    If we don't buy it they can't force it on us....
    We can't depend on Generation Z to fix everything as we slip into our coffins...

    --
    End of Line.
  65. apps, apps, apps! by albeit+unknown · · Score: 1

    I'm sick to death of the creeping virus that is the term "app". This abbreviation should be reserved for toy software that costs at most $1.99.
    Call your software an "Application", "Program", or "Software". It will be taken more seriously, and if relevant for your distribution model, you'll be able to charge more for it.
    I've even seen options making up a 5-figure CAD system referred to as "apps" by marketing people. No. They're "Modules", or "Components". This is professional software and you should treat it as such.

  66. The next Microsoft Bob? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    As if their customers are not mad enough about all the changes back and forth in recent versions, they're going to f*** that chicken AGAIN? Have users been screaming for yet another semi-random change to the look and feel> Methinks not so much. A few less security holes that have been there for 16+ years, perhaps that would be pleasant.

  67. Can't help ya there by rsilvergun · · Score: 1

    By at least your keyboard isn't as cramped

    --
    Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
  68. So, I guess ... by fahrbot-bot · · Score: 1
    From TFA:

    Essentially, Microsoft is reworking the Desktop Windows Manager within Windows 10 to enable app switching via tabs, versus more traditional windows.

    ... Microsoft will be renaming the OS "Tabs 10"

    --
    It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
    1. Re:So, I guess ... by omnichad · · Score: 1

      They did say Windows 10 would be the last version of Windows...

  69. Sounds promising by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I'm going to go against the grain here and say that I think this sounds promising, and I look forward to seeing what MS does with this.

    Tab Groups in Firefox was one of the best things ever, I thought, and then Mozilla went and killed the idea. If MS could extend the paradigm of tab groups to my computer desktop, I think there's a lot of promise there. It sounds similar to the multiple workspaces that Linux has had forever, but man oh man would I like to have that on my Windows box. (For the times that I'm forced to use a Windows box.)

    If implemented well, I think there's a lot of benefit that could come from this idea.

  70. Of All the Known Possibilities by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Confluence.

  71. \o/ by easyTree · · Score: 1

    Microsoft knows that one of the most difficult things to remember isn't what you were working on a week or so ago -- browser histories help with that. It's remembering all of the associated apps and documents that went with it: a particular PowerPoint document, that budget spreadsheet, the context an Edge tab provided.

    Great. How about if you stop destroying all that state with sneaky reboots whenever the user goes afk?

    1. Re:\o/ by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      At least Microsoft understands that, if I turn on a computer, it isn't to actually use it or something, it's for running updates that often hang.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
  72. Stardock Groupy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Stardock's Groupy is a beta product that is already doing this... so... are they just taking ideas now?

  73. Nope.. by SuperDre · · Score: 1

    I already really hate in-browser applications due to the tabs.. so nope..

  74. Smartphone / Tablet analogy by DrYak · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Or like the "hand of cards" metaphore that Palm/HP's WebOS 2.x on top of the existing "deck of cards".

    (individual windows - "cards" in webos but basically tabs - could freely be grouped together in small groups.
    Not necessarily by apps. You could put a e-mail writing tab and a webpage that you need to reference next to each other in the same hand.)

    In my opinion, that used to be the best ever handling of two-level multi-tasking (i.e: different apps with each different tabs within), much better to what is currently done on smartphone (most of which have taken up the apps-as-cards approach (see apps switching and specially closing-by-flinging on Android ans iOS). But then each app has its own personal way to handle tabs (see tabs in Safari - its a completely different mechanism).

    The closest would be how you could mix tabs in browser, if all you apps were webapps (e.g.: using Office 365 to edit online, and Gmail to compose a mail. And putting both in tabs next to each other in the same windows).
    Windows seems aiming to recreate this.

    --
    "Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
  75. FLUXBOX by Tighe_L · · Score: 1

    I love Fluxbox on Linux, this will be a good feature on Windows! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

  76. Been here before by thunderclees · · Score: 1

    Anyone remember the whole "browser as an interface" fiasco from the 90's?
    This evokes that, or maybe just ChromeOS.

  77. Need to use it before judging by EndlessNameless · · Score: 1

    If I could have custom-created workspaces (or Sets, whatever) spread across multiple virtual desktops, that would be great.

    It needs keyboard navigation though. Since Ctrl+Tab, SHIFT+Tab, Alt+Tab, and Win+Tab are already taken, it will need some other easily accessible hotkey combo or it will be disappointing.

    --

    ---
    According to the latest ruleset, this post should be modded as Vorpal Flamebait +5.
  78. This is LITERALLY KDE "Activities". by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Which failed horribly, by the way. Not even most KDE devs know what to do with them.

    Since they are just another layer of switching ... but wait! With redundancy too!

    1. Re: This is LITERALLY KDE "Activities". by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I really just like activities because I need different power settings for some circumstances on my laptop. Otherwise Iâ(TM)m not all that great at switching to a âoehomeworkâ activity for example

    2. Re: This is LITERALLY KDE "Activities". by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Tabbed terminals using Terminator, tabbed editing using geany. Simple and powerful. Screen+nohup to do even more. You will never look back!

    3. Re:This is LITERALLY KDE "Activities". by blackpaw · · Score: 1

      Yah that was my first thought to. Problem with KDE was the complete fuckup the devs made of explaining and implementing it. I suspect even most of the devs had no idea what they were meant to be. I really tried with activities, but as with most cool KDE features it was never fully implemented, what was implemented was half assed, buggy, undocumented and eventually abandoned.

      I have more faith in MS actually making something out of this, from the demo they already seem to have it clearly defined and usable. I just hope it will include non-ms apps, I need to be able to use firefox and thunderbird with this.

  79. There's hierarchical tab sidebars, btw. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    For anyone who abuses tabs as ... bookmarks!

    Frankly, why they don't just use the bookmarks sidebar and highlight the loaded sites (which internally are actual tabs), and just store a snapshot with every bookmark ... nobody will know.

    1. Re:There's hierarchical tab sidebars, btw. by Immerman · · Score: 1

      Personally I love hierarchical tab sidebars - I routinely have a dozen or more sites open as I refer between them, and a nice wide sidebar lets me read enough of the title to (usually) tell them apart. All those tabs are also handy for loading my morning "newspaper", so I can get 30+ bookmarks loading simultaneously in the background while I'm reading one using "open all in tabs" - one click to get everything I want to read pre-loaded and waiting for me.

      And frankly I've been using "vertical tabs" since I realized I could move the Windows 95 task bar to the edge of the screen - why waste precious vertical space when I've got so much more horizontal space than I need? The best sidebar I've ever found though has got to be the XFCE panel, which allows for rotated "book spine" window tabs on a sidebar, allowing for nice long fully readable titles while consuming a minimum of screen real estate - as though you had taken a multi-row Windows XP taskbar and just rotated it 90 degrees instead of keeping the text horizontal. I liked it well enough that when I went back to Ubuntu I happily replaced their sidebar with it (what can I say, I really like Ubuntu's overall level of polish and compatibility, and it's easy enough to hide their useless abomination of a sidebar and replace it with something far better.)

      --
      --- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
  80. Actually... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ...they may just want to draw attention, not having had enough of it lately, and demonstrate their power, that is, "You'll use whatever _we_ want you to, we do not care how" .

  81. Agreed. The solution is to treat ALL loophole usag by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    A law should just broadly say:
    1. Usage of any loophole is punished by expelled from the country for 20 years.
    2. If there is discussion about if it is a loophole, it is a loophole!
    3. Arguing that it is not a loophole, makes it a loophole too.
    4. Technicalities are loopholes.
    5. The attempt of changing this law is punishable by death. To be executed by every citizen who has an opportunity. Unless the perpetrator left the country for at least 40 years. The perpetrator is not to be stopped from leaving the country. But to be stopped from re-entry, using lethal force, if that time is not over yet.

  82. You SERIOUSLY need to get a therapy, mate! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You're a hoarder.
    There is no reason to have nearly 500 processes idling. Just think of your start menu / launcher as your task switcher, and you're done.

  83. Turning Windows into a "Browser"??? by Brostenen · · Score: 1

    Anyone remember active desktop on Windows98 ?? No one used it. We all disabled it. Happy that I have 23 years of first hand Linux experience. To Microsoft: You do... Whatever you do! (I am done with you)

  84. TUrn it OFF by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Just as long as you can turn the damn crap OFF and use a normal computer interface.

    Maybe at the same time they could add back a "normal computer interface" aka Windows 200 or XP Classic and get rid of all this horrid shit they started adding with Windows XP and every subsequent version of Windows.

  85. Sounds shit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    yup its Microsoft.

  86. And the new OS will be renamed to... by SurenEnfiajyan · · Score: 0

    Microsoft Tabs.

  87. Browser history by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    People use browser histories? Does anyone else always clear out browser history when closing the browser and try to make everything else pristine at shutdown? The only thing I want on the computer are things I load and data I purposefully create.

  88. You Already Can by n329619 · · Score: 1

    It would be a damn cool OS feature to remember all the documents and applications I have up, where they are arranged, and allow me to take a "snapshot" when it is all ready to go.

    In windows, it's called "Hibernate".

    Go to where ever windows put the shutdown UI and click on it. There should be a few popup options, Switch user, Log off, Lock, Restart, Sleep and "Hibernate". If you don't see the option, go to power settings and advances power option. Turn off Allow hybrid sleep. In newer windows you might also need to turn on showing that option in the power options menu.

    "Hibernate" hibernates your pc with everything you've opened. Upon booting up, it restore all the documents and applications you have up at the time. Unlike 'Sleep' once you've power down, you can disconnect your pc from power until you power it up again.

    Hibernate is also the technology Windows 8+ uses to boot faster, since it never truly did real startup from fresh.

    Back to topic, MS already have a solution to their problem, but I can guess that they are still planning to create something meaningless. Just like the Metro menu which if you look closer, is just the desktop with bigger icons. They could have just improved the desktop, but no they decided to create yet another desktop and called it the start menu. You can probably guess what they will do with the "single-window experience".

    1. Re:You Already Can by werepants · · Score: 1

      In windows, it's called "Hibernate".

      Almost, if I could selectively hibernate a "state" and then hide it away and work on something else. So I could have my system state for project 1 ready to go at a moment's notice, or I could instantly switch to the apps and documents for project 2, which I worked on 3 months ago. A VM can provide something very close to this, but is overpowered in some ways because you're providing an entirely new OS, and you don't really need all that just to be able to selectively bring back the state of the desktop from some previously user-defined time.

      Hibernate is really just a power-saving feature - it doesn't allow you to stash selected states away for use at a later time.

  89. Dump Windows by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It appears that Microsoft seems to think of the interface more than anything in future OS versions. This isn't healthy, as what they really had been valuable for in the past was keeping drivers in synch with the OS and maybe for providing the .NET framework. If they cannot focus on the kernel, maybe they can just admit that to everyone and drop out of that business.

  90. Fuck Microsoft by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The stupid cunts are going backwards.

    Windows 8? 10? What the fucking fuck.

    The idiots are as bad and moronic as the gnome 3 developers.

    They have collective wood over Mac OS or chrome os, and fuck windows until itâ(TM)s shitter than Mac OS and chrome os. And isnâ(TM)t good at anything.

    Fuck you, Microsoft, nadala, and all of your so called developers. There are clearly no engineers left at Microsoft, just dumb fuck Web 3.0 types who think NoSQL is a thing.

  91. It's Malibu Stacy by mea2214 · · Score: 1

    with a new hat.

  92. Can we just go back to Windows 3.1? by cyn1c77 · · Score: 1

    Please?

    Microsoft, people will love it! I promise.

    It'll be innovative! You can even re-release all the old video games from that time period!

  93. Finally by eminencja · · Score: 1

    This could mean that the year of the Linux desktop is finally coming.

  94. It will be OK... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ...unril Linux Desktop folks try to replicate it!

  95. And the end of ownership by rickb928 · · Score: 1

    When your apps become tabs, everything lives in the browser.

    And quickly becomes a web 'app'.

    And you don't even own the disk image.

    You don't own any of it.

    Conversion to web everything is an excellent business model for the personal computer industry. Web-based (cloud) everything lets you upgrade your PC with the trivial effort of logging on to the new one, and the old one lets the data go when it is dormant long enough or, more likely, when a new owner takes it over.

    And subscriptions solve the revenue model question. MS Office 2003 is more than good enough for me, and I have licensed versions that I can still run, but eventually that fails. then I get to buy whatever version is current despite adding zero value for me, or I go Open Source. At work of course, we are on the treadmill.

    --
    deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
    1. Re:And the end of ownership by Reziac · · Score: 1

      Total conversion to web apps by subscription has been Microsoft's wet dream since 1999. They first rolled out the idea during the Win2K launch tour. At the event I attended, the audience of some 1000 IT professionals all developed identical angry frowns.

      --
      ~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
  96. Their devious plan by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The goal isn't to make your life easier, their goal is to get you inside of an app interface they control so they can throw advertising in your face. It sounds like they put a woman at the helm of UI again, this won't turn out well, remember Bob?

  97. Microsoft is being creative,,, by dddux · · Score: 1

    Microsoft is trying to be creative in their usual way, by creating nothing new and actually making things more complicated for the end user, especially ones used to Windows, which is quite a lot of them. I've learned years ago, when they released Windows 7, that they are just a corporation with corporative mind, which never works well and it's just going to get worse. I was right - there comes Windows 8. That was the time when I decided it's over for me and MS relationship. Since then I'm happily running Debian with Mint and I won't go back. If I need something that only WIndows can do, I can always run a virtual machine, or install Windows on the other hard disk. If you want the peace of mind, ditch Windows. Happiness achieved. No corporation should have such control over an OS that everybody use on the desktop and laptop anyway. It's the kind of control that only people themselves should have, open source all the way. I want to be in control of what happens on my computer. Total control. Only a dumbarse will let a corporation like MS control it.

    --
    "It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." - Jiddu Krishnamurti
  98. MS reminds me of Vegas SWAT by gaaah · · Score: 1

    Strong, powerful, well trained, but so timid it took them a whole hour after finding Paddock to breach his room. Come on MS, people are dying out there. What's wrong? Can't find your special SWAT panties? Make the OS with a VR-only 3d UI, pupil tracking, keyboardless, voice and gesture controlled. Grow some balls.