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Microsoft Removes 'Sets' Tabbed Windows Feature From Next Release (groovypost.com)

The much-anticipated Sets feature has been pulled from the newest Windows 10 Redstone 5 build and there's no word when it will return. As groovyPost reports, "The Sets feature is a tabbed-windows experience that lets you group together different apps on your desktop." It's like having different tabs open in your browser, but for apps and File Explorer. From the report: Details on why it was removed and when it will come back have been vague. Microsoft made the announcement about Sets in [yesterday's] blog post about preview build 17704: "Thank you for your continued support of testing Sets. We continue to receive valuable feedback from you as we develop this feature helping to ensure we deliver the best possible experience once it's ready for release. Starting with this build, we're taking Sets offline to continue making it great. Based on your feedback, some of the things we're focusing on include improvements to the visual design and continuing to better integrate Office and Microsoft Edge into Sets to enhance workflow. If you have been testing Sets, you will no longer see it as of today's build, however, Sets will return in a future WIP flight. Thanks again for your feedback."

133 comments

  1. The Taskbar by Stephen+Piazze · · Score: 0

    The Taskbar is like a radio push button thingy already, so the "need" for 'Sets' isn't pressing.

    1. Re:The Taskbar by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Plus "Sets" was just a cheap rip-off of Groupy.

    2. Re:The Taskbar by NicknameUnavailable · · Score: 2

      I'd prefer a window manager which functions like visual studio to anything else. Automatic docking in arbitrary locations would save so much space and time, and eliminate the need for the taskbar entirely.

    3. Re:The Taskbar by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Do you recognize "docking in arbitrary locations" as an oxymoron?

    4. Re:The Taskbar by bondsbw · · Score: 1

      In context it would mean docking against any edge of the screen, docking against any existing docked window, splitting an existing docked window, or adding a tab to an existing docked window.

      I like it in VS, and I think I would really like it for Windows in general, but I'd have to see. Probably wouldn't work well for apps that have a max width/height.

      --
      All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
  2. Anticipated by oldgraybeard · · Score: 0

    by who? any time I see a client with a windows 10 workstation. I shake my head and say "to bad you should have stayed with windows 7 pro"

    Just my 2 cents ;)

    1. Re:Anticipated by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Do you regularly mock your clients?

      2 cents - that is about what you're worth to clients who hate you.

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

      I'm still on Windows 7. Sets might be the feature that gets me to upgrade.

    3. Re:Anticipated by NicknameUnavailable · · Score: 1

      If you don't regularly mock your clients then your clients hired the wrong person. You're supposed to hire people significantly better than you to do things for you, not your equals.

    4. Re:Anticipated by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      by who? any time I see a client with a windows 10 workstation. I shake my head and say "to bad you should have stayed with windows 7 pro"

      Just my 2 cents ;)

      10's UI is fine, for the most part. It is not all that different from 7 with some minor changes. Windows 10 has a few features that annoy me though.

      1. Advertisements/crapware/junk. Don't include crap. Don't put little things to interact with the user for stupid reasons.
      2. Telemetry.
      3. Cloud drive storage by default.
      4. Microsoft logins by default.
      5. Metro stuff, which has a separate configuration as near as I can tell. Just fix theming. Any time you have a foreground color, for whatever reason, you should have a background color specifiable. (That is an old complaint.)
      6. Search internet by default. Cortana by default.
      7. Get hardware manufacturers to make ssds with rock solid super fast hardware encryption with business class security. Seriously, just that alone would vastly improve performance. (Maybe its out there somewhere, but my company evidently doesn't have it.)

    5. Re:Anticipated by ArchieBunker · · Score: 5, Insightful

      My biggest gripe is updates going on in the background and thrashing the hard drive for a few hours.

      --
      Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
    6. Re:Anticipated by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      This is some grade A bullshit. Even if you are 'significantly better' you come off as a pompous ass when you mock them.

    7. Re:Anticipated by arglebargle_xiv · · Score: 0

      OK, you, out! All Windows users should be bent over and ready to take that 3.5" floppy up their One Microsoft Way! Satya knows what's best for you, even if you don't, and whatever's dreamed up this week by the hipsters doing human experimentation on Windows 10 users is what's good for you. Until the following week, when a different hipster decides what's good for you.

    8. Re:Anticipated by oldgraybeard · · Score: 1

      3.5" floppy funny then "when a different hipster" in the same post?

    9. Re: Anticipated by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why would I try to hire someone better than me to clean my toilets, digital or otherwise? I hire people who are cheaper than me to do shit that isn't crucially important. And I do the crucially important stuff myself.

      Hell, even figuring out your taxes as an S corp is generally only a hundred pages more than you need to know for your personal taxes if you have any kind of deductions, and it is a quick read through the second time you do them the next year. Hiring an accountant doesn't remove your personal liability for taxes due, so save yourself that argument.

      Now if I am in a lawsuit, or a surgeon, I will still hire someone cheaper but I will do so knowing that he only technically has to be cheaper than everything I so and likely will ever own.

    10. Re: Anticipated by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's generally Windows defender scanning stuff. Updates that take hours are usually gimped systems with full, undersized emc modules or that same version of XP being updated ten years later by people who "borrowed" a corporate key and never bought Win7/8/10.

    11. Re:Anticipated by zifn4b · · Score: 1

      Turn off indexing and windows telemetry.

      --
      We'll make great pets
    12. Re:Anticipated by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Anytime I see someone make that comment, I shake my head and say "you really should stop talking about things you know nothing about"

    13. Re:Anticipated by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's on a USB drive now gramps, and doesn't even hurt.

    14. Re: Anticipated by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If they can clean your toilets more efficiently than you by virtue of lower cost, then they are better than you at cleaning toilets.

    15. Re:Anticipated by walllaby · · Score: 1

      1. Advertisements/crapware/junk. Don't include crap. Don't put little things to interact with the user for stupid reasons.

      I’ve been using W10 for over a year and have never seen an ad. Of course, I customized my start menu without the Windows Store app.

      3. Cloud drive storage by default.

      Also have never run into this.

      4. Microsoft logins by default.

      It is literally one click to skip this. Apple does the exact same thing with iCloud whenever you update your Mac.

      You make valid points otherwise, but as someone who came from a “never Win10” camp, it is annoying to continue to see the FUD.

  3. Sad they're getting even worse at developing... by greenwow · · Score: 4, Interesting

    software. They can't even add a simple feature to the most commonly used tool on Windows. You'd think at least one team there could be productive considering how siloed they are. My best friend from high school got a job with them when their HQ was in Bellevue (think that was in 1980) and many more people I know have worked there over the years, and they've all complained about things never improving. You'd think by chance some group would figure-out how to make better software then others would copy what they're doing.

    1. Re:Sad they're getting even worse at developing... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > can't even add a simple feature

      Yep. All of my friends that are good programmers either left in disgust quickly or were promoted so they stayed due to high pay and are no longer programming. Either way, they can't keep good programmers programming.

    2. Re:Sad they're getting even worse at developing... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      siloed

      This. Worked hard on a project for nearly a year after it was canceled since my boss and his boss that was a director didn't know the project had been canceled. Microsoft upper management often makes decisions that aren't communicated down the chain or especially to other groups.

      My new roommate that moved here less than three months ago is probably going to be laid-off since his team is moving to their new building in Dublin, Ireland. Microsoft paid him about $10k in moving expenses. That's incredibly inefficient to go to the hassle of interviewing people and flying them in for interviews plus to pay relocation expenses for the five people they recently hired.

    3. Re:Sad they're getting even worse at developing... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well some teams at Microsoft have started using Agile. Microsoft has even added Agile tools to Visual Studio. Expect them to be nonproductive for a couple of years until they realize that doesn't work. A friend that works on an Agile team there says that since they use three week sprints, they can no longer work on problems that take more than three weeks to fix. That's bad, but still better than my company where we use nine workday sprints (nine in order to keep changing the day of sprint planning, demo, grooming, and retrospectives so they don't always happen on the same day of the week) so we can't fix even serious security problems if they take over nine days.

    4. Re:Sad they're getting even worse at developing... by NicknameUnavailable · · Score: 1

      My new roommate that moved here less than three months ago is probably going to be laid-off since his team is moving to their new building in Dublin, Ireland. Microsoft paid him about $10k in moving expenses. That's incredibly inefficient to go to the hassle of interviewing people and flying them in for interviews plus to pay relocation expenses for the five people they recently hired.

      From the same company who fired their entire Denmark division of Nokia because they were "too white?" The real news in your post seems to be that Microsoft is fleeing the country to dodge taxes.

    5. Re:Sad they're getting even worse at developing... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      they can't keep good programmers programming.

      Ohhhh, but the PR team is unbeatable! Who needs 'programmers'?

    6. Re:Sad they're getting even worse at developing... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      > can't fix even serious security problems if they take over nine days.

      It's comforting to hear that my employer that treats Agile like a suicide pact isn't alone in that.

    7. Re:Sad they're getting even worse at developing... by Killall+-9+Bash · · Score: 1

      They're fleeing the country because H1-B visas are now a PR problem for a company staffed and run by Indians.

      --
      "Prediction: within 10 years, Windows will be a Linux distribution." Me, 7-6-2016
    8. Re:Sad they're getting even worse at developing... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Competent people do tend to flee companies that hire incompetent people.

    9. Re:Sad they're getting even worse at developing... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Is this the result of just a manager that has no idea how sprints work? With patient explanations from the whole dev team being ignored?
      Or are you all wilfully misunderstanding because you're deliberately trying to make it fail?

      Any task that takes more than 9 days can be broken up into smaller tasks that can be worked on.
      And if it's a complicated troubleshooting task that you genuinely can't break up, then you can just add a task to each sprint to continue working on it until it's done.

      Or if you want to keep your sprints "pure" you can take the person working on it out of the sprint, and have them work on the long, unbounded task separately to that.

      You're complete inability to design a process that works for you isn't Agile's fault.

    10. Re:Sad they're getting even worse at developing... by The123king · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I fail to see how this is a new development for Microsoft. Everything's been going to shit since about 2007. Microsoft's biggest mistake was not putting their hands up and saying "Windows 8 was a mistake, we're going to bury it, and release a version of Windows that works". Instead, we got Windows 10, which is probably more broken and glitchy than Vista.

      --
      If you gave me a choice between a printer and a giraffe with explosive diarrhoea, i'll get my ladder and my raincoat
    11. Re:Sad they're getting even worse at developing... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If he could DESIGN THE PROCESS he wouldn't be having a problem.

      In this case it appears that the process is being IMPOSED without understanding its limits.

    12. Re:Sad they're getting even worse at developing... by Merk42 · · Score: 1

      It's not simple because it's trying to make the header consistent across apps, when many apps recreate their own header. It would be simple if Microsoft forced everyone to use a standard OS header, but then they'd be evil.

    13. Re:Sad they're getting even worse at developing... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > My best friend from high school got a job with them when their HQ was in Bellevue (think that was in 1980)

      I'm sure an anecdote about something that happened almost 4 decades ago in the software world is still entirely relevant today.

    14. Re:Sad they're getting even worse at developing... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Aspire to mediocrity!

    15. Re:Sad they're getting even worse at developing... by thegreatbob · · Score: 1

      The proper way, in my opinion, of admitting the win8 mistake would have been to port forward as much UI/features of 7 as possible, to give people a relatively seamless transition. iow, an option to disable metro entirely. Either that, or backport kernel/api changes to allow newer software (DirectX being the one real pest) to run on the older versions. netmarketshare still reports @ ~44% marketshare. Surely they could somehow capitalize on that enduring success, rather than trying to hobble it with progressively less useful update regimens? While they've demonstrated that they don't want another windows XP hanging around for an extra decade, it is likely too late... people will hold onto 7 as hard as they possibly can.

      --
      There is no XUL, only WebExtensions...
    16. Re:Sad they're getting even worse at developing... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Bruh, you just need to double the number of meetings per day (10+ is optimal), so people can always be on the same page. Even if it's always the first page.

    17. Re:Sad they're getting even worse at developing... by NicknameUnavailable · · Score: 3, Informative

      They're under the mistaken impression that they have market dominance and can steer where things go - so they feel capable of disregarding user opinions on things under the assumption "they'll use what they're given." Combine that with the notion that they missed out on the web and never really had a product to begin with (they've always been a shop that muscles or buys out competition with an internal team of developers barely sufficient to stitch together a bunch of disparate code they've acquired - which really puts the GitHub acquisition into perspective if you stop to think about it,) and you end up with a push toward the cloud and getting in on this sweet user data collection industry - especially since the desktop operating system they produced effectively became feature-complete at Windows 7 and they need to get people onto subscriptions to keep any revenue whatsoever flowing in. In all honesty the way things are going once Linux starts seriously (not Ubuntu) catering to desktop users and puts out a development suite comparable to Visual Studio in ease of use they will have actual problems (the one thing they've gotten dead-right over the years is "developers developers developers" - they make shit but they cater to developers so they effectively mastered crowdsourcing before anyone else and locked people in with a community of strong applications which far outstrip any other platform for desktop users in personal or business settings.) Moral of the story: of course they want cheap incompetent H1b's - they have entire buildings full of lawyers, they aren't a software company, they're a sales/marketing/rebranding/M&A company which targets the software industry - they need the bare minimum competency to spaghetti shit together without their developers reaching a point in competency where they become mission critical and start demanding raises.

    18. Re:Sad they're getting even worse at developing... by bondsbw · · Score: 1

      The proper way, in my opinion, of admitting the win8 mistake would have been to port forward as much UI/features of 7 as possible

      Which is exactly what they did. In Windows 8.1 they brought back the Start button and let the taskbar stay always on-screen. In Windows 10 they switched back to the Start Menu and brought back Aero in the form of a translucent taskbar plus acrylic effects.

      Metro has also been nixed. Fluent isn't a complete reversal but it fixes many of the problems with metro.

      give people a relatively seamless transition

      rather than trying to hobble it with progressively less useful update regimens

      Which is it? Smooth, progressive upgrades that happen twice a year or huge jarring upgrades that occur every 3-5 years?

      --
      All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
    19. Re:Sad they're getting even worse at developing... by greenwow · · Score: 1

      > always the first page.

      In a sprint planning meeting now where it took 35 minutes to eventually score the first story. Not getting off of the first page is right. Only about 35 more stories to go.

  4. "much-anticipated" by mcswell · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Not here, I barely even remember hearing about it, and can't figure out what it would be good for. I am, however, anticipating further improvements to the Windows Linux subsystem.

    1. Re:"much-anticipated" by unixisc · · Score: 0

      Precisely! Ever since Windows 7, there was no reason to upgrade. Windows 8 did have an interesting internal reason - a brand new kernel that had microkernel properties, but Metro totally ruined the user experience. Windows 10 fixed that by splitting it into desktop and tablet modes, but the things now so frequently break make it a nightmare.

      After several months of a break from PC-BSD which had become unusable, I recently bought a TrueOS 18 DVD, and think it has stabilized. Now I use it, as well as my tablets - both iOS and Android.

    2. Re:"much-anticipated" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

      > frequently break

      You are correct about that. We buy only Dell since 1997 and keep track of support tickets by service tag. Five years ago we averaged one ticket per laptop just under every three months. IIRC, in 2006 we were at about one ticket every two months with XP so Microsoft was getting better. So far this year with Dell Precision 5520 laptops with Windows 10, we're averaging more than one ticket per laptop per month. We've increased our It staff by 20% but even that isn't enough to keep up with all of the problems with Windows updates.

    3. Re:"much-anticipated" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Windows 8 did have an interesting internal reason - a brand new kernel that had microkernel properties, but Metro totally ruined the user experience. Classic Shell fixes that and makes it usable again by restoring the start menu and hiding the stupid start screen.

    4. Re:"much-anticipated" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The NT kernel STARTED as a microkernel.

      It ALWAYS had microkernel properties... Just that Microsoft didn't like the performance hit that a microkernel caused.

      And still doesn't.

      Even Linux has microkernel "properties" as filesystems and drivers CAN reside in user space.

    5. Re:"much-anticipated" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      actually 1 every 2 is worse than 1 every 3.

      Or were you just being sarcastic?

    6. Re:"much-anticipated" by N1AK · · Score: 1

      I'm not saying it isn't, but the numbers you quote aren't evidence that windows update is causing more problems; for example if the problems relate to hardware problems then device type and age, how you test and deploy updates, other applications used on the devices, user expectations and amount of use, all could impact on this.

    7. Re:"much-anticipated" by bondsbw · · Score: 1

      Maybe you should read it again.

      --
      All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
    8. Re:"much-anticipated" by Rob+Y. · · Score: 2

      I think the KDE Linux desktop has had the ability to group windows from different apps into a tabbed set for many years. I tried it once, and saw no practical use for it. I don't even know if that feature is still there.

      --
      Posted from my Android phone. Oh, I can change this? There, that's better...
    9. Re:"much-anticipated" by StormReaver · · Score: 1

      You may be referring to KDE's Activities. Or maybe even virtual desktops. The former always seemed to me to be a solution in search of a problem, while the latter has been a useful part of the X Window system for decades.

    10. Re:"much-anticipated" by Dragonslicer · · Score: 1

      One useful thing in Activities that I've found so far is that you can have separate power management settings. For programs that don't properly disable power saving (in my case, a video game emulator), you can move them to an activity that has power management turned off.

    11. Re:"much-anticipated" by SirCowMan · · Score: 1

      Fluxbox supports it, I use it all the time; for example, I'll launch a windowed program from a terminal, then tab that terminal to the running window. Can switch to see the line output then, i.e., if something is amiss; or keep a SSH terminal open to a server tabbed to a browser on that servers web interface. Just a matter of CTRL-dragging one onto the other.

      --
      !Equality through palindromes semordnilap hguorht ytilauqE!
  5. What could it be by RandomFactor · · Score: 1

    Something that groups programs together according to your preference.

    It seems like we used to have something like that in Windows

    --
    --- Mercutio was right.
    1. Re:What could it be by BoogieChile · · Score: 2

      If only somebody could invent something to manage all your programs...

    2. Re:What could it be by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They did, it's called the "Microsoft Store".

      It hasn't achieved acceptance yet though. Something about "Steam" and "walled gardens." Although many are claiming prior art with something else called "package repositories."

    3. Re:What could it be by ancientt · · Score: 1

      I know, I know, ha ha. [best nerd voice] But akctualllly...

      I love that I can use WSL [most inaccurate name ever] to manage files. I couldn't count how many times I've edited files from bash in Windows because I can do it faster and easier from the shell than from any standard Windows programs. For me, that one thing justifies every nuisance that has come with Windows 10 since I tried it in beta.

      I know, Microsoft wants me to think "Powershell" instead of bash... and I'm learning Powershell as fast as I can, but I've been using bash for nearly two decades so it's still easier and faster for me to use bash than Powershell.

      Sets sounds like the next thing I'm really going to appreciate. You can get Groupy now from Stardock and get the same functionality (albeit better than MS is doing) and I have to admit I'm tempted. It's not unusual for me to accumulate 30 or 40 windows during my workday to try to handle all the tasks I need to work on. Having the ones related to each other bound together would go a long way toward making my workflow more efficient.

      Finally, to your point, for years and years I've been frustrated, nay angry, that there is not a Microsoft equivalent to apt, get, yum, ports, or any decent package manager. I love the idea of the MS store. So far, the implementation has sucked. It's sucked big time. Yet I have to hope that it gets better and I hope MS keeps pushing to make it viable. My ideal Windows looks a lot like my typical Linux distribution. The store is getting them a tiny bit closer.

      --
      B) Eliminate all the stupid users. This is frowned upon by society.
    4. Re:What could it be by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      A better implementation of virtual desktops would be a good start.

  6. MicroIncompetents by sproketboy · · Score: 2

    MicroIncompetents can't implement an obvious feature from the 90's since their devs are Visual Beginners. Fucking sad

    1. Re:MicroIncompetents by fyzikapan · · Score: 1

      It's almost like implementing a feature that works with every customization anyone's done the title bar in the last 25 years is a wee bit more difficult than shitposting on the internet.

    2. Re:MicroIncompetents by sproketboy · · Score: 1

      Keep apologizing.

    3. Re:MicroIncompetents by fyzikapan · · Score: 1

      Who's apologizing? Microsoft has made it clear from when this was first announced that the feature might not ever make it in to a release version.

      It's a very nice idea, but executing it well is non-trivial. Executing it poorly is easy, but who wants that?

    4. Re:MicroIncompetents by sproketboy · · Score: 1

      > but executing it well is non-trivial.

      Quite trivial if you're not incompetent.

  7. Erm Android & Google.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Since tablets came out people have been screaming at Google to implement a nice multi pane system for tablets.....

    Instead they implemented the splitting windows feature from Windows 1.0, and focussed on ChromeOS's piss poor WIMP clone.

    At the moment its the battle of the incompetent leadership. Microsoft have time because Google clearly don't have direction other than "try to copy what Microsoft did and see if it sells". Meanwhile Microsoft is trying to implement what Google *should* be implementing in Android to smoothly run multiple apps on tablets with a few flicks of the fingers.

    1. Re:Erm Android & Google.... by kroger46474 · · Score: 1

      Since tablets came out people have been screaming at Google to implement a nice multi pane system for tablets.....

      Instead they implemented the splitting windows feature from Windows 1.0, and focussed on ChromeOS's piss poor WIMP clone.

      At the moment its the battle of the incompetent leadership. Microsoft have time because Google clearly don't have direction other than "try to copy what Microsoft did and see if it sells". Meanwhile Microsoft is trying to implement what Google *should* be implementing in Android to smoothly run multiple apps on tablets with a few flicks of the fingers.

      Welcome! This is a first of hits of the blog to your blog! I'm found your blog by the sharing this information. This has very strong information on most topic. Visit for more : http://hotmailsigninaz.net/

  8. Re: First Time Such A Nazi Has Happend At The DNC by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ...and she still would have been better than Trump.

  9. Stop changing the UI by joe_frisch · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Stop, please just stop.

    Don't move buttons around. Don't add weird auto-width-changing scroll bars. I don't care how much time all these things might in theory save in the future, but if you change the UI too frequently, all that is lost to the reduction in efficiency when people try to figure out how to do the things that they used to do.

    1. Re: Stop changing the UI by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The auto width scroll bars are very fatiguing.

    2. Re:Stop changing the UI by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Nah, if they stopped doing this sort of pointless deckchair shuffling and focussed on the OS core we'd have, what, XP++? I mean sure the reliability would be vastly improved over anything we have now, it would be blisteringly fast from decades of optimisation, security would be better, and all of the settings would still be neatly filed away in control panel rather than vomitted all over the damn place, but it wouldn't be shiny, synergistic, dynamic, reactive, proactive, leading edge, bleeding edge or even at the coal-face... and we all know that that's what really matters.

    3. Re:Stop changing the UI by phantomfive · · Score: 1

      I mean sure the reliability would be vastly improved over anything we have now, it would be blisteringly fast from decades of optimisation, security would be better, and all of the settings would still be neatly filed away in control panel rather than vomitted all over the damn place

      This is a good thing......but ironically, if you do that, if you have careful design that focuses on making things better and not just.....random, then it would be easier to have this:

      shiny, synergistic, dynamic, reactive, proactive, leading edge, bleeding edge

      You can make a button shiny and look good without reorganizing the interface.

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    4. Re:Stop changing the UI by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      Nothing is changing in the UI. In fact all they are doing is bringing the same UI you are using right now (tabs) to applications. And if you disable sets it looks identical to every other Windows.

      Get a hold of yourself man.

    5. Re:Stop changing the UI by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    6. Re:Stop changing the UI by Merk42 · · Score: 2, Funny

      Stop, please just stop.

      Don't move buttons around. Don't add weird auto-width-changing scroll bars.

      But enough about Ubuntu...

    7. Re:Stop changing the UI by bondsbw · · Score: 1

      You must have hated when web browsers added tabs.

      --
      All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
    8. Re:Stop changing the UI by joe_frisch · · Score: 2

      "bringing the same UI into applications".... eg *changing* applications. Its probably a fine idea - but its a change and that means that for a while things will be slower because my work flow will change. By the time I'm familiar with the new scheme, there will be yet another.

      Yes I can disable it, but like the ribbon it will eventually become universal.

      There is a fantastic Arthur C Clarke story: Superiority. Discusses this issue better that I can.

    9. Re:Stop changing the UI by iampiti · · Score: 2

      At least, previously they only changed the UI between major versions, but since it seems there won't be any more major versions we can get changes in the UI whenever Microsoft feels like it.

    10. Re:Stop changing the UI by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      Its probably a fine idea - but its a change and that means that for a while things will be slower because my work flow will change.

      Ok, you haven't seen this at all have you? Absolutely zero of your workflow will change if you don't want it to. Just like tabbed browsing doesn't mean you can't revert to the 90s and open up a different window for every website.

      By the time I'm familiar with the new scheme, there will be yet another.

      Yet another what? The windows UI has been a prime example of stability in user interaction for applications. Other than the colour and shading there has been practically no changes in the past 23 years. Window controls are still top right, icon control availble top left, border controls work like they always did, dialogs work the same, buttons work the same, alt tabbing works the same. The biggest change came with Windows 2000 with grouped applications, followed by a cosmetic change with vista.

      If you wish to adopt this new very optional way of working it will be the biggest application interface change in 23 years by grouping various applications into tabs on an additional bar above the title bar, but there is really nothing to backup the claim that it'll change by the time you are familiar with it, unless you wait for 20 years to try it.

      Yes I can disable it, but like the ribbon it will eventually become universal.

      And if it is you still don't need to use it. It is an optional UI element. Just like the multiple desktops introduced in Windows 8 (10?). I have never once used it. Just like the stupid 3d flippy application changer (windows + tab I think?) I have never once used it.

      Also while you're comparing this to the ribbon, remember the ribbon is an application level change, not an OS level change.

    11. Re:Stop changing the UI by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      IF (and thats a big IF!) M$ cared about the users of their products, we would now have a vastly improved version of XP, one that would have by now had its bugs fixed, and would work much much better (without spying on users) than the Windows 10 Spy-Virus!!

    12. Re:Stop changing the UI by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No, I hated when web browsers stopped letting us disable tabbed browsing! Tabs are a waste of valuable screen space!!

  10. Re:First Time Such A Thing Has Happend At Microsof by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    I was wondering when "Trump is Literal Hitler" would evolve into "Trump is Literal Satan". The 'Hitler' thing has a 3 year track record of total failure, and Satan is just about the only place left to escalate to.

    (Of course this is exactly why Trump prodded the media into going full-"Hitler" from the moment he announced. Once he survived that, there was nothing left that the media could ever do to damage him.)

  11. MDI reborn. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    YES. Bring back a polished MDI, PLEASE.
    This is one of the few things that would convince me to use Windows 10. (maybe)
    A fully global MDI API that a program could use would be great.
    This way literally any program could add support for it, which most would since this is a feature that targets people with heavy workflows across multiple programs, AKA business, their biggest business! No way would any application developers miss out on support.

    Being able to double-click a button, "Media Editing", and have it launch some explorer tabs for your files, an audio editor, a video editor, maybe a sample editor, lyrics document(?), and some others all at once, with all files loaded, and potentially even the last state in each program, would be GREAT!
    Imagine how quickly you could get back in to the flow of things if that was a thing.
    Now imagine it across a business with multiple workflows all across unassigned multi-user systems.
    It would save so much time fannying around launching things and getting back to where you were.

    God I wish for this feature in the modern day. I miss MDI. So much.

    1. Re:MDI reborn. by bobbuck · · Score: 1

      Errr. What is MDI?

    2. Re:MDI reborn. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      MIDI?

    3. Re:MDI reborn. by amalcolm · · Score: 2

      Multi-document interface https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

      --
      Time for bed, said Zebedee - boing
    4. Re:MDI reborn. by jbengt · · Score: 1

      YES. Bring back a polished MDI, PLEASE

      No, just NO. The last thing I want is multiple documents stuck on top of each other in one window. I need each to be wherever I put them on my screens to facilitate my work.

  12. True Innovation by bobbuck · · Score: 2

    This is truly innovative copying of screens from the Amiga Workbench circa 1985. Good job, Microsoft!

  13. Slashdot: News that puts you asleep by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    > Re:"much-anticipated"

    Not here either. This is a marketing-speak regurgitated by Slashdot who are too lazy to find interesting stories. Go to Alexa.com and type in 'slashdot.org' and watch its continuing plunge into obscurity under the mehditorship or beauhd and msmash.

  14. microsoft is too busy... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    making more ways to spy on users, deliver ads, and force-feed unwanted apps, to actually bother making new features people might actually want.

  15. Re: First Time Such A Thing Has Happend At Microso by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    My name is BeauHD and I'm a faggot!

  16. Re: Sad they're getting even worse at developing.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    But making all those changes means you're no longer on Agile.

    The whole thing is a waste of time.

  17. Re: First Time Such A Nazi Has Happend At The DNC by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Corruption in 3rd world nations is what causes them to be shitholes. Trump was the right choice over Hilary to avoid that fate.

  18. Theadda provides in-depth analysis, news. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    hi there,
    this is a great article and keep doing well.

    read this post also: https://www.theadda.in/men-behind-the-north-indian-folk-music-ridam/

  19. Pulled? by thegarbz · · Score: 1

    The media has gotten lazy. It is quite impossible to pull something from a release that was never announced for a release. Sets has been in the wild only in Redstone development builds. It didn't have a shipping date.

    The only thing Microsoft has done is confirm that it won't make the upcoming Windows 10 update. Nothing has been pulled.

    1. Re: Pulled? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      totally agree, as a user of this feature, it's not yet helpful and has few bugs that can't make it shippable, on of them is RTL support which is a bit broken (could be that it's not Sets, but other parts of the Insider version)

    2. Re:Pulled? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I am very thankful that it is no longer in the preview build. IMO the feature was horrible.

      It was only possible to create a new edge tab... Like if I had powershell open and hit the + button it would open up edge inside of my powershell window. The only way to get my 2nd tab to be another powershell or anything other than edge was to launch it again and then drag the tab from the new window into the old. In addition, all tabs were treated as full windows, so each tab still showed up in the taskbar.

      Also there seemed to be issues with software that already had tabs (firefox). If you moved firefox around or maximized it occasionally it would lose access to the top of the screen in increments of a title bar... So maximizing firefox would leave a gap at the top of the screen exposing the window beneath it. Occasionally it would add another title bars worth of gap at the top somtimes multiple times... so you'd end up firefox not able to fill the top 2" of the screen until you closed and reopened it.

    3. Re: Pulled? by andrew.j.borell · · Score: 1

      Correct. FTR, I tried sets and tabs; It was a drag om my dev machine. Tabbing took seconds with alt-tab. All my embedded links would open in edge instead of my default browser. It was a mess IMO.

  20. Windows already has this feature. by master_p · · Score: 1

    It's called the Task Bar.

    1. Re:Windows already has this feature. by sabbede · · Score: 1

      Sets included things like tabbed explorer, which would be pretty convenient for me and, I assume, others.

  21. posting to undo accidental moderation by Kunedog · · Score: 1

    n/t

    1. Re:posting to undo accidental moderation by samwichse · · Score: 1

      Same

  22. After 20 years ... by OneSizeFitsNoone · · Score: 2

    20 years after Linux did, M$ still can't understand the concept of virtual desktops.

    1. Re: After 20 years ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      More like 30+ years. Not sure why you're dropping the decade. Even in your own article you linked, it has reference to an Amiga implementation mid 80s.

      I remember multiple desktops back in old school UNIX CDE days. This is nothing new or special about Linux specifically.

    2. Re: After 20 years ... by OneSizeFitsNoone · · Score: 1

      30+ is Unix, Linux is somewhat less, still more than 20 years I concede.
      I never used Amiga. and that OS is no longer among us, unfortunately.

    3. Re:After 20 years ... by ModelX · · Score: 1

      20 years after Linux did, M$ still can't understand the concept of virtual desktops.

      That's not completely true. There seems to be some support for the feature in windows already because there have been a handful of utilities that enabled the feature on Windows 7 (with some bugs attached).

      However, I don't get it why Microsoft doesn't add this feature to the regular windows interface. In my opinion it would be the most productive feature added. If they just repackage Windows 7 with addition of virtual desktops and call it Windows 11 they will sell a lot.

    4. Re:After 20 years ... by swb · · Score: 1

      It's been an official Windows 10 feature since its release and I think there was a MS PowerToy for it going back maybe as far as XP and who knows how many third party implementations.

      I've used all of them from time to time, but I always wonder why people find it so compelling. I kind of find myself with a blended set of virtual desktops over a period of time, losing whatever logical distinction I made between them originally.

    5. Re:After 20 years ... by OneSizeFitsNoone · · Score: 1
      This is a half-truth: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

      Until Windows 10, Microsoft Windows did not implement virtual desktops natively in a user-accessible way. There are objects in the architecture of Windows known as "desktop objects" that are used to implement separate screens for logon and the secure desktop sequence (Ctrl+Alt+Delete). There is no native and easy way for users to create their own desktops or populate them with programs.[4] However, there are many third-party (e. g. VirtuaWin, Dexpot and others) and some partially supported Microsoft products that implement virtual desktops to varying degrees of completeness.

    6. Re:After 20 years ... by N1AK · · Score: 1

      No virtual desktops are one of the few things that make me miss using Linux more. For me the benefit was that I could set up full screen layouts for a handful of contexts I work in often and swap between them instantly. Reports of a service outage? Switch to a desktop that has our monitoring services open and windowed nicely. Someone comes in and asks a question about data on our BI portal? Swap to a desktop with the web based interface and management application ready. Working on putting together the department budget? Swap to a desktop with the relevant couple of spreadsheets, PDFs from vendors etc open and ready. Recruiting for a new role? Desktop with Job Description, test questions, CVs etc. I try to avoid constantly changing contexts and the inefficiency that comes with it but I also think that it is unrealistic for me to avoid it entirely in my current role and virtual desktops can really help.

      I honestly think think that a good implementation of that feature alone would improve my productivity by a couple of percent. Sure that isn't revolutionary but that doesn't mean it doesn't have considerable value.

  23. Ah fluxbox by thePsychologist · · Score: 1

    This feature has been present in fluxbox for decades. Any set of open windows can be tabbed together. Wish all window managers had that.

    --
    "What lies behind us, and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us." Ralph Waldo Emerson
  24. Re: First Time Such A Thing Has Happend At Microso by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    I don't think Satan would like being compared to Trump.

    He'd be like: "all hell no!"

  25. Monitor splitting is the UI feature we need for 4k by swb · · Score: 1

    Display splitting is the feature we need for 4k displays.

    I have a 43" 4k display (which is basically the display size where 4k has a useful native dot pitch) and while that much screen real estate is useful for some visual applications (drawing, etc), most of the time it's not efficient for single windows. Manual sizing and moving is a nuisance.

    I use "Display Fusion" which can do basic monitor splitting (so zoom/minimize, etc) treat split regions as separate displays. But things that want to go "full screen" (like web video) still go full physical screen.

    It'd be nice to have Windows itself split the displays, perhaps using the existing multi-monitor interface so that Windows itself treated unique display regions as if they were distinct physical monitors to override the "full screen" behavior of other apps.

    It might also be that the real place to do this is in the display driver -- split your display up in that, and then it presents Windows with your logical displays as if they were actually physical displays, but I haven't seen that ability in a display driver.

  26. Re: First Time Such A Nazi Has Happend At The DNC by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ... because the US isn't on its way to become a corrupt shithole at lightning speed? (rolls eyes)

    Give it a few years, but the Donald may get his wall, and a bonus wall up north. To keep the fleeing Americans out.

  27. Re: First Time Such A Nazi Has Happend At The DNC by fafalone · · Score: 1

    Trump LESS corrupt than Hillary??? Holy hell that's some delusion. What exactly about his well known organized crime connections, Trump University, and well known money laundering, among countless other scandals, could possibly possess you to believe that he wouldn't carry that corruption into office? He did, in spades, even ignoring anything Russia-related. Net neutrality? Pruitt in the EPA? Carson at HUD? His rampant nepotism? This is unparalleled corruption you dolt. Hillary was certainly corrupt, but you're talking 4/10 vs 11/10 corrupt against known-fraudster Trump who is blatantly selling out everywhere, to say nothing of the countless other problems with him.

  28. Never did work for me. by sabbede · · Score: 1

    I've been using insider builds in which it was supposed to be enabled, but it never was. All the settings for it were missing. I used a tool to force it on in one build, but it didn't carry over when I updated so I gave up.

  29. Why I use Linux Mint by HalAtWork · · Score: 2

    Part of their mission is a familiar and consistent UI. So far it's been great and hassle free.

    1. Re:Why I use Linux Mint by Dragonslicer · · Score: 1

      It's why I use KDE. Everything is pretty much in the same place as it was 10 years ago.

    2. Re:Why I use Linux Mint by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yet each version seems to gut it and rebuild it slowly... That rug-pulling is what kept me away from KDE

  30. Re:Monitor splitting is the UI feature we need for by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The Atari 400/800/1200 series had something similar to this:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari_8-bit_family#Playfield_graphics_capabilities

  31. Every Desktop still wishes... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It were as awesome as BeOS.

  32. Re: Sad they're getting even worse at developing.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    certainly not how it was imposed at my work (key word: imposed). became a micromanagement structure so managers could feel like they're "managing" and tell their stories of "making progress". that work might have gotten done was a curious side note. The narrative being told upstream was most important.

  33. Tabs, like Haiku/BeOS? by rjzak · · Score: 1

    Haiku's tabs are glorious, and would be a great addition to Windows.
    https://haiku-os.org

    --
    Professional Genius
  34. Re:Monitor splitting is the UI feature we need for by thegreatbob · · Score: 1

    It would be very nice if they allowed a program's fullscreen viewport to be containerized. I suspect you are like me, I like my pixels (text need merely be legible, and raster graphics need to be 1:1 pixel registration, or it's pointless) and information first (the more the better, not 80% whitespace), smoothness a distant second. Microsoft seems to want to push to make things smooth (i.e. high DPI). I'd certainly accept some loss of features/teething problems if it was possible/reasonable to port open source video driver efforts for decent video cards to Windows' current display driver model. Unfortunately, this would likely be met with resistance due to high resolution video DRM and related crap, if it's even possible.

    For now, I suspect that the closest you'll get is running things inside of a VM; as these typically don't use game-like fullscreen mode setting, they might work with Display Fusion, etc., but the loss of performance (and many other caveats of running software in VMs) might make it a non-starter.

    --
    There is no XUL, only WebExtensions...
  35. Re:Monitor splitting is the UI feature we need for by swb · · Score: 1

    I'm actually kind of puzzled why this isn't an obvious display adapter/driver feature. It seems like presenting Windows with 4 virtual monitors shouldn't be that big a deal because each one just represents a slice of a larger memory buffer and I'd wager there's some kind of MMU on the graphics card that could manage virtualizing a virtual display's space without a problem.

    It used to be a feature back in the old days of going the other way around -- telling Windows your monitor was much *bigger* than it really was and having a 1600x1200 desktop when you could only physically display 1024x768 or something.

    I guess it could also be a monitor feature, since I think at least DisplayPort can daisy chain displays, but it would be less flexible and annoying to setup than a GUI configuration and I don't know that HDMI has that kind of pass-thru feature.

  36. This agile bullshit must stop by MerlinTheWizard · · Score: 1

    Now.

  37. Already exists by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    There is already a third party piece of software that does the same job. Why does MS need to do their own version?

    Stardock Groupy which runs on win7/8/10 might worth looking at.

  38. Re:Monitor splitting is the UI feature we need for by thegreatbob · · Score: 1

    If one doesn't mind using somewhat antiquated tech, the closest I can think of in hardware would be the IBM T220/T221 monitors (occasionally showing up on eBay for $1000)... their interfaces lacked the bandwidth to individually drive the full 3840x2400 px panel (sadly nobody seems to make panels at this size anymore), so it divided up the screen into several segments, with apparently a fairly high level of flexibility (including 4x DVI connections @ 1920x1200, and an actually somewhat decent 48Hz refresh in the later revisions). Not sure how much this capability varies between the various monitor revisions, aside from the older ones having rather slow refresh (~20Hz, i think) for similar configurations. It's slightly depressing to think that this was possible 15+ years ago, but never caught on.

    --
    There is no XUL, only WebExtensions...
  39. Re:Monitor splitting is the UI feature we need for by thegreatbob · · Score: 1

    I also recently revisited my old love for desktop panning when faced with the nuisance of modern software (non-collapsible UI elements leading to a ridiculously small viewport) on a 1920x1080 monitor, working on 1920x1080 content. There is a less-than-well-known feature of MS RDP called 'superpan', and if you can bear with the limitations and occasional glitchiness that come with remote desktops, you can pan a desktop up to 4096x4096 from a remote machine. Why this very, very useful capability was dumped from most modern graphics systems, I have no clue.

    --
    There is no XUL, only WebExtensions...
  40. Re:Monitor splitting is the UI feature we need for by swb · · Score: 1

    I've never understood why if RDP can do panning and downscaling why those features aren't part of the basic UI/screen resolution.

    Plenty of times I've defined RDP sessions with a remote desktop larger in resolution than my physical screen but scaled down. Much of the time it's useful, even if for monitoring or reference purposes.

    The stupidity of modern UIs really is a problem, especially web ones and their pointlessly excess whitespace.

  41. Taskbar by Waccoon · · Score: 1

    We already had tabbed browsing for the desktop. It was called the Taskbar. Then Microsoft tried to copy the OSX Dock principles of combining multiple functions under one button and they broke everything.

    Maybe they should focus on making Explorer more like Total Commander or Directory Opus. I can't believe how difficult it still is to copy files back and forth, forcing you to shuffle windows around or have one full-screen window open at a time. Oh, and bring back Quick Launch while you're at it.

  42. Re:Monitor splitting is the UI feature we need for by thegreatbob · · Score: 1

    The stupidity of modern UIs really is a problem, especially web ones and their pointlessly excess whitespace.

    You and I are clearly of one mind there.

    --
    There is no XUL, only WebExtensions...
  43. Re:Monitor splitting is the UI feature we need for by Pikoro · · Score: 1

    Hold the windows key and press the Left or Right arrows to "full screen" dock the window to the left or right half of the monitor, respectively.

    --
    "Freedom in the USA is not the ability to do what you want. It is the ability to stop others from doing what THEY want"