Microsoft Announces Windows 10 October 2018 Update, the Next Free Major Update To Its Desktop OS (venturebeat.com)

Microsoft today revealed that the next free Windows 10 update is called the Windows 10 October 2018 Update ... and it will arrive in that month. From a report: For those keeping track, this is Windows 10 version 1809. Although the company had not announced this update before today, Windows Insiders have been getting builds from Windows 10's RS5 branch since February. Windows 10 October 2018 Update includes a dark theme for File Explorer, a new snipping experience, a cloud-powered clipboard, support for extended line endings in Notepad, integration with the Your Phone app, new web sign-in and fast sign-in features, a mixed reality flashlight feature, SwiftKey in the touch keyboard, and many other improvements. The highly anticipated Sets feature did not make the cut. Windows 10 is being developed as a service, meaning it receives new features on a regular basis. Microsoft has released five major updates so far: November Update, Anniversary Update, Creators Update, Fall Creators Update, and April 2018 Update.

Comments

"Free" as in your data for sale

[Anonymous Coward]

Still might be worth it to some.

Re:"Free" as in your data for sale

[Anonymous Coward]

My family freindly Goat C shirt is more worth while! ~ CaptainDork

Re:"Free" as in your data for sale

[ichthus]

Aren't all Windows updates free? Why did they go out of their way to call this one "free"? Are future updates not going to be free?

(I'm a Linux user, in an all-Linux household, so I admit I could be mistaken/ignorant.)

Re: "Free" as in your data for sale

[Anonymous Coward]

A little over a year ago, Microsoft announced their intentions to charge a monthly fee to retain your access to use the OS.

No one really knows when they plan to pull the trigger on that but itâ(TM)s expected to be pushed out with an anniversary update at some point.

Ever since that announcement, all updates are referred to as free. Presumably up until the one switching Win10 over to a subscription model.

Re:"Free" as in your data for sale

[Anonymous Coward]

The actual Microsoft announcement doesn't say it's free. Tech journalism is just infested with amateur journalists who re-write press releases and often add stupidly irrelevant details.

Re:"Free" as in your data for sale

[Anonymous Coward]

If it's free it must be desirable, right?

"Hey kids! Free poo! All you can eat!"

Re:"Free" as in your data for sale

[Anonymous Coward]

Windows 10 is going to be a subscription based OS within the next year or so. This was Microsoft's plan for Windows 10 all along and the not so bright people fell for it.

Actually, you'll have a choice. Don't pay and have the OS and apps covered in ads, IAPs and spyware. Pay and have the OS and apps not as covered in ads, IAPs but the same amount of spyware.

The reason Valve is pushing hard for Linux on the desktop as a gaming platform is because Microsoft is scummier than they have ever been. The OS needs to be open source and fully controllable by users. Windows is an obsolete design.

Re:"Free" as in your data for sale

[Anonymous Coward]

"a dark theme for File Explorer, a new snipping experience, a cloud-powered clipboard, support for extended line endings in Notepad, integration with the Your Phone app, new web sign-in and fast sign-in features, a mixed reality flashlight feature, SwiftKey in the touch keyboard, and many other improvements."

1. Are these really *improvements*? (Maybe the extended line endings in Notepad, but Wordpad already has that. A cloud-powered clipboard? Uh, no. Just no.)

2. The few things that are here, why couldn't they be provided in, say, a new version of explorer.exe, or a new version of notepad.exe? A whole OS download for that?

Ridiculous. Even if "free", not worth the time it'll take to download.

Re:"Free" as in your data for sale

[bn-7bc]

Hmm mu eyesight is apperently worse thsen i supected, I have not dpotted a single ad in windows 10, granted I’m using pro with clasic start menu so rhat might be the reason, i seriously hope ms diches the subscription idea, tho buing a licemce now and againis knd of annoing, it is prefrable to yet another sub evry month, but then again that is just mho

Re:"Free" as in your data for sale

[Anonymous Coward]

Are future updates not going to be free?

Yes.

Re:"Free" as in your data for sale

[Anonymous Coward]

Stupid people.
The subscription mode proposed my Microsoft is for business customers not everyday users.

Spread FUD much? Especially for so called non MS users. You don't us Windows, why the histrionics?

Re:"Free" as in your data for sale

[Anonymous Coward]

You naive and myopic fanboi. You're the kind of person who will give Microsoft money and thank them for letting you be an unpaid employee.

The subscription mode proposed my Microsoft

Freudian slip of the shill.

is for business customers not everyday users

Yeah, just like Office 360 subscriptions are only for business customers...

Re:"Free" as in your data for sale

[Anonymous Coward]

Then you must live under a rock. Windows 10 has tons of advertising in the start menu, desktop, quick launch, file explorer and ads on the lock screen which cannot be disabled, even for desktop users where it's utterly obnoxious and superfluous. And that's the least of the issues. Windows 10 is a massive pile of malware/spyware that legs your keys and records your voice to send to Microsoft for analysis and storage. Now they are going to start charging a subscription fee or you will see the number of ads go up.

Re:"Free" as in your data for sale

[mcswell]

I'm with bn-7bc, I've never seen any of those ads you mention, and I have Win10 on two computers. Sure you don't have a virus on yours?

Re:"Free" as in your data for sale

[mcswell]

One thing that Windows has never had that I would really like: a list of directories where files have recently been opened or saved by any app. Very common situation to work on a file in one app, then need to open it in some other app (often to send it somewhere with ftp or email), or open another file in the same dir. Why can't Windows track the last 10 or so dirs like that, and make the list available to other apps?

Re:"Free" as in your data for sale

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe it's an A-B tests? I read a while ago that some users got adv in the start menu, I'm not sure for other places though.

(I'm not Win10 user)

Call it the Halloween update

[xack]

And release it in time for the 20th anniversary of the Halloween documents.

Re:Call it the Halloween update

[Zmobie]

The dark theme for file explorer is the most excited I think I've ever been for anything from Microsoft ever. I feel like on that basis alone the Halloween name would be appropriate.

Re:Call it the Halloween update

[jellomizer]

I would like windows 10 with a light theme.
1. Older Apps were designed for a lighter themed UI, so they look out of place.
2. I am already in a room with no windows, I want some light.
3. There is less glow of the text making seem bury.

Re:Call it the Halloween update

[Zmobie]

I'm all for multiple themes and options. However, like many others that I'm sure have been asking for a dark theme, I suffer from a lot of eye strain and severe migraines often quickly worsened by light exposure. Now this probably is because I spend anywhere from 8 to 14 hours a day looking at screens since I write software at work and then do software/IT stuff at home a lot, but it is still nice to have things like dark themes that can help me reduce the impact and frequency of issues significantly. It also has always confused me why we need so much light directly beaming at our eyes with heavy white clad monitors. Typical working conditions not on a computer tell us to not look directly at bright light sources, so to me it only makes sense that we should have started with dark themes and then added light themes later.

Just my opinion though, as I'm sure others land on the other side.

Re:Call it the Halloween update

[BronsCon]

We *did* start with dark themes. It was the text on the green screen terminals that was illuminated; the background was black.

Glad to see we're finally coming full circle. The engineers who designed these systems wold have inverted the color scheme if more light were better; I don't think today's engineers realize that was actually a design consideration back then, so our finally getting back to it is purely by way of newbies wanting to be different, but that's fine, so long as we get back to it.

Re:Call it the Halloween update

[Anonymous Coward]

This worked better on 17" CRT monitors (16" effective) than on low end 24" LCD monitors - as long as your CRT wasn't stuck at 60Hz due to software configuration.
More light surface on an LCD, more brightness to get high contrast, and light bleeding such than even if showing all black on the monitor the lights are shining through.
My next desktop monitor would be an LCD with VA panel. They can be got for cheap and the improved : not slow, flicker free backlight, even available in 144Hz. They prioritize black levels and lack of light bleeding.

Also since last year 2700K LED lights (bulbs and other form factors) are available with a good enough power/price ratio. I got a 10.5W bulb I think, two years before I got a 3W for about the same price. You can look the bulb in the eye. They make fluorescent and 4000-5000K LED bulbs obsolete IMO. Although you obviously only get the lower end of the spectrum but it's worth it. It saves your eyes and the other have spiky spectrum anyway!

Most missing is panel replacements for laptops. I would very much like to replace the horrible LCD panel on an Acer or Lenovo etc. with a generic one that fits in. That's probably very much possible (I know you can transplant TN panels across 2009 laptop brands) but where to buy just a reasonable 15.6" IPS panel?

Re:Call it the Halloween update

[omnichad]

Dark theme is good for one thing - OLED. And in that case, you don't really need to worry about how it looks so much as the battery savings.

Re:Call it the Halloween update

[F.Ultra]

They where monochrome CRT display. If they would have inverted the color scheme that would mean full phosphor activation 24x7 which those old screens wouldn't live long under. That said I agree with you that the good old black background and light green text where far better than today:s blinding light themes.

Re: Call it the Halloween update

[BronsCon]

Actually, they cod have run them at a much lower intensity if inverted, leaving more headroom to brighten them up as the phosphors faded. Phosphors begin fade at a higher-than-linear rate relative to intensity, which is a problem modern OLED displays still face. That said, I'd have to get hold of the spec sheet for an old green mono CRT and the phosphor within, and do some math to determine how much better or worse it might actually be. Theorecitcally, though...

Re: Call it the Halloween update

[Zmobie]

Very true. I meant more that newer applications should be dark by default but everything somehow is now standardized to light colors with lots of light output when left on default settings. I'd have been completely fine to leave things in the old style.

Re: Call it the Halloween update

[BronsCon]

Indeed. But it has to look pretty. In snowflakeland, that's more important than being useful or efficient.

Re: Call it the Halloween update

[F.Ultra]

Could be. My kid brother bought a used monochrome green screen from a flea sale some 20 years ago and when we turned it on without it being connected to anything there was a 100% crisp green directory listing from a cp/m system :-)

Re: Call it the Halloween update

[Gr8Apes]

Very true. I meant more that newer applications should be dark by default but everything somehow is now standardized to light colors with lots of light output when left on default settings. I'd have been completely fine to leave things in the old style.

You can 100% blame MS for that. When windows came out, they went WYSIWYG and since paper is white, text black, voila. Once Word and Excel had those themes, they just expanded them to every other app with no easy means of converting to the "dark" theme. Another one of MS's half-assed approaches to GUIs. I can't recall if Apple's GUIs were bright white or dark back then. I know SGI had configurability, as did Sun and DEC, because I wasn't blinded when using those.

At least the naming is better but would it kill

[Joe_Dragon]

At least the naming is better but would it kill them to call the main name windows 10.X?

Re:At least the naming is better but would it kill

[iampiti]

For something released that often I actually think the year/month naming is better than a version number.

Re:At least the naming is better but would it kill

[omnichad]

Even when the "month" portion is meaningless and they're actually explicitly calling 1809 the "October" update. It's still much easier to remember than when OS X releases came out.

Re:At least the naming is better but would it kill

[bn-7bc]

Or what about YYYY.MM ie 2018.10 for compleetness you could add a build number on the end, pesonally infid that much more infarmative then the corrent nomering/naminfg scheme

Re:At least the naming is better but would it kill

[mcswell]

Better idea: last digit of Year, two digits of Month, and one digit for a Variable in case of name collision. YMMV.

It's not free.

[Anonymous Coward]

You pay the price by not being able to control or own your PC anymore.

Re:It's not free.

[Anonymous Coward]

Never been free. Costs $150 canadian on their website.

Re:It's not free.

[unixisc]

Yeah. I'm waiting until I have enough cash to buy a Macbook. Then I'll be gone from both Windows and Android forever.

Re:It's not free.

[thegarbz]

It is free. If you're applying this update you didn't own your PC anyway.

A new snipping experience

[Anonymous Coward]

Lol, I'm sure all Windows users are cuing up for that one. Neutered users for neutered systems.

captcha: "reassure". Yeah, right. :D

Re:A new snipping experience

[mccalli]

You will be surprised how many business users use Snipping Tool. I mean, would I buy an entire OS just for that? No. Will I welcome some improvements? Yes, yes I will. And proper line ending support in Notepad is a godsend.

Re:A new snipping experience

[Anonymous Coward]

*cough* Greenshot

Re:A new snipping experience

[BronsCon]

^ Seconded.

In The Beginning

[Anonymous Coward]

it was dark. LET THERE BE LIGHT! And there was, and it was darn good. Been downhill since then. And now this. Thanks Trump. Thanks for nothing.

Re:In The Beginning

[jfdavis668]

In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.

Re:In The Beginning

[Anonymous Coward]

The derp is strong with this one.

Re:In The Beginning

[mcswell]

At the end of the Niven - Pournelle book "Escape from Hell", Satan tells the main character to tell God He could have done better if he'd rolled dice.

Here we go again

[Anonymous Coward]

Brace yourself, problems are coming.

What is going to break this time?

[TheDarkMaster]

Windows 10 version 1809 broke most of my games in DX9, making me have to go back to Windows 7. What will they break this time, the sound support? Or the support for PS/2 keyboards?

Re:What is going to break this time?

[OffTheLip]

Maybe this time they will break your spirit.

Re:What is going to break this time?

[Anonymous Coward]

Considering 1809 isn't out yet, mind telling us what else from the future is going to happen?

Re: What is going to break this time?

[Anonymous Coward]

Stop lying. 1809 did not break all your DS9 games, since that's the one they are releasing in October. Asshole.

Re:What is going to break this time?

[The-Ixian]

Wow, I thought I was the only one.

I have been running Win10 on my gaming PC since the free upgrade from Win7. I later joined the Insider fast ring.

Everything was going great until 1809 when my games slowed wayyyy down.

Driver updates helped a little but didn't solve it.

I finally decided to go back to Win7. Everything is working great again.

Re:What is going to break this time?

[Zero__Kelvin]

You are missing the point ... the breakage will be free!

Re:What is going to break this time?

[TheDarkMaster]

CORRECTION: I meant version 1803 , not 1809

Re:What is going to break this time?

[TheDarkMaster]

I meant version 1803, I did not pay enough attention when typing the version

Re:What is going to break this time?

[TheDarkMaster]

That's what happened here too. Some games lost performance considerably, others started to have graphic problems (for example a strange black screen effect flashing at high frequency) and some simply did not work anymore.

Re: What is going to break this time?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why did you joint Insider Fast at all?
It is unstable by design and made for you to report failures and do the job for MS QA...

Re:What is going to break this time?

[Anonymous Coward]

Or the support for PS/2 keyboards?

Reminds me of my efforts to setup a Windows 98SE (mostly for DOS games). The BIOS has USB keyboard emulation, but sadly Windows 98SE will have to go through the whole "Detecting New Hardware" if you move the USB keyboard port (might be related to using a hub). So, if you have the mouse on the same port (or moved its port), how do you go about continuing? Right, you can't. Rebooting and swapping ports doesn't fix things because it now has to detect the keyboard/mouse on the "new" port. In the end, the solution is to connect up a PS/2 keyboard.

Obviously Windows NT/XP/7/10 are much better at this, as they will generally automatically enable new hardware if possible and input devices are one of the first things (AFAIK) that it enables so you won't get stuck with a "Restart Now" dialog before input is even up. I'd just say, your comment based upon past Microsoft incompetence would be pretty pair the course if they in some fashion broke PS/2 keyboard support or detection order.

Re:What is going to break this time?

[iampiti]

That really sucks. I hope Windows games work fine in Wine/Whatever-the-name-of-the-Valve-compatibility-layer-is by the time is no longer feasible to stay on Win 7

Re:What is going to break this time?

[Anonymous Coward]

Holy crap.
If issues like this go on we'll need an end user release of Wine for Windows (I looked for it once, it's a real thing but for devs debugging and deving stuff)

Me I don't trust warez and crack sites too much these days, (and I'm not running recent games that want Internet and online account for single player etc., not even Steam and its old games). So on the Win 10 laptop I use I run.. dosbox. [Seems comfortable : a laptop from this decade has very high single thread performance and on Windows the sound doesn't seem to be buggy, seems to have midi support.]

For some reason the touch pad was crappy under linux! (so I have a mental note to try under Ubuntu 18.10)
Windows 10 is now like Windows 95 : good to run DOS games.
When you full-screen Dosbox, your non-maximized windows get resized to something that looks like 640x480 minus task bar height!
Window management is also buggy in that you can get the task bar shown over full screen video (which is I bug I got in Ubuntu Gnome 2 or Linux Mint Mate years ago). You can bet I was not pleased with this one! This proves they don't do a good job at testing their software like they used to.

Re: What is going to break this time?

[BLToday]

Because some of us like to live dangerously. He’s probably just running Insider Fast Ring on a gaming machine and not something critical. That’s actually the problem with the Insider program, people aren’t finding the bugs because it’s being installed on non-critical machines. Then once it’s release all these under reported bugs start popping up.

Re: What is going to break this time?

[The-Ixian]

Exactly right.

Also, I like to be in the know about things coming down the pike so I can be better prepared at work where I maintain a fleet of these Windows boxen.

It was an experiment that was going well for a while and I did try to live with it and reported to MS for a month or so before I just got tired of it.

Re: What is going to break this time?

[Anonymous Coward]

TheDarkMaster made a typo, and so is neither a liar nor an asshole. Apparently you have the asshole role covered.

Re: What is going to break this time?

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuck you Microsoft apologist. He corrected himself. Every major update so far has caused me a great deal of work fixing shit they broke.

Re:What is going to break this time?

[Anonymous Coward]

USB broke your PS/2 keyboards.

ORLY

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank Thor I rolled back to Windows 7. Every major W10 update rendered a different piece of perfectly functioning hardware useless.
I liked the W10 features but disliked the way Microsoft forced you to buy new hardware while having older hardware working flawlessly at every update.

Re: ORLY

[Anonymous Coward]

What? I run a tech shop, and I've seen one bit of hardware drop out from windows 10 upgrades, a shitty old network card that they switched driver support on. That's it, in all the systems that come in

"Cloud powered clipboard"?

[admin7087]

Does that mean that when I copy&paste a password it will be put "in the cloud"? :/

Re:"Cloud powered clipboard"?

[Chromium_One]

It is good to see that the fine upstanding people at One Microsoft Way are taking a stab at properly labeling their malware now.

Re:"Cloud powered clipboard"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Does that mean that when I copy&paste a password it will be put "in the cloud"? :/

If copy&paste is in the cloud, I imagine it would not be overly difficult to break the Internet by having everyone in the world highlight a 500gb file and hit CTRL-C.

Re:"Cloud powered clipboard"?

[Zero__Kelvin]

You can imagine that if you want to, but the internet doesn't work that way. You might DOS the server farm but the rest of the internet will go on just fine regardless.

Re:"Cloud powered clipboard"?

[Anonymous Coward]

but of course, that's how their TLA handlers / plants want it.

Re:"Cloud powered clipboard"?

[xack]

credit card numbers, product keys, cryptocurrency wallets all in the cloud for hackers to harvest. This will be fun.

Re: "Cloud powered clipboard"?

[Anonymous Coward]

If the clipboard starts being sent to Microsoft servers for whatever reason, then the only words I will ever copy/paste are "suck" "my" and "dick."

Re:"Cloud powered clipboard"?

[Anonymous Coward]

credit card numbers, product keys, cryptocurrency wallets all in the cloud for hackers to harvest. This will be fun.

credit card numbers, product keys, cryptocurrency wallets all in the cloud for microsoft employees & contractors to harvest. This will be fun.

There, FTFY.

Re:"Cloud powered clipboard"?

[thegarbz]

Yes. Allow me to show you how bad this is:

ey^Kqd

^^ My actual password I just used. Go forth and hack my stuff.

if a service or product is free,...

[Anonymous Coward]

"if a service or product is free, you are not the customer but the product."

The end goal is to slow down your computers

[alternative_right]

Microsoft has one highly functional business model, which is selling new operating systems with new computers.

If you do not upgrade your computer, they do not sell more product. Most people have not been upgrading because our desktop/laptop tech is stable enough and fast enough that you can keep your iron for a decade.

Solution: force everyone to switch to Windows 10, add crap to it until it runs as slowly as Congress, then watch everyone run out to buy new machines because the old ones are unusable at their vermicular speeds.

Re:The end goal is to slow down your computers

[Anonymous Coward]

So far their business model looks like it will drive people who would never willingly have gone near either one to MacOS or Linux.

Re:The end goal is to slow down your computers

[Anonymous Coward]

1 like a worm in form or movement; vermiform.
2 of, denoting, or caused by intestinal worms.

Yep - both are accurate

Re:The end goal is to slow down your computers

[Anonymous Coward]

Wouldn't work as the overall speed increases from processors has slowed down dramatically over the past decade to the point the overall improvements aren't near as much.

So if it runs like crap on your 8 year old PC, it will probably run like crap on your brand new PC. The only real exception to this is graphics performance and even that started to plateau, just later than processors.

Personally got me an old Athlon FX-8350 CPU, 16 GB RAM, and a Geforce GTX 760 and even though I want to build me a new PC, I honestly can't justify it even if I had money to spare because this system still runs everything I throw at it without an issue at 1080p, I just can't crank up the graphics all the way on the newer games. The main real boosts I would get in a newer system would be going with an M2 drive for storage and an upgraded graphics card which I can already do now.

Facebook won't run any better, youtube won't run any better, what games I still play already can break 60 FPS on here outside of GTA V which still gets acceptable frames without any stutter or lag.

Main way Microsoft could try and screw with stuff would be making sure it ran worse on fewer cores as AMD is pushing Intel to push that envelope now.

Re:The end goal is to slow down your computers

[Anonymous Coward]

Fun fact if you have the Intel platform that runs i7 3930K, i7 4930K i.e. old Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge with up to 64GB quad channel DDR3 you can extract an UEFI driver from newer generation's firmware images, then add it to your motherboard. So you can boot on M.2 drives. You get 40 PCIe 3.0 lanes on the CPU too. Six cores/12 threads but with AVX and no AVX2.
All this from late 2011.

Re: The end goal is to slow down your computers

[Anonymous Coward]

You're assuming they don't intentionally slow down older hardware.

Re: The end goal is to slow down your computers

[Anonymous Coward]

Not everyone is a train fan

Re:The end goal is to slow down your computers

[ebvwfbw]

So far their business model looks like it will drive people who would never willingly have gone near either one to MacOS or Linux.

I think that's what they want. They want to kill windows. To the company it's a turd. Full of holes, hard to maintain, very vulnerable and they can't even fix it. There's a big old hole that they admitted last year and they said they have no intention of ever fixing it because it would mean a complete re-write.

Windows is on life support. I think it'll die around 2020. Then they can focus on their office business. Move office to Linux as well.

Switched to Xubuntu a month ago.

[Anonymous Coward]

Got too frustrated having to figure out how to disable some of Window 10's features. Whatever they call the replacement for the control panel is a UI disaster. The opposite of information dense.

You call that list of bullshit improvements?

[Anonymous Coward]

The only interesting thing is the line endings in notepad, though i pretty much don't care. That, and other things, is why i have notepad++

Microsoft fiddling again while the OS burns

[hackertourist]

File Explorer is worse than ever. The last major update fucked up file associations for images (to promote their crappy new image program). A few weeks ago I got upgrade nags even though I'm running the corporate edition where you're supposed to be able to set time blocks where nagging doesn't happen. Windows 10 is a pile of shit and Microsoft is playing around with themes.

Re:Microsoft fiddling again while the OS burns

[Kormoran]

File Explorer is worse than ever.

Old news. Every new windows since Win2000 has had a file explorer slightly worse than its predecessor.

[IRONY=ON]
Look, in Windows you don't have files: you have "Apps" and "Data". All you need is a way to open the apps, they will load data for you automagically. If you are really so jurassic, you can always open "data folders" like Images, Audio, Music and every other stupid useless crap you have in your computer. File Explorer is just a remnant, for compatibility... I really can't fathom why anyone could want to open a disc with it. Heck, you shouldn't even KNOW what a disc is.

Spitefully yours,
Satya Nadella
[IRONY=OFF]

Re:Microsoft fiddling again while the OS burns

[Anonymous Coward]

Tip, for browsing pictures use XnView (IrFanView is its cousin, both are long standing 20-year-old freeware with their respective authors making some sort of living on the 0.1% people who register)
Run the program itself, it's a surrogate file manager for all pictures and a bit of multimedia/other accessorily.

In general I find myself launching software and opening files from there! That's old school but it's less frustrating.

Even VLC, "Media", "Open File".

Even in the Win+R dialog the other day, I used the "open file" dialog and used that to run a program.
I'm prone to finding myself swapping (on hard drive) such that it's another reason to avoid the file manager (!)
I confirm Classic Shell runs on 18.03, most skins are frustrating so I set the "classic" menu! Disable the "caption" on the left, it's ugly.

You can add the "Desktop" "toolbar" on the taskbar next to the tray, this gives you a little double arrow and a cascading view of all your icons and files on the entire PC like you could have in Windows 98 and XP. That should do if you can't install software.
How to read pdf files? The FOSS pdf readers aren't always easily available on Windows. Then I found out xpdf switched to Qt! You can trivially get and install Xpdf 4.00 for Windows. It associated with .pdf files and it works. (doesn't support acceleration on touchpad scrolling, so I use the other ways to scroll)
That's a simple thing, you open a pdf and it opens, fast. But we have to rejoice on simple mundane things now.

Re:Microsoft fiddling again while the OS burns

[omnichad]

If you are really so jurassic, you can always open "data folders" like Images, Audio, Music and every other stupid useless crap you have in your computer. File Explorer is just a remnant, for compatibility... I really can't fathom why anyone could want to open a disc with it. Heck, you shouldn't even KNOW what a disc is.

That would be a better joke if they actually went ahead with their database-based file system (WinFS) from Vista development.

"Free" as in compulsory?

[OneHundredAndTen]

Do people have a choice here? Forgive me if I am asking something silly; I haven't used Windows for a long, long time.

Re:"Free" as in compulsory?

[Kjella]

Do people have a choice here? Forgive me if I am asking something silly; I haven't used Windows for a long, long time.

Average people? No. They'll get nags and eventually it'll reboot on its own. You can play various tricks with metered connection, disabling the update service etc. but most tricks only work for a little while then Microsoft force-installs it anyway. Mostly because critical patches ignore your settings and eventually a critical patch will require you upgrade the base system first. There's apparently some very obscure ways to really block it for machines where the upgrade fails and such, but they've hidden it real well. And it's monolithic, if you block it then no security patches either. Once you're on the Win10 train, Microsoft really doesn't want you to get off.

Re:"Free" as in compulsory?

[citylivin]

They do not. windows is end of life'ing OS versions after two years. Meaning any of the 15xx releases (from 2015) are EOL now and will not receive updates.

So you can wait a bit, but not more than 2 years. And then you have 3 or 4 updates to apply at that time so its best to just download the 1803 (current release) ISO and upgrade directly instead of going through windows update.

It sucks. I have to make 3 new corporate images every 6 months. Its not hard with vms and such but you have to update your deployment environment and all the tools. Troubleshoot new script errors, copy in your custom settings. It takes a few days every 6 months for sure. We are always installing one release behind.

However its all bullshit when you compare it to my perfectly fine and dandy rock solid windows 7 install i have at home. I dont want to fuck around with software when I am at home so it will still till win7 is end of life or maybe beyond? i dont really have a lot of alternatives. I am not jumping on the revolving door upgrades with win10. Every "upgrade" is broken in some respect. Every single release they have released breaks something. I dont give a shit about new features, which is basically turning thick client applications into web "apps".

Re:"Free" as in compulsory?

[toonces33]

Yes, it is called an airgap.

Re:"Free" as in compulsory?

[hairyfeet]

Try 8.1 Pro with Classic Shell, its Win 7 with faster boot times and better SSD support. I figure I'll stay on 8.1 until it goes EOL which hopefully between Wine and Valve's work on getting everything on Steam working with Wine I'll be able to hop off before there is no choice but take Windows 10 Clusterfuck Edition.

Alpha status software?

[Anonymous Coward]

" Windows 10 is being developed as a service, meaning it receives new features on a regular basis."

I thought software was considered alpha quality, not suitable for general use if it was not feature-complete. Then the software entered beta mode until it was reasonably bug-free too.

Only then was it suitable for general production use.

My, how quality has declined!

Re:Alpha status software?

[DontBeAMoran]

Tell me about it.

At first, I was using Windows 3.11.
After that, I was using Windows 95. A few years later, Windows 98.
And now I'm back to Windows 10? That's 88 less quality!

Monthly charge for Windows 10? Abusing users?

[Futurepower(R)]

From the parent comment: Why did they go out of their way to call this one "free"?

Microsoft has, apparently deliberately, been releasing Windows 10 updates that cause problems.

Apparently, if you pay a monthly fee, in the future Microsoft will remove the problems. Three of the articles:

Microsoft's got a new plan for managing Windows 10 devices for a monthly fee. (July 27, 2018)

Windows 10 Leak Exposes Microsoft's New Monthly Charge. (Aug. 4, 2018) Quote: "Ever since its creation, Microsoft has described Windows 10 as a service. The fear has always been that this meant Microsoft would start charging users a monthly fee to maintain the operating system, and now a new leak has confirmed this is exactly what will happenâ¦"

Windows 10 SHOCK: Is Microsoft about to start CHARGING a monthly fee? Stunning claims made. (Aug. 6, 2018)

Some of the many articles about Windows 10 update problems:

Windows 10 Essential Updates Have Serious Problems (Jan. 10, 2018)

Windows 10 April 2018 Update could break a ton of critical features on your PC (May 3, 2018)

Microsoft Admits July 10 Patches Caused Skype and Exchange Server Problems. (July 18, 2018)

Windows 10 April 2018 Update problems: how to fix them. (Aug. 23, 2018)

This article says that Microsoft should pay users:

Windows 10 update 'fail' -- Microsoft MUST pay out as users still 'plagued with problems' (June 13, 2018) Quote: "Windows 10 users should be compensated after Microsoftâ(TM)s updates have caused havoc with PC owners 'plagued with problems' and some facing huge bills to fix software issues."

Windows 10 is Spyware:

Windows 10 is possibly the worst spyware ever made. "Buried in the service agreement is permission to poke through everything on your PC." (August 4, 2015) Microsoft and Microsoft employees have full access to everything on every computer? I don't know of anyone or any company that should allow that.

2 issues, IMO:

A huge social problem: Conflict of interest. People who do Windows OS support make more money if there are many problems.

Microsoft employees and managers seem to me to lack social ability.

Oh, god - what are they going to break now.

[toonces33]

I swear that each time they release things, it breaks all kinds of software.

It'd be cool if they released a "no crashy" theme

[Anonymous Coward]

Windows/File Explorer has been notoriously unstable for forever. I just want them to release a version that doesn't randomly crash when a program misbehaves (or even just randomly).

But that's just for my customers. I've been happily using Debian + Fluxbox for 15+ years. It doesn't rip out the carpet from under me, it's stable af, it *just works*. I will likely be using it for another 15 years without issue.

Please more incompatible minimize alla features.

[Anonymous Coward]

How many different ways are there to accidentally minimize alla windows (on every connected screen) on this so-called desktop os? Please add more and make sure they cannot be differentiated visually and erase state when you press a different key combo or gesture in an attempt to restore your "productivity" environment.

All hail the worst mobile phone feature ports to desktop. Although modal pop-unders predate mobile phones. Aero Shake, sheesh.

Why

[fred6666]

Why can't they just update individual apps like Notepad (to add unix line ending support) without having to update the entire OS and set back Edge as the default browser and scrap my firewall settings?

Re:Why

[thegarbz]

Why can't they just update individual apps like Notepad (to add unix line ending support) without having to update the entire OS and set back Edge as the default browser and scrap my firewall settings?

Better question: Why would they bother maintaining them separately? The primary purpose is OS patches and fixes. Changes to the tools that come with it are secondary. There's no reason to update those on their own. Technically there's no reason to update those at all.

It's not a question of Why can't they, as much as why would they bother doing what you suggest?

Re:Why

[fred6666]

because this way I could chose to install say, the new notepad and security fixes without having to install Paint 3D and other useless craps.

Re:Why

[thegarbz]

And someone else somewhere needs to maintain separate repos, needs to test against different software stacks, and your system state will not be the same from a clean install across different devices.

There are definitely reasons as a consumer to want this. There are no reasons for *the developer* to do it. So when you ask why you always need to remember to frame your answer in terms why a developer would put effort into edge cases for users.

Also TIL I had a program called Paint 3D on my computer. Interesting. Not knowing it and not clicking on it has been fantastic, far better than having to remove it or read through a selection list when configuring my system.

Re:Why

[fred6666]

there are applications distributed through the windows store. Why can't Paint 3D be distributed through that channel? By your logic, shouldn't all applications from the store be included in Windows and be updated only with large OS updates?

Re:Why

[thegarbz]

No by my logic the tradeoff is decided entirely by the vendor into the grouping of applications, that is all. Everything has tradeoffs, and you can gauge vendor priorities based on their bundling practices.

Re:Why

[fred6666]

What you don't seem to get is that it is not a technical decision but a marketing one. Microsoft knew it's Paint 3D application had no chance of success unless they they force it down our throat. Same thing for Edge.

Bundled crapware exist for a reason. And it's not a technical one.

Re:Why

[thegarbz]

What you don't seem to get is that it is not a technical decision but a marketing one.

No I get this just fine and that has been my point from the very beginning. What benefit is there for Microsoft? The "Why" on your end is entirely irrelevant. You're just a silly consumer, why would anyone listen to you? They know what's best and they'll claim to have telemetry data or UX research or some other garbage to prove it.

If you want what you propose you need to provide a justification that makes it worthwhile for them. I'll requote the very first part of my first reply: "Better question: Why would they bother maintaining them separately?"

Re:Why

[fred6666]

I know Windows is still a near monopoly so market forces don't apply here. But otherwise the answer to your question would be to please users and sell more copies. And also to break less things during OS updates.

But if they shouldn't bother maintaining them separately, which according to you seem to imply a lot of work, then they should also include many other applications starting with Office and many from the Windows store.
Why should you have the option to upgrade Office to a new version when you can update your OS instead?

Re:Why

[thegarbz]

which according to you seem to imply a lot of work

I never said "a lot of work", I just listed some differences. It's not completely free from work. As you said there's also marketing at play.

hen they should also include many other applications starting with Office and many from the Windows store.

Negative. You're missing the cost benefit again. What functionality is available in the windows store that is completely free by Microsoft that is fundamentally missing? Office can be sold for actual cash so bundling makes zero sense. Here's a test: Go to the Microsoft store and look for Microsoft published apps. See how many of them are already bundled with the system. While you're there note all the ones where functionality is being absorbed into the OS e.g. MS Phone companion, or functionality that is regional such as Bing translations. You may be surprised to know some of these are auto installed if you change your locale in Windows too.

Why should you have the option to upgrade Office to a new version when you can update your OS instead?

SHOW ME THE MONEYYYYY!

Re:Why

[fred6666]

As you said there's also marketing at play.

Marketing seems to be the only consideration here. Certainly not user satisfaction.

Re:Why

[thegarbz]

Marketing is just one function of a cost benefit analysis.

But agreed, MS if anything has shown that the user isn't at all considered in any windows 10 design decisions.

Yay another broken RSAT instance

[phishybongwaters]

Seriously, stop breaking RSAT, we kinda rely on that shit to maintain our fucking shit, it's getting old having you break it with each feature build, that brings zero changes to RSAT. fuck off.

Re:Yay another broken RSAT instance

[Anonymous Coward]

fuck, shit, shit, fuck... Your vocab is great, son...

Re:Yay another broken RSAT instance

[Mattatron]

Fuck and Shit are perfectly cromulent words.

Re:Yay another broken RSAT instance

[Anonymous Coward]

I would embiggen your score but I don't have moderator privileges.

Re:Yay another broken RSAT instance

[Szeraax]

well, I guess I'll undo my mod points on this thread because this comment is worth responding to.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-...

Once you get on RS5 (coming out this year), you can install RSAT as an option feature of windows and it'll persist across upgrades.

Now... get back to pushing out those policyDefinitions!

Microsoft managers don't perceive the end result.

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft is causing HUGE negativity toward itself.

Any chance W10 will spy on you less? Naw

[Anonymous Coward]

Didn't think so. Still never using Microsoft Products.

Oh, you have to tell then who you are just to use an office product. That's equally as evil. Go get Libre Office.

Oh, great

[dargaud]

How I look forward to this new update... I just finished the week of install of the last upgrade. I need Win10 for exactly ONE program which doesn't run on Linux, so I run Win10 in a VM. I installed it on a 20Gb VM. Then each upgrade asked for more disk, I gave it to them. That last upgrade managed to ask for a fucking 70Gb ! And then it crashed after working for 20 hours that I couldn't use the VM. And proved impossible to repair (after a day trying). And I stupidly had forgotten to do a snapshot. So I had to restore from backup. Over the network (10 hours) and the backup ended up on a VMDK disk (non resizable), which I had to transform to VDI resizable (20 hours over the network, twice because I forgot the --format option). And then I had to go through one year of Win10 upgrades again (hint, it took like 5 reboots and 3 days). Fuck Win10 with a chainsaw, fuck it, fuck it, fuck it. And it's ugly too and file explorer keeps getting worse and unusable.

Re:Oh, great

[Zero__Kelvin]

Sure, but at least the TCO for Windows is lower!

Re:Oh, great

[bn-7bc]

Hmm correct me if I’m wrong pu if each windows yodate (at keast the sesonaly nsmed ones) keep preaking things, that keads to losy productivety and other costs would thst not raise windowses TCO, or has that term been rediffibed, I mustvadmit thst keeping ot top of all thr TLAs ar nor axactly at the top of my list

Re:Oh, great

[Anonymous Coward]

How can *you* speak about productivity while using a broken keyboard?

Thank you Steam!

[Anonymous Coward]

Now I can leave this shit behind and still easily play SpinTires! (And my 3000USD machine is now a work tool too and not only a toy!)

Linux is Free too

[FudRucker]

and without the built in spyware and corporate adware, no thanks, go be big brother somewhere else

Re:Linux is Free too

[Anonymous Coward]

Linux is fine unless you save your financial software database on a flashdrive and accidentally plug it into a Wondows 10 PC. "There's something wrong with your USB storage device. Windows will now fix it for you, sending all files newer than 3 months ago to hell".

"Scum" is nicer than Microsoft.

[Anonymous Coward]

"... Microsoft is scummier than they have ever been."

Microsoft has a long history of being destructive toward users. Scum is generally not destructive.

My opinion, shared by many others.

Rolling updates ?

[AncalagonTotof]

Did M$ filed a patent for rolling update ? Obviously the best innovation they brought to us these few last years. Oh, wait ! Where did I see something similar ?...

You pay more. Microsoft sells your data?

[Futurepower(R)]

You said, "The subscription mode proposed by Microsoft is for business customers"

What companies will want to pay more?

Microsoft and Microsoft employees will have full access to everything on every company computer? I don't know of anyone or any company that would allow that.

Windows 10 is possibly the worst spyware ever made. "Buried in the service agreement is permission to poke through everything on your PC."

sudo apt-get install windows-update-package

[Anonymous Coward]

I just got chills.

Try to get your hands on Win10 LTSB

[schweini]

I just want to point out that everyone should try to get their hands on Windows 10 LTSB edition - it is the corporate super slimmed down version of Win10, with seemingly all the spyware and a lot of other superfluous things removed.

Hang on

[Rainwulf]

How about they fix the absolute core issues of the OS before releasing more "features" no body wants?

The horrific stability of explorer, task manager not having any power at all, wireless is still heavily broken, updates taking half an hour or more, the constant resetting of file associations, the broken offline files feature, airplane mode doesn't work (i have a picture of a surface in airplane mode, connected to a wifi access point and having working internet access with teamviewer)

They are skipping the terrible user interface problems and adding features that no one gives a fuck about.

Fix the stupid resolution scaling issues. Fix the massive issues with surface's, they OWN FUCKING HARDWARE.

Are windows version numbers copying ubuntu?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is it the year and the month?

a cloud-powered clipboard

[Vskye]

Now explain to me what could "possibly" go wrong with that idea.

Here's a few:
Use a password manager that you cut and paste your passwords?
Personal information between documents?
Etc.

Just give up Microsoft, clearly the only thing you care about now is monetizing user data to sell to others.

Re:a cloud-powered clipboard

[ebvwfbw]

I know, it's almost as if they want people to drop windows in droves. Cloud, which cloud? The one Microsoft runs and rents out to the CIA/FBI/Chinese? Cloud is really just another name for some else's server. So why do we need to put clipboard contents on a server some place? Sounds *STUPID*! Why can't it work the way its always worked.

Is it archived, indexed? So when someone is writing a response, cuts and pastes it and it says "I'll shove sausages down your throat and put starving dogs up your butt!" (Moe, crank call on the Simpsons) that's captured some place to be used against you later when they find sausages down someone's throat and they're devoured by dogs?

Imagine in the financial arena or government that has secrets. There will have to be a way to prevent that.

Yea, we laugh now.

All I want

[ShakaUVM]

All I want from Microsoft is a single toggle switch, labelled "Privacy?" with yes/no options.

If you choose yes, it shuts down all telemetry to Microsoft.

If you choose no, then you can individually pick and choose your settings, same as before.

Windows 10, contrary to rumor, is not actually a free OS, and so they shouldn't be able to get away with all of this freemium Google-esque spying.

Oh, that, and the ability to actually control updates again in Home.