MORE Windows 10 bugs! Too many Start menu apps BREAK it

An issue with the new Windows 10 Start menu means that those with more than 512 application shortcuts will have missing entries. In Windows 10, the Start menu includes an All Apps list, which you can search for quick access to installed applications. Start menu shortcuts are still shortcut files placed in the same special …

[djstardust]

Ermmmmm

Another good idea is to defer upgrading to Windows 10 until this kind of annoyance is fixed. ®

No shit Sherlock.

I'm laughing at all the people posting on FB that they will be upgrading this morning. Good luck (and don't phone me when it all goes titsup!)

[Jason Bloomberg]

Re: Ermmmmm

And it's a good idea not to venture out until terrorism and violence have been eradicated.

Of course it's always wise to assess risks before doing anything, and there will always be bugs in Windows 10 just as there will be bugs in every other OS, but how likely are those bugs and how catastrophic is encountering them?

It feels to me that insinuating it's a bad idea to upgrade to Windows 10 is driven by wanting to spoil the party and is mostly click-bait for those who want to push an anti-Microsoft agenda, would prefer people were not using Windows at all.

[nkuk]

Re: Ermmmmm

Using your same analogy, you would have to be pretty foolish to visit a place where you already know there is a good chance of something bad happening.

There's not a single thing in Windows10 I need to use my PC, no compelling "must have" feature, so to me it makes more sense to wait until there's an actual reason to upgrade rather than just upgrade for the sake of upgrading. Windows10 isnt a stable, reliable, OS, even hours before release it was in a state of flux with fixes (potentially causing their own issues) being added so the benefits to me nowhere near outweigh the risks.

I have a stable system I'm happy with, forced updates are a problem waiting to happen (in fact even before release there have been major problems with NVidia drivers) so I lose nothing by waiting, I have a whole year to choose to update, I see no reason to rush in on day one.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Ermmmmm

I don't think he meant upgrading entirely, just upgrading too early. Wait for the service packs, maybe an incremental upgrade or two....

[qwarty]

Re: Ermmmmm

It took 3 months from release for the Android 5.0 update to arrive on my Nexus 7 with little information in the meantime except what I could pick up from anecotal reports of show stopping bugs on forums from those who had received the update. Google themselves were silent on the issues and the exceptionally long delay.

I expect we'll start to find out today how much better or worse Microsoft is performing on their dramatically higher and more varied installed base. I'm not starting to update, not even my test system, today. Will see what reports surface first. At least Microsoft seem to be keen on keeping users better informed on bugs.

[Someone Else]

@ djstardust -- Re: Ermmmmm

Another good idea is to defer upgrading to Windows 10 until this kind of annoyance is fixed

There, FTFY

[RAMChYLD]

Re: Ermmmmm

But doesn't Windows 8 have the same issue? I put a plethora of dev programs on my lappy and then installed Visual Studio, and the darn shortcut isn't showing up in the start screen even though checking the start menu folder shows that it's there. I was in fact hoping that the problem would go away with Win10...

[Zog_but_not_the_first]

"people posting on FB that they will be upgrading"

As night follows day...

[Paul J Turner]

Re: "people posting on FB that they will be upgrading"

If we don't hear from them that there were big problems, we can assume that's because there were? ;-)

[JP19]

I have 600

I have 520 in all users start menu and 80 in the user start menu and I'm rather careful about not installing crap I don't use on this PC. I also don't much use links to documents in the start menu.

What kind of idiot coded a 512 limit, and coded an ugly fail when the limit is exceeded?

How the did this not show up in testing or is it a new fail?

[Paul Shirley]

Re: I have 600

As the fanbois keep telling us, no one has more than a dozen apps they use regularly. 512 is infinity in the Win10 world.

[Terry 6]

Re: I have 600

It becomes very finite when the installer writes a link to the actual programme, another to the software options menu, another to the uninstaller and another to "xprogramme on the web".

[Dan 55]

Re: I have 600

Not sure about the latest versions but Office and Visual Studio have written a shitload of entries in their time.

I initially thought the article meant TIFKAM apps only, in which case the array could be a fixed size which only covers the initial app count for all I care because I'm not installing any other app on it. When I finally am forced to use it.

[joed]

Re: I have 600

How the heck. 600? That start screen/menu has to be scrolled for an hour. Live tiles on and all that your pc did is refreshing tiles.

Is this everything they had in the "Store";)

[JP19]

Re: I have 600

"start screen/menu has to be scrolled for an hour"

I use classic shell on Win 7 and the top level of the start menu is about 110 items and occupies one and a half vertical columns of my 2560x1600 screen.

[Ken Hagan]

Re: I have 600

"How the did this not show up in testing or is it a new fail?"

It could easily have survived the whole beta program unless someone explicitly tests for it.

Most beta testers are smart enough not to use their main machine as a test box. I've been running the beta on a variety of boxes, but all of them disposable and I haven't installed a full complement of apps on any of them. I'd guess also that 512 is significantly above the average -- probably several standard deviations above. It's well beyond what most of us would regard as a realistic number of installed apps, even allowing for several shortcuts per product.

(Then again, Trevor's just told us he has 4000 tabs open in his browser. I wonder where that lies in the distribution. My first reaction was "is that even possible?" but on a 64-bit machine it probably is. (On a 32-bit kernel I think you'd start to run out of threads or processes.))

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: I have 600

Easily possible if you never close any tabs and that's when having 32GB of RAM actually comes in handy!

[Someone Else]

@JP19 -- Re: I have 600

What kind of idiot coded a 512 limit, and coded an ugly fail when the limit is exceeded?

The kind that work for Microsoft.

[rtb61]

Re: @JP19 -- I have 600

This seems more like a management plan. That limit had to be coded in and is not by accident, unlimited is the logically size bound to memory capacity and other much larger limits. Basically M$ hate the start menu and purposefully borked it. They want the program search because each program search also triggers an idiot 'BING' search guaranteeing them more hits to sell to advertisers.

So they tried it on to force program search to see if they could get away with it, likely windows 10 is full of crap like this waiting to be discovered.

[Timmy B]

Re: @JP19 -- I have 600

I agree. As a developer I often have stupid limits like that imposed on me no matter how much I hate it. You can't simply ignore what your managers say - even if you think you know better.

[Dan 55]

Re: @JP19 -- I have 600

No, it's not that. Having more than 512 entries also borks searching from the start menu.

[Just Enough]

Re: I have 600

But you only need two links. One for "Edge", and one for MS Office.

Any more than that and you are using Windows in a non-approved manner, and obviously up to no good.

[Lee D]

Re: I have 600

I have over 1000 entries, including folders however, if I count everything in my Start Menu and All Users Start Menu.

My menu, however, looks pristine and happily fits on a 1600 x 900 screen. It's called folder organisation, people.

Accessories, Administrative Tools, Games, Hardware, Internet, Multimedia, Office, Startup, Utilities.

Inside each, more sub-folders (e.g. Multimedia contains Graphics, Music, etc.). Every program no more than 3-4 key presses away. Don't need no damn search to find anything, it's all there in categories. Classic Shell start menu to make it look like the menus of old (and search, if I ever need it and get rid of the Metro junk). And 99.99% (literally) of my games are not in Games, because they're all in Steam / GOG Galaxy / etc. and don't need extra specific icons for every damn one of them. Desktop contains 6 icons. But start menu has over 1000 files, easy.

I will test in work but I know that the default image has something like 100 folders on the start menu, under various categories, and each probably has three or so icons on average. Quite possibly I have over 500 shortcuts just in a standard roll-out image of Windows 8.

Whoever coded this literally could not have tested it on any existing system that's been upgraded, or on any system that gets actual day-to-day use. Hell, what's the standard Microsoft set of software to test against before a release? You're telling me that they don't have a list of 100 or more of the most popular apps that they have to install and test individually before any RTM version of Windows?

[John Tserkezis]

Re: I have 600

"What kind of idiot coded a 512 limit, and coded an ugly fail when the limit is exceeded?"

Bill Gates? He's been known for sprouting ideas like that before, maybe he has more of an influence than we thought?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: I have 600

"Nobody could possibly use more than 640K of memory"

[Fluffy Cactus]

Re: I have 600

If I remember right, Billy boy said back then "640K of memory ought to be enough for everybody". Which is right up their with the famous IBM prognosis that went somewhat like "There is a market for may be 50 to 100 so-called personal computers, so we won't invest in that.."

Funny, that a 512 limit would crop up again. The whole thing with the "512 limit" does remind me of the movie "The Andromeda Strain" (after the book by Michael Crichton) that came out in 1971. That was a cool movie. Awesome. Weird virus from outer space kills villagers by turning their blood into a dry corn-flake crunchy red substance. But the "US scientists" had a lab, where they did scientific research to kill the virus, and in that lab they had "computers", and those computers had an "aura of never-failing utterly fantastic scientific exactitude and invincible amazement". These computers had a working memory of 512K, and if you went beyond that, it would stop and "beep and blink an ominous neon green 512K" on the screen (both the computer and the movie screen) accompanied by scary creepy movie music, as if a "the freakishly holy limit of 512K meant that the problem was insolvable" as well as "that the computer had crashed!". And the movie actually ended on one of these "512K blinkies" and left you scared of outer space viruses, inadequate science, and what not. In 1971 Bill Gates was, uhm (thanks Google-Siri-Cortana) 16 years old. Meanwhile, today, computers and operating systems have an "aura of never ending utterly fantastic bugs and more trouble than you can shake a stick at".

Plus the "endlessly pliable changeable promising attributes of software" have been turned into an eternal "my MSFT, Adobe, Oracle, IBM, etc software is cast in stone, and it does not play well with others", and if you don't like it, go away or pay me the big bucks.

[Richard Plinston]

Re: I have 600

> Which is right up their with the famous IBM prognosis that went somewhat like "There is a market for may be 50 to 100 so-called personal computers, so we won't invest in that.."

Completely untrue. IBM had 'personal computers' before the 'IBM 5150 PC': The 5120 and 5130. They also had the System 23 Displaywriter on which the IBM PC was based. They developed the PC because they noticed Apple II* in their mainframe sites running Visicalc and CP/M (on Z80 Softcards) with Wordstar and other software. They designed their PC to be just a bit better than the Apple II: same cassette interface, 160Kb diskettes instead of 120Kb, same BASIC in ROM, CP/M clone PC-DOS, Wordstar, Visicalc, Peach, etc.

They also added terminal facilities (which is why the serial ports are DTE instead of DCE*) and there were versions with mainframe emulation borads.

The intended market was mainframe sites to keep Apple (and others) out. The market there was seen as 20,000 to 50,000. It may be true that initially they did not intend to broaden their customer base by selling 5150s outside existing IBM sites, but dealers and resellers did.

* DTE is Data Terminal Equipment. Most mini and micro computers at the type had their serial ports configured as DCE - Data Communications Equipment, to which serial terminals were connected (eg ADM-3a). Hence the IBM PC was configured to _be_ a terminal.

* The Apple II was advertised as 'Personal Computer' in 1978.

[Adam 1]

Re: I have 600

Also, 2^9? Really? You could kinda understand some numpty using the wrong type and ending up with a 256 limit. 512 is quite creative though.

[Phil Kingston]

Re: I have 600

In the months of running the Technical Preview on a daily driver, I think I only opened up the Start menu once. It's only been put back to placate those who fear change. The other methods of interacting with the OS are, once mastered, better.

[N2]

Re: I have 600

Perhaps it's a hang up from the days of '640Kb ought to be enough for anybody' ?

[Anonymous Coward]

The cascade of bugs just keeps on flowing.

Smug mode as I'm sticking with the nice and stable W7 for the next 5 years.

[Michael Habel]

The cascade of bugs just keeps on flowing.

Smug mode as I'm sticking with the nice and stable W7 for the next 5 years.

You, and every right minded thinker on this Site.... You'd have to be more daft then a brush to jump from Windows 7, to Windows (OS)X this point. But I would love to see some Tech Sites actually give a decent review of the pros & cons of this new OS... And if a jump in the interim should be possibly considered or no.

But, my biggest gripe with Windows (OS)X would be the enforced updates... I don't much care for that. Not one little bit...

[OliverJ]

512 apps ought to be enough for anybody...!

Move along folks nothing to see here.

[Grikath]

Re: 512 apps ought to be enough for anybody...!

But people only ever use 10 at most...

The Internet

Email

Facebook

Game *7 (of which half is rarely ever used)

[Someone Else]

@OliverJ -- Re: 512 apps ought to be enough for anybody...!

512 apps ought to be enough for anybody...!

What manner of moron are you? Probably the same manner of moron that smugly stated that 640K would be all the memory anybody would ever need.

_{Hint: Were that to be true, you would not be reading this post, nor would I be reading yours!}

[VinceH]

Re: @OliverJ -- 512 apps ought to be enough for anybody...!

"What manner of moron are you?"

I suspect the manner of moron that isn't a moron at all. He probably said that in jest, as a deliberate play on the old 640K quote.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: @OliverJ -- 512 apps ought to be enough for anybody...!

People who don't understand irony or sarcasm are the leading cause of internet discussion derailment.

OK, second leading, after people who can't spell and/or have poor grammar and those who feel a unquenchable need to correct those people.

[Rich 11]

Re: @OliverJ -- 512 apps ought to be enough for anybody...!

'an unquenchable'

You're welcome. ;-)

[Terry 6]

Decisions

What kind of idiot coded a 512 limit, and coded an ugly fail when the limit is exceeded?

Forty years doing various jobs as a trainer, user, and support.

And I can't think of a year when I haven't come across some sort of design decision that seems bound to cause far more trouble than it's worth - leading to the inevitable "Why did they do that" cry.

[DrXym]

Re: Decisions

I expect it's one of those things which has a rational explanation even if doesn't seem so on the surface. e.g. perhaps to maintain responsiveness they cache info on up to 512 tiles and nobody tested the boundary condition and so it blew up.

[Steve Evans]

Re: Decisions

It's got to be something like that DrXym... Nobody in their right mind would define a DB field as 9 bit unsigned (or 10 bit signed)...

Then again, they might not be in their right mind!

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Decisions

"It's got to be something like that DrXym... Nobody in their right mind would define a DB field as 9 bit unsigned (or 10 bit signed)...

Then again, they might not be in their right mind!"

-----------------------------------------------

Wow just wow, calling an unknown programmer an idiot, with a completely dumb explanation!

way to go!!!

or were you just proving you know binary bit lengths?

As it's windows its more likely to be an array of objects! with the array limited in size!

mentioning DB fields is just stupidity.

[Timmy B]

Re: Decisions

I see 2 other people actually have an understanding of development.... <sigh>

[Anonymous Coward]

Good ol' Microsoft -

640Kb is enough for anyone

512 apps is enough for anyone

...

[Lost In Clouds of Data]

Except that that '640K' quote that's been attributed to Bill has never ever been verified. Not one single citation exists that can categorically confirm he stated it, just a huge amount of Internet lore that's been built up where other people have quoted it and attributed it to Billy Boy.

It's time to let it die (though I'm under no illusions whatsoever that it will given that it just sounds soooo good).

[MacroRodent]

the 640k quote

just a huge amount of Internet lore

I seem to remember hearing about it long before everyone and his dog started using the Internet. I think it is a real quote (probably taken out of context, or distorted), but the original exists only on paper in some computer magazine from the early 1980's.

[Jediben]

Re: the 640k quote

Come on Jake, tell us the story about that time you and Bill were kayaking on Mars and you told him that his first suggestion of 320kb wasn't enough and that he should double it...

[Ken Hagan]

Re: the 640k quote

Ironically enough, Bill's company went on to produce a real-mode memory manager for Windows that blew the 640K limit away (even on machines with only 1MB of installed memory) at a cost of only one tenth of that space (if memory serves me, the original KERNEL.EXE was a few dozen kilobytes). You didn't even need a 286. You just needed to be very patient.

So maybe this hypothetical billg should have stuck to his guns on 320KB and used the extra space to run a proper OS kernel. But then, that would have meant finding one that he could re-badge in time. (Not to pour scorn on Bill's own programming talents, but it is well-known that he just said "yes" to IBM and *then* had just a week or two to actually come up with an OS.)

[thames]

Re: the 640k quote

@Ken Hagan - "Ironically enough, Bill's company went on to produce a real-mode memory manager for Windows that blew the 640K limit away"

There were several "extended" and "expanded" (two different things by the way) memory managers by various companies. However, they all had severe limitations compared to simply having a 32 bit address space. With some, they just swapped programs in and out of "low" memory. With others, they just swapped data in and out of "low" memory, and they had to be specially written to do this.

I wrote a program for a company that used one of these in order to have more data space for large numerical arrays. Each array had to fit into "low" memory to be worked on, and the various arrays had to be manually swapped between high and low memory. Obviously I couldn't have an individual array which was larger than would fit into low memory, and the low memory had to shared with the quite large program had to all fit in low memory as well. It was a major pain the arse to program, although to the users it just looked like there was lots of data in RAM.

Memory for program code wasn't the big issue in those days, since we had overlays (although designing your program to work with overlays was an issue). The big issue was having enough RAM to hold data. There was a big market for add-on expanded memory boards in order to use very large Lotus 123 spreadsheets on an 8088. Lotus had to be written to be able to use those boards, which swapped data in and out of regular RAM rather like a swap partition does (although with the application doing the swapping, rather than the OS).

By the time 32bit hardware and 32 bit MS-Windows was available and practical in the PC world, things were long overdue for a change. Going from 32 bit to 64 bit was no big deal by comparison.

[Richard Plinston]

Re: the 640k quote

> Ironically enough, Bill's company went on to produce a real-mode memory manager for Windows that blew the 640K limit away

Microsoft may well have written one but it was by no means the first to do this, nor the best. The mechanisms had been used for years with 8085, Z80 and 6502 CPUs. For example I have a machine here with an 8085AH2 '8bit' CPU with 512Kb RAM - 256Kb for OS and programs, 256Kb for a RAM disk running MP/M II.

[Richard Plinston]

Re: the 640k quote

> it is well-known that he just said "yes" to IBM and *then* had just a week or two to actually come up with an OS.)

Both MS and SCP were full DRI OEMs. SCP with their Zebra range of Z80 machines and MS with the Z80 Softcard (for Applle II). They were close and worked together. Bill was quite aware of QDOS/86-DOS/SCP-DOS that was running at SCP. SCP even used the Microsoft languages: BASIC, COBOL, Pascal, with sales of computers.

[thames]

Re: the 640k quote

@MacroRodent - "I seem to remember hearing about it long before everyone and his dog started using the Internet. I think it is a real quote (probably taken out of context, or distorted),"

The story goes back to MSDOS days, long before Internet service was generally available. In the version I recall reading, the quote was indeed taken out of context in that it was part of a rather long and rambling answer to an interview question. People shortened it to "640K ought to be good enough for anyone" to convey the general gist of it without the verbal diarrhoea in the original answer. The overall context was that 640k ought to be good enough for what most people were doing with PCs at the time. The limit was imposed by x86 hardware, along with such lovely programming pains such as 64k maximum segment sizes (which was something a lot more programmers were banging their heads on their desks over rather than the 640k issue).

What the 640k statement really revealed was Gate's lack of vision as to where the industry was going. People with Unix workstations (this was long before Linux existed) laughed at PC limitations, but many people in the PC software industry seemed genuinely puzzled as to why anyone would ever want to have literally megabytes of expensive RAM and to run all those programs at the same time. They simply didn't foresee the cost of RAM coming down so dramatically.

People in the PC industry had come from the 16 bit CP/M world, where 64K was all you got (until the later versions of CP/M). If you remember, CP/M was the defacto industry standard PC OS used in business, and MSDOS was just a cheap knock-off bought from a CP/M source code licensee and adapted for the 8086 (without the tiresome formalities of buying a license - my how casual the industry was about such things in those days). Having 640K of RAM seemed like a lot at the time. Because so many people in the PC industry, including Microsoft, built these assumptions into their software, the transition to 32 bits was slow and painful.

[Roland6]

Re: the 640k quote

> the transition to 32 bits was slow and painful.

We shouldn't forget that MS had to release a patch for XP because it used the 640K "DOS space" to hold the current desktop (wallpaper, icons etc.)

Wouldn't be surprised if some of this code still exists in Win10...

[stanimir]

Re: the 640k quote

>>The limit was imposed by x86 hardware, along with such lovely programming pains such as 64k maximum segment size

Well 8086 had only 16 bit registers, so addressing more than 64KB would be an issue. OTOH you had 3+1(!) different segments (cs/ds/es,ss) at the same time and even SI/DI registers. 8086 was such a wealth compared to the 3-register 6502.

The flat address mode came with 80386 as segment registers became virtually unused. Technically 80386 can address 48 bit (albeit no board would support it).

[Wilseus]

Re: the 640k quote

"People with Unix workstations (this was long before Linux existed) laughed at PC limitations"

And people who owned Macintoshes, Amigas, STs, Archimedes, in fact pretty much any non-Intel-based system, all of which made PCs of the time look stupid.

I still view the fact that we have all ended up being stuck with x86 hardware, is an aberration that should never have happened!

[Kubla Cant]

that '640K' quote that's been attributed to Bill has never ever been verified

Whether he said it or not, he evidently believed it, as Microsoft built an operating system that embodied the 640k limit.

[DrXym]

"Whether he said it or not, he evidently believed it, as Microsoft built an operating system that embodied the 640k limit."

Of course they did because the 8088/8086 only had 20-bits of addressable memory - 1MB. Part of it was reserved for BIOS, peripherals, memory mapped IO and video leaving 640KB. Later versions of DOS (including DRDOS) moved drivers and parts of the kernel into the upper memory leaving more for programs.

When Intel supported larger address spaces with the 80286 & 80386, DOS implemented an extended memory manager that allowed software to make use of it.

[stanimir]

DOS extended memory

himem.sys and all. Actually XMS was pretty terrible since the application had to be programmed (run) in protected mode (80286) which prevented direct use of ms-dos api...

So here comes EMS with bank switching and sort of 80386 requirement (when it became popular).

--------

Prior XMS and EMS there were overlays and manual swapping to disk and what not.

[Anonymous Coward]

That would be because...

of compatibility reasons. Base memory was limited to 640K due to processor design. Adding more wasn't possible until the 286, it's not Microsoft's fault.

[Richard Plinston]

Re: That would be because...

> Base memory was limited to 640K due to processor design.

Not true. The 8086 and 8088 could access the full 1 megabyte (plus nearly 64K if memory management supported that). Many 8086 and 8088 machines could use almost all that 1 megabyte address space, I have several here*. It was the IBM PC that reserved address space for hardware and limited OS and Programs to 640Kb (or slightly more if one used an MDA Monochrome Display Adaptor).

* The ICL PC2 and Quattro 8086 computers used Concurrent-CP/M-86 which was muliuser on serial terminals. Around 980Kb was available to OS and programs.

[GrumpenKraut]

> Except that that '640K' quote that's been attributed to Bill has never ever been verified.

And that is exactly why it's such fun to bring it up ad nauseam.

Have an upvate anyway.

[Anonymous Coward]

Linux has a long-integer app counter to allow for 9,223,372,036,854,775,807 apps. Just saying...

[Anonymous Coward]

sounds like enough but...

but has it been tested to fail gracefully if exceeded?

does it apply to all desktop managers?

wtf do you do with all the icons!

[Paul Shirley]

Re: wtf do you do with all the icons!

... Put them in some sort of hierarchical menu structure?

[Steve Evans]

Re: wtf do you do with all the icons!

... Display them in a carousel, which orbits slightly less frequently than Pluto!

[Roland6]

Re: wtf do you do with all the icons!

>... Display them in a carousel

That would be a useful UI feature, can't possibly implement that, although the major OS vendors could implement a variant that is not as useful. Which reminds me of all the UI innovations over the years that the major vendors have ignored. For example MS with Win8 walked away from the 3D UI concepts publicized in the Windows Longhorn development project (2000~2004 - not to be confused with the Windows build called "Longhorn" that was released as Vista in 2007) and nailed their UI firmly to a 2D single application world; and did it in a way that wasn't particularly helpful...

[Avatar of They]

Re: sounds like enough but...

If like windows 8 the extra tiles mean you just scroll to the right.

If you use a mouse this takes a very very very very very long time to scroll that far to the right (I don't have touch screen) and nnoying as the little slider is a tiny ling on the bottom so you invariably move your mouse and move off the slider having to repeat.

I don't have 512 but very near.

It is like they want to make you type in everything...

[dogged]

Re: sounds like enough but...

> If you use a mouse this takes a very very very very very long time to scroll that far to the right

Your mouse has no scrollwheel?

[Captain Scarlet]

Re: sounds like enough but...

"wtf do you do with all the icons!"

Scroll through very fast and yell "WEEEE!"

[VinceH]

Re: sounds like enough but...

""wtf do you do with all the icons!"

Scroll through very fast and yell "WEEEE!"

Better still, emulate three wheels, displayed edge-on with the icons on the outside. Have a launch button which, when clicked, spins all three at slightly different (random) speeds. Only launch an app if all three wheels stop with that app's icon displayed.

[GrumpenKraut]

Re: sounds like enough but...

> wtf do you do with all the icons!

Emulate the typical MS windows desktop?

[Anthony Hegedus]

idiotic attitudes all round

1. Whoever coded the 512-app limit has committed a silly schoolboy error! Their manager should be fired.

2. Why should we defer upgrading to an OS that has been released? If it's released, it's ready. And if it's ready, it should work. Yes, there'll be a few problems, but if a company actually releases software, isn't it supposedly fit-for-purpose? Or have we reached the stage where we don't trust the biggest software company in the world to make software that actually fucking works?

That aside, when they say there's a 512-app limit on the start menu, is this 512 Program shortcuts, or 512 of those stupid metro "apps" that don't have any purpose?

[Pen-y-gors]

Re: idiotic attitudes all round

"if a company actually releases software, isn't it supposedly fit-for-purpose?"

Which planet do YOU live on? I'd like to move there...

[Anthony Hegedus]

Re: idiotic attitudes all round

Maybe I should expand on what I wrote. We expect a few problems but the software should be fit for purpose *generally* - I didn't mean it should be "bug free". But to me, it doesn't make sense that a professional, well-known company like Microsoft is releasing software where the general consensus is "don't install it". If that's the professional opinion, then why are Microsoft releasing it yet?

That's not to say that it's a good idea for everyone to install it immediately, but what's the point in having it available if it's not a good idea to use it? This to me is a reflection on the state of the computer industry as a whole. And a sad reflection at that.

[GregC]

Re: what's the point in having it available if it's not a good idea to use it?

I don't know for sure, but my guess would be: Because deadline!

I imagine the meeting went something like this:

Marketing wonk: "...and we've announced a release date of 29th July"

Development: "What? There's no way it will be ready by then, there's still loads of known issues to fix"

Marketing wonk: "We've said the 29th, it has to be the 29th!"

Development: "I'm taking this upstairs!"

Nadella: "Release it on the 29th"

That seems to be how it works these days. Don't worry about bugs, we can patch it later! Just release it! It's not just MS of course, pretty much everyone seems to be the same.

[Anthony Hegedus]

Re: what's the point in having it available if it's not a good idea to use it?

And therein lies a major problem with the computer industry as a whole

[Richard Plinston]

Re: what's the point in having it available if it's not a good idea to use it?

> Because deadline!

Bill is alleged to to said: "Windows 95 _will_ be out by Christmas, but we may have to delay December for a couple of months."

[dubious]

Re: what's the point in having it available if it's not a good idea to use it?

Nah, releasing buggy crud is how the Agile development methodology works!

[OliverJ]

@GregC Feature parity

Apparently, Windows 10 is pretty much a work in progress, i.e. not ready. But had to be shipped. So don't be surprised to find a lot of functionality coming with the next Service Pack which you expected in the product from the beginning.

I learned a new euphemism recently. If you ship a new version where half of the functionality from the previous version isn't working yet, that's "we haven't got full feature parity yet".

[nkuk]

Re: idiotic attitudes all round

The phrase "once bitten, twice shy" springs to mind, or more like after you've been bitten from head to toe, "fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me".

Microsoft set the release date publicly a long time ago and it would be highly embarrassing for them if they didn't release on schedule, so they have to, whether the product is ready or not, and experience, and all the Beta builds that have been in a state of change right up until release day, tell us its not ready.

[Someone Else]

@ Anthony Hegedus -- Re: idiotic attitudes all round

That's not to say that it's a good idea for everyone to install it immediately, but what's the point in having it available if it's not a good idea to use it?

An earlier poster asked you (in response to your first post in this thread): "What planet are you from?" I'm still waiting for an answer, because your planet clearly doesn't have such things as "executive bonuses" and the "Myth of Shareholder Value", which are the basis for all Big Decisions™ made on this planet...including releasing a Major Corporation's flagship product before it is ready (or "Fit for Purpose", as you put it).

[Tim Anderson]

Re: idiotic attitudes all round

It's any shortcut, not just Metro apps

[eJ2095]

Re: idiotic attitudes all round

Erm its a microsoft product!

Just think of Vista eh

[Anthony Hegedus]

Re: idiotic attitudes all round

Of course. Nobody trusts Microsoft. Why should they? They have a proven track record of making rubbish

[Steve Cooper]

Re: idiotic attitudes all round

A proven track of creating 'rubbish' that has been the most popular desktop operating system in the world for the last 3 decades.

[keithpeter]

Re: idiotic attitudes all round

"A proven track of creating 'rubbish' that has been the most commonly used desktop operating system in the world for the last 3 decades."

That's better.

I've used Windows in various versions since around 1992-ish(?) [386s where you had to type Win at the prompt to get a desktop] because it was what ran on the computers my employers provided me with. Mostly, it has worked, because the various employers have paid people to make sure it did. Can't say anyone actively made a choice to use it.

[adnim]

Re: idiotic attitudes all round

Anthony, I don't know why you were voted down so much. Perhaps it was... "nobody trusts Microsoft" when it is apparent many do.

I did trust Microsoft to earn me a living and they did for so many years with Windows. If Windows just worked I wouldn't have managed to pay my mortgage. So they are, were in my case good for something.

Have an up vote in a vain attempt to redress the balance.

[Neil Alexander]

"Their manager should be fired."

I wish I could use that one at work.

[Wilseus]

Re: idiotic attitudes all round

"Or have we reached the stage where we don't trust the biggest software company in the world to make software that actually fucking works?"

Some would say we reached that stage about 30 years ago.

[Paul Shirley]

bug or exploit in waiting?

The big question: did they allocate a array[512] with checked bounds or is it a buffer overrun waiting for an exploit?

[Colin Bull 1]

Its a performance issue

Since Dos 2.1 ( perhaps before ) to Windows 7 there has always been a performance hit with too may files in a directory. Unix has a far better solution and can deal with 10s of thousand of files.

Someone realised things were slowing down with too many shortcuts so just put a limit on it. Performance problem fixed !

[Ptol]

Microsoft use FAT16 for new start menu....

Has an inexperienced programmer got confused with all the different API's on windows and inadvertently used a FAT16 library call to get the start menu shortcuts?

[45RPM]

I will upgrade to Windows 10, eventually (because I need to test the Windows builds of my software). I’ll wait for the most egregious bugs to be fixed first though. And right now, I’m just enjoying this tasty bag of popcorn - and watching the show.

[Thecowking]

I've been using the technical preview on my gaming box since it launched and I'll be honest, it's no worse than any other version of Windows and faster than 7 was (which is what I updated from).

I've seen all the stories and failed miserably to find any bugs in every day use. Which as a software tester by trade is a bit of an arse.

Frankly it's been as boringly stable as ubuntu mate is on my laptop.

[Andy Non]

I'll wait

As much as I detest Windows 8.1 I'll wait before "upgrading" to 10. Sounds too much like a case of out of the frying pan and into the fire.

[ColonelClaw]

Question: can I natively turn those picture tiles bollocks into a useful text-only list, or will I need to resort to a 3rd party app? (Start10 or whatever)

[nkuk]

Yes, you can, one of the first things I did when testing the beta builds was to delete all the live tiles from the start menu.

[Stretch]

I'll be upgrading my 8.1 laptop as soon as I can. Will leave real PC on Win7 for foreseeable.

[Steve Cooper]

These people saying they'll wait a while for bugs to be found before upgrading... but we need people to upgrade to find these bugs :)

Anyway, I won't have any non Windows 10 machines in my house by the weekend (ignoring Windows 2012 servers and embedded devices).

[adnim]

Face it

Windows 10 is not ready for release.

I am going to pop a blank HD into my kit and install it onto that for just one reason... I play games in windows and the alleged extra performance of DX12 will be appreciated. I want to check it out.

No doubt this will be a frustrating experience as I try to stop the OS talking to Microsoft without breaking anything. Why would I want my OS not to talk to MS?.... It is my computer, its my data it has fuck all to do with Microsoft how and what I use my PC for. And have no intention of being a beta tester for MS.

Windows 10 is free for several reasons:

It is no real improvement over Win 7. It is broke and Microsoft expect users to beta test for them. MS want to emulate Apple and lock people into a Microsoft ecosystem. Microsoft want every windows users to become their bitch.

I supported Windows from 3.1 through to Windows Vista. Fortunately during the debacle that was Vista I was made redundant due to business closure. Now that I am self employed I have choice and no matter how lucrative fixing and supporting a fucked up Microsoft OS might be, I prefer an easy life... Goodbye MS, don't let the door hit ya ass on the way out.

I really shouldn't show glee at someone else's misfortune but this is Microsoft and I am pleased as punch at this train wreck... I do however have a modicum of sympathy for the victims of Windows 10 and Microsoft's business model. The same kind of sympathy I have for those that cross a busy road without looking.

[Anonymous Coward]

None of the home users I support have mentioned the W10 upgrade. I won't mention it to them - let sleeping dogs lie.

However I will not be surprised if someone decides they are now an "expert" - and they instigate the upgrade themselves. When I have to try to pick up the pieces they will ruefully say that they thought they were saving my time by not asking my advice.

Whenever a user does that it generally leads me to have to undo a big mess later.

[SteveAx]

So, the make it or break it feature for Windows 10 was the start menu after pissing everybody off with Windows 8 and 8.1 and they aren't able to get it right? Even without the limit, you can't organize the entries in the All Apps section like you could before. It was nice to be able to organize everything there into you're own groupings so the menu wasn't very cluttered. Now you're stuck seeing lots of MS apps you can't move around or remove easily. While there are other apps to replace the start menu, it's clear that MS isn't motivated to bring back the functionality that everybody hated Windows 8 for removing. So far windows 10 is a big disappointment. I don't understand all the glowing reviews and how much people talked about the start menu when the previews came out. They always skirted around the fact that MS was making it more limited and not nearly as functional as Windows 7 and before. Very unfortunate.

[Dlewbellyahoo]

We were excited during the preview stage because in the earlier previews, the all apps/programs section worked more like it does in 7. Many of us gave MS feedback in response to the changes, but obviously they decided to keep what we have. There are still benefits to 10, but yeah, they screwed up the start menu. I'll still upgrade soon (running 8.1 currently), but my start menu has 600+ items, so I'm waiting until at least that is fixed.

[lambda_beta]

Not to worry!

No to worry - by the time Window 13 comes out, all these issues (and other we don't yet know about) will be resolved.

[Mad Chaz]

Something happened

I had to take a screenshot and share this.

http://imagebin.ca/v/2ANBv9p0tYzz

Probably one of microsoft's finest error messages. This is from the "media creation tool " provided by microsoft. You can find the link in the error you find in your logs from failed Windows 10 upgrades.

Or bellow.

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/preview-faq?ocid=client_wu

I used the "upgrade this computer now" option.

Hit close and that's the end of it. I find this more amusing then I should, if I am honest.

[Anonymous Coward]

History...

512 apps is more than anyone will ever need on a computer

[Jean-Paul]

What about a work around?

I've only got 384 apps so can't test it, but a habit I've got left over from when OS X was running on my main machine was launching with spotlight. Under Windows 8.1 I don't the same thing, and now under Windows 10 this is improved even more...

Just press the Windows key and start typing the name of the app. Works super quick for me and should get anyone going until a patch is released.

[Mystic Megabyte]

Re: What about a work around?

Just press the Windows key and start typing the name of the app. Works super quick for me and should get anyone going until a patch is released.

Just like I've been doing on Ubuntu for a few years.

[Small Furry Animal]

Re: What about a work around?

I was going to say 'Me too' but then I remembered I run OpenSUSE ;-)

[David Webb]

Meh

512 apps, I can cope with that. Cortana who replies "something went wrong", no matter what I ask, I can cope with that. A browser that enjoys hanging on BBC news, I can cope with that. Jumping through hoops to get a clean install, I can cope with that.

Screen dimming by default on UAC (and not popping up the confirmation box if you remove the dimming).... FU MS!

[jaime]

I guess it was a good thing the Windows 10 upgrade failed on my install then since when I ran that command in Powershell I get:

Count : 773

Average :

Sum :

Maximum :

Minimum :

Property :

[fLaMePrOoF]

I use Classic Shell, works fine with Windows 10...

[Jonathan 27]

I never ran into this problem with the beta, I used it for 6 months. I've got a lot of junk installed, games and development tools.

[Anonymous Coward]

Shirley you jest

Didn't you know that Win10 is in beta test mode for the next ten years? You get to be an unpaid beta tester.

[The little voice inside my head]

And there are working solutions by OTHER companies

Microsoft should be buying these companies or relay the work to them, kind of what car manufacturers do with their parts, certain ones make the airbags (I know, they failed miserably) but you get the point, I just read about classic shell and Start10... and might be a solution for such a big company with no specific grip to the main idea of an OS.

[Anonymous Coward]

Upper Entries

Oh this is ridiculous we have hundreds of hard coded apps to move in the db now!

Can't we stop them installing stuff!

513 NSA Keylogger

514 NSA Microphone

515 NSA File Explorer

516 NSA Data Uploader

517 NSA Contact Profiler

518 NSA Webcam

519 NSA Bluetooth Proximity

520 NSA Wifi Monitor

521 NSA Biometric

522 NSA ...

[Hans 1]

Wait for SR1 before you upgrade to Windows 10, I tell ya!

[madegore]

I should have waited!!!

Since I upgraded to Windows 10 I can no longer turn off my laptop by closing it down. Now I can only turn it off manually. Even if it goes to sleep I can't wake it up and I have to turn it off and then push the little button to turn it back on. I was in such a hurry to get it that I didn't stop and think of all the bugs that would have to be fixed. Is anyone else having this problem?

[madegore]

I should have waited!!!

Since I upgraded to Windows 10 I can no longer turn off my laptop by closing it down. Now I can only turn it off manually. Even if it goes to sleep I can't wake it up and I have to turn it off and then push the little button to turn it back on. I was in such a hurry to get it that I didn't stop and think of all the bugs that would have to be fixed. Is anyone else having this problem?

[Ilsa Loving]

No one made the obvious joke?

512 entries should be enough for anybody!

[wsm]

Another NT4 issue

It's amazing how many Microsoft engineers must not have been around in the days of NT4.

When too many fonts were installed on those systems, the ability to manage fonts disappeared. Even recreating a new Fonts folder didn't help because the original was registered as the system's location of fonts and new folders couldn't replace.

I said registered, because it was an issue with the fonts in the registry. NT4 could not handle more than 512 fonts in the list because the registry key for them was too small. It took them years to fix it.

I wouldn't doubt it's the same thing this time. They can't store more than 512 names of apps in some special place in the registry where they completely broke the new (no) Start Menu.

[Anonymous Coward]

There's a proper fix out there...

...buy a MacBook instead.