back to article Windows Fall Creators Update is here: What do you want first – bad news or good news?

Just over two years after the introduction of both Windows 10 and the "Windows as a service" concept, Microsoft has released the Fall Creators Update aka version 1709, build 16299. We took it for a spin. Microsoft’s efforts in making in-place upgrade smooth have paid off. There will always be cases where things go wrong, but …

  1. Himalayaman

    Start menu

    Just install classic shell to have a real start menu again.

    1. bombastic bob Silver badge
      Unhappy

      Re: Start menu

      "Just install classic shell to have a real start menu again."

      unfortunately doesn't fix the 2D FLATSO FLUGLY, adware, spyware, "the Metro" settings vs control panel schizophrenia, forced updates, ...

      not saying that classic shell is NOT an improvement. it is. It's really just putting lipstick on the boar, and (as another El Reg commenter once wittily quipped, to the best of my remembrance) NOT EVEN on the end that goes "oink".

      related, I hear "all of that" is still in this alleged "creator's" update. And the article had a picture of what looked like a win-phone display. I dislike the vertical-oriented displays anyway, since I view the world in "widescreen" format, but you don't do much "creating" on a windows phone, now do ya?

      [well it's a phone interface on a desktop, this win-10-nic, so it's just as well]

      1. Anonymous IV
        Unhappy

        Re: Start menu

        I've had Classic Shell cause a desktop restart loop following the previous major Windows update (v1703) - almost impossible to recover from - but reinstalling Windows 10 again from the ISO made Classic Shell work perfectly.

        The opinion from the forum was that Microsoft probably screwed something up in the major or minor updates over the past year and more. Reinstalling from scratch was far more likely to allow Classic Shell to work.

        After that I realised that all I wanted from Classic Shell was the Control Panel menu entry/desktop icon, which can be acquired by other means.

        1. mhenriday
          Boffin

          Re: Start menu

          After «upgrading» till Windows 10 (Pro, in my case), version 1709 (the so-called «Creators Update» ; Microsoft is known for its low-keyed modesty), the following message is displayed on the desktop of users who have Classic Shell (version 4.3.1) installed translation from the Swedish, apologies for any discrepancies) :

          Classic Start Menu

          Classic Shell needs to configure itself for the new operating system.

          OK

          Pressing «OK» does the trick....

          Henri

        2. mhenriday
          Boffin

          Re: Start menu

          After «upgrading» to Windows 10 (Pro, in my case), version 1709 (which Microsoft, which is famed for its low-keyed modesty, calls «Fall Creators Update»), users with the latest version (4.3.1) of Classic Shell will see the following message displayed on their screen (translation from the Swedish, my apologies for any discrepancies) :

          Classic Start Menu

          Classic Shell need to configure itself for the new operating system.

          OK

          Clicking «OK» does the trick.....

          Henri

      2. Timmy B

        Re: Start menu

        "And the article had a picture of what looked like a win-phone display. I dislike the vertical-oriented displays anyway"

        Bob, you maroon! That's just a clip of the Cortana window. You don't really think that's the whole desktop do you?? And please, please, please I beg of you - tell us what win-10-nic means.

        1. RyokuMas
          Facepalm

          Re: Start menu

          You can lead a zealot to a decision but you can't make him think...

        2. Zippy's Sausage Factory

          Re: Start menu

          "tell us what win-10-nic means."

          Pronounced "win-ten-nick", to rhyme with "Titanic".

          At least, that's the impression I got from it.

        3. bombastic bob Silver badge
          Devil

          Re: Start menu

          "tell us what win-10-nic means."

          Windows 10 + Titanic --> Win-10-nic. And Micro-shaft KNOWS about the icebergs, and yet they're going FULL SPEED AHEAD towards them. No course changes, just minor adjustments to the direction.

          And, it's kinda funny how a screen clip looked JUST like a phone display. Well, "Phone-ie" OS indeed.

          Micro-shaft: re-inventing the look/feel of 1985, by moving the decimal point from "Windows 1.0" to "Windows 10". (And then adding the spyware, adware, etc.)

          http://guidebookgallery.org/screenshots/win101

          yeah, 1985 called, they want their FLATSO interface back. At least Windows 1.0 had MORE COLOR...

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Start menu

            "yeah, 1985 called, they want their FLATSO interface back. At least Windows 1.0 had MORE COLOR..."

            Yeah speaking of which, who else noticed during the rebranding exercise how they also sucked all the colors out of the MSN logo pretty butterfly leaving only the deathly dark blackness of oblivion? I seriously have to wonder whether someone in that company involved in that design did it in full awareness of the irony as a sort of comment on the change in direction.

            I think it's part of the decline of western civilization. Lots of big companies seem to be coming out with batshit insane designs and slogans which make me think that just maybe the people being told to come up with the designs are much smarter than the people demanding the changes and that maybe, just maybe they are so pissed off with the state of affairs that they decide to just troll the company with a satirical design or slogan.

            1. Wayland

              Re: Start menu

              Cultural change. Darkness is upon us. A few years ago I noticed Robocop was a dark metal rather than the silver of the first movie. You have bright colours for a birthday party, white for a wedding and black for death.

              Are Microsoft moving with the times or shaping the times?

              1. Kiwi
                Coat

                Re: Start menu

                white for a wedding and black for death.

                So..Explain the groom's normal clothing colour then?

            2. This post has been deleted by its author

          2. Timmy B

            Re: Start menu

            "Windows 10 + Titanic --> Win-10-nic. "

            At last. But it's terrible. Ti Tan Nic =/= Win Ten Nic. Unless you think the boat is pronounced Titennic. And the flat is a design choice that's becoming standard across all UI design. From iPads to the Reg everything is losing the faux 3d look.

            1. Updraft102

              Re: Start menu

              "And the flat is a design choice that's becoming standard across all UI design. From iPads to the Reg everything is losing the faux 3d look."

              Well, they can just go and be stupid without me. The Reg is just a web site, so their decision to be trendy rather than sensible can be tolerated, and if I really wanted to, I could use Stylish to restyle it to my liking. I spend a lot more time in my browser than I do at The Reg (since I use my browser all the time I am here as well as at many other sites), and a lot more time in turn in my OS than in my browser, and for those, I am not going to tolerate stupidity because some dingbat declared flat design to be the fashion trend of the moment.

              The Reg reported a few months ago (or so) that users are 20-something percent slower using flat interfaces than skeuomorphic ones, according to one study. It makes perfect sense-- we're creatures that have, as a species, been dealing with 3d objects since the beginning of the species. Fashion changes, but the way our minds work does not... we are what we are, and that's beings with binocular vision who have evolved to perceive things visually in three dimensions. Fashion can go take a hike!

            2. jelabarre59

              Re: Start menu

              And the flat is a design choice that's becoming standard across all UI design. From iPads to the Reg everything is losing the faux 3d look.

              Yeah, and everything consequently looks like shit. So what was your point?

      3. iron Silver badge

        Re: Start menu

        The article does not have a picture of a WinPhone display. I think you're confused by the picture of Cortana on a desktop/laptop that has been cropped so it only shows the relevant part and not the rest of the screen.

      4. 1Rafayal

        Re: Start menu

        Bob, what is it with you and 2D UI's?

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Start menu

          "what is it with you and 2D UI's?"

          They don't work so well if you rely on Braille....

        2. bombastic bob Silver badge
          Mushroom

          Re: Start menu

          "Bob, what is it with you and 2D UI's?"

          They *SUCK*. It's like being in a room with ugly wallpaper, or a ridiculous color scheme. It's "bad Feng Shui". It's disturbing, distracting, and NOT what I want. When I see it, it PISSES ME OFF, just by BEING there. [I actually tried to work with Windows 8 ("Ape"), once I put classic shell on it, but couldn't stomach it, nor the 2D FLATSO DevStudio that went with it. YUCHHHKKKK!]

          I'll make the assumption that a large number of people reading El Reg weren't computer gurus back in the early 90's when Windows 3.0 first hit the shelves. So here's some history...

          Back then, most computers were running MS-DOS with DOS applications that had text-based interfaces with menus, all flat-looking because you can't really do 3D effect without a GUI. Windows 286 and Windows 386 (both 2.x versions) were kinda sucky and looked a lot like THIS [but only slightly better]

          http://guidebookgallery.org/screenshots/win101

          Microsoft had been developing OS/2 presentation manager for IBM, but it ONLY ran on PS/2 machines, and a very select handful of clones, because IBM and the way they did things back then. I had taken a class in OS/2 Presentation Manager programming [I actually like the OS/2 API naming convention better than windows, because it's "object verb" not "verb object" and therefore easier to find similar things in the docs]. But when I tried to BUY OS/2, I couldn't. And I didn't have $$$$ to spend on a PS/2 machine with OS/2 on it.

          OS/2 1.2 looked BETTER in so many ways than its predecessor, because the various elements were "3D Skeuomorphic", such that knobs on scrollbars looked like actual knobs, buttons looked like buttons [not just colored squares with text in them], and so on. It was just enough eye candy to make things PLEASANT and almost made you WANT to use the computer more. Well, I thought so.

          THEN, Windows 3.0 released. It had the SAME KIND of nice 3D looking interface [like OS/2 PM 1.2], a 386 "enhanced mode" built in (so you could run your DOS applications in a window on the same desktop), and a Solitaire application that looked good and probably sold MORE copies of Windows 3.0 than anything else. Its appearance was pleasant, easy to understand, and relatively easy to work with (and you could customize it, to some extent).

          Windows 3.0 _IS_ _WHAT_ _MADE_ _MICROSOFT_ . MS-DOS would've lost to OS/2 had IBM marketed their product for ALL computers. Instead, Bill Gates did that, and guess who won?

          Not only that, but EVERY STUDY I have ever heard of, or even read about on El Reg, says that a 3D skeuomorphic interface is EASIER to work with, that people RECOGNIZE the UI components FASTER, and that it's PREFERRED over "Flatso" by a (conservative) margin of 2 to 1.

          2D FLATSO on a _PHONE_ is even *UGLY*. And on WEB PAGES it's even *UGLIER*. I **HATE** the 'Australis' crap in Firefox. NOT being able to use a "UI Restorer" plugin is motivation to FORK FIREFOX so that I can CONTINUE to use one. Or, if I get motivated enough, maybe I can write my own webkit-based browser that FORCES a classic 3D look with menus and reasonable-looking toolbar buttons.

          It's also POSSIBLE to *REBEL* against the 2D FLATSO. All you need to do is draw some bitmaps for the buttons in your applications, and use THOSE instead of system defaults. I "fixed" the icon of an application I've been working on (droid) so that it has 3D borders. MOST of the icons in the application list on 'droid (that version anyway) have shadows, which give them a 3D look. Everyone I know prefers a 3D look. Only a handful of FASCISTS that insist the REST of us have 2D FLATSO _EVAR_ insist that "we must stop being dinosaurs" and "get with the *MODERN* interface". They should just GET OFF MY LAWN. I want my 3D SKEUOMORPHIC INTERFACE, DAMMIT! Even if _I_ must WRITE IT MYSELF.

          1. Bernard M. Orwell
            Holmes

            Re: Start menu

            You are StarGateSG7, AICMFP.

          2. Updraft102

            Re: Start menu

            Bombastic Bob:

            Most of the flat Windows 8 appearance is just a theme. When I moved from XP to 7, I didn't like the themes available in 7 as supplied... the Aero glass default theme (even with the transparency turned off) was not what I was looking for, not to mention the retina-searingly white backgrounds that were everywhere. The Classic theme _was_ what I was looking for, but the GDI performance seemed to have taken a big hit since the XP days... the onscreen tearing was horrendous, and there seems to be no fix for it other than to use a DWM theme, which Classic is not.

            I searched for and found a theme that offered some of what I wanted, but the white background was there too, so I learned to edit/create Windows themes and made one that gave me all of what I wanted. Most people don't demand a #E1E1E1 background as I do; for them, the field is wide open, with tons of downloadable themes on DeviantArt and elsewhere for free.

            When I decided to try 8.1 (this was less than a year ago as I write this; well into the Windows 10 era), I used the .MSSTYLES editor I'd bought to port the theme to 8.1, and after some minor tweaking to get the ported theme adjusted, it's a dead ringer for how it looked in 7. It should be-- it's the same theme.

            Once the theme is done, the Win32 half of 8.x is taken care of. The Metro bits (which do not respond to the .MSSTYLES theme) can be nearly eradicated, so you can live in the Win32 and not worry about that phone app nonsense. Classic Shell, Old New Explorer, and Metro Killer (and a bunch of registry edits) take care of most of the rest, and if you want to go scorched earth, use the tiny but effective command line tool install_wim_tweak to eradicate all of the apps (which I did). Windows Store and all the others are gone, and they've never come back as they do every 6 months with 10.

            So, Metro's pretty much gone. It's the only reason I found 8.1 good enough to make the jump from 7 around the start of 2017. I hate the flat crap too, and just seeing that phone garbage on a PC makes me angry. I won't tolerate it on my PC. Apps are for phones, and flat UIs are for birds... or should I say for "the" birds. I'm as adamant on the point as you are, though perhaps not as bombastic. I have very specific expectations of a given UI, whether it be the UI or the browser (I too hate Australis; I cursed at the screen when I allowed FF to update back then and I saw what they had done with the UI. Classic Theme Restorer is imperative; without it, FF is garbage, like every other browser out there except Pale Moon).

            BTW, The fork of FF you ask for already exists... it is called Waterfox and has been around for five years already, though back then its goal in life was to provide 64-bit binaries for Windows, which Mozilla had for some reason decided not to provide until recently. Now it's the Firefox derivative that will still use the "legacy" addons after FF57, that still allows NPAPI plugins, that has no telemetry, and otherwise is about serving the user rather than Mozilla's agenda of turning FF into Chrome.

            Anyway, I was writing of Metro before that tangent. There are hints of it here and there in my modified 8.1 that appear infrequently, but for the most part, Metro is gone. You can very easily live in the Win32 neighborhood of Win 8.1 without even knowing that other half is/was there.

            Windows 10 is another animal. When they released 8, I guess MS had not yet had the time to embed the app crapp into the OS; it was kind of tacked on around the edges of a traditional Windows UI, which made it relatively easy to bypass. Windows 10's app garbage isn't avoidable the way it is with 8.x... too much of the system dialog stuff has been moved over to UWP. Of course, 10 is so bad that even if they fixed the UI, it would still be crap...

            1. VBF

              Re: Start menu

              I''m still using the XP Theme files on W10 original Creators Update. I used them on W7 and apart from minor tweaking, they are very satisfactory...IMO!

          3. Splork
            Flame

            Re: Start menu

            You forgot to mention that IBM paid MS to develop parts of OS/2 until MS walked off the job. Then a shout time later Windows 3 came out. Coincidence? I doubt it...

    2. This post has been deleted by its author

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: South Korean 'K Edition' lives up to its name; Windows 10 FCU K'EDition. Avoid for now.

        > They desperately need to start using the Red Hat / Fedora model, so they stop trashing their 'crown jewels' with beta code.

        Fedora: six-monthly releases with 12 month support and forced upgrades? That's exactly what Windows 10 has adopted.

        RHEL: stable release once every 3-4 years, with many-year support? I suppose that's Windows 7.

        1. Loud Speaker

          Re: South Korean 'K Edition' lives up to its name; Windows 10 FCU K'EDition. Avoid for now.

          I though we were talking about the"Fail" edition - although to be fair, most Windows releases appear to be that.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Update: Maybe this 1709 update is better than my first attempt made out.

        Update:

        Genuinely what happened first time round, I had a stuck start menu and wasn't able to fix it. I scrapped that first attempt.

        I've restored the previous Windows 10 1703 image and re-attempted the update using just the 1709 ISO, without selecting the option of downloading updates during the install, instead applying the 16299.19 Cumulative update+driver updates, post install.

        This time I was careful to allow the sound drivers and the Nvidia graphics drivers (2 of them, Windows 10 has always done this) to fully install before using the system/attempting any reboots. Note this takes a good 20 minutes even with a SSD.

        Windows Update did state at one point that the Cumulative Update 16299.19 couldn't be installed because other updates (drivers) were currently being installed. Once the drivers had finished I clicked "retry", and the 16299.19 Cumulative update then installed.

        I now don't have the same stickying Start Menu in Windows 10 1709.

        Take it steady, let it do its thing, don't rush the update, i.e. don't use the system until it completes.

        While it's easy to trash Microsoft/Windows with their stupid naming conventions, we do need to come clean if we're able to resolve an issue, with a different update method.

        Updating with just the ISO+no updates during install, worked for me, second attempt.

        1. This post has been deleted by its author

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Update2: The Sticky/Gitchy Start menu is back again in 1709.

          Update 2: The Sticky/Gitchy Start menu is back again in Windows 10 1709. It's a Nvidia Driver issue (a glitchy driver automatically re-installing itself possibily, forced via Windows Update, after a manual update).

          I might revert to switching off the option to automatically download manufacturers' apps and custom icons that are available for your devices. (Old Control Panel->System and Security->System->Hardware Tab->Device Installation Settings)

          This option used to include the word 'Driver', but now seems to suggest that minimal drivers from manufacturers will still be automatically installed even when you don't want them (i.e. the system is working).

          I've resorted to the Nvidia Installer directly and that has fixed the issue as of now. And hasn't come back after several reboots. It looks like the Nvidia Driver is being held in place by the "Microsoft sticking plaster code" that prevent 2 or more re-attempts to installl a driver, via forced Windows Updates - after failing.

          Doesn't inspire much confidence, but this test build is working now, and no other show stopper issues.

          (While it's easy to blame Nvidia failing/overheating hardware for these type of issues, this isn't).

    3. BillG
      Megaphone

      Re: Start menu

      Who runs your Windows 10 installation, you the user, or Microsoft?

      Windows XP is an Operating System. The user commands, the OS obeys. This behavior is exactly what we all want from an OS.

      But since then, with each new version of Windows, Microsoft has seized more and more control away from us users. "Windows 10 as a service" is a scary phrase used to explain the involuntary lack of control Microsoft has gleefully taken away from us. If you have Windows 10, unfortunately your computer does not belong to you anymore.

      Microsoft's cold new corporate motto should be "Resistance is Futile".

      1. Steve Davies 3 Silver badge
        Joke

        Re: Do it out way

        Microsoft's cold new corporate motto should be "Resistance is Futile".

        OR,

        Mummy SatNad knows best so be a good boy/girl/other and get in line. You will obey or

        Where's the Dalek Icon when you need one

        Exterminate!

      2. bombastic bob Silver badge
        Unhappy

        Re: Start menu

        Microsoft's cold new corporate motto should be "Resistance is Futile".

        A comparison to The Borg has been made... and falls short of reality.

        /me looks for that pic of Bill Gates as Locutus.

      3. Jim Birch

        Re: Start menu

        The average user is more-or-less totally clueless about security (and system configuration.)

        They are infinitely better off having the system managed by Microsoft. The rest of us are also much better off when the vast majority of connected computers are properly managed because it means the overall health of the Internet is improved.

        If you're smart enough to do do your own thing securely that's great! But be clear that you're in a minority. (You may also be delusional.) I work in IT and think about security issues every day for my job I'm clear that I want my family's systems managed by Google, Microsoft and Apple EVEN IF I lose a bit of control. I know vastly more about system security than the average user, and that might be why I want teams of people and lots of resources looking after me.

        1. anonymous boring coward Silver badge

          Re: Start menu

          Hang on!

          What does having a secure system have to do with accepting MS spying on you and treating YOUR machine as if it was theirs?

          BTW. MS virus scanner has never ever found anything here. Regardless of my system update frequency.

        2. Kiwi
          Linux

          Re: Start menu

          They are infinitely better off having the system managed by Microsoft.

          A few posts below yours, AC explained why this is such a bad idea:

          Update 2: The Sticky/Gitchy Start menu is back again in Windows 10 1709. It's a Nvidia Driver issue (a glitchy driver automatically re-installing itself possibily, forced via Windows Update, after a manual update).

          We routinely hear of machines being knocked offline, becoming unbootable or various other significant MS failures with their updates. The whole update system has been badly messed up for a very long time (eg 7's 48hrs+ to check for updates unless you know what you're doing, the whole GWX thing, the current very minimal information on updates and it no longer being safe to update 7 automatically, sneaking slurp into 7 and 8x.......)

          Perhaps another managing the system is fine. I know a few people who certainly think they know what they're doing when they don't, and it's scary to see the level of pissing around they do on their systems and how often it becomes so broken they have to rebuild from scratch - but giving them a normal user account on a Linux and periodontally running updates for them would solve those issues if they'd let you.

          I have family and friends who had constant headaches, from normal email+facebook+some light office work to bring-your-own-disposable-mouse-coz-you-never-wanna-touch-his-or-yours-again hardcore porn users (thankfully only one of the latter!), who had regular problems. Switch them to Linux and they're away. One of these was on win-10-nic (stolen, thanks Bob for explaining :) ) and asked for a Linux trial on a spare laptop. Took him less than a week to say "I want Windows OFF my system" - that was after a 10 botched update broke his system (again), and as he lives a couple of hundred K from me it wasn't exactly easy to get together to fix.

          Yes, I agree some people need less control over their systems to some extent - but most simply want the machine to work, to work securely, and to work reliably. 10 doesn't provide that, as the numerous articles about severe breakages show.

          1. Updraft102

            Re: Start menu

            "but giving them a normal user account on a Linux and periodontally running updates for them would solve those issues if they'd let you."

            You don't want to let them gum up the system by doing it periodontally themselves!

            "Yes, I agree some people need less control over their systems to some extent - but most simply want the machine to work, to work securely, and to work reliably. 10 doesn't provide that, as the numerous articles about severe breakages show."

            Well put. As I see it, if MS aims to take the ability of the user to control updates and to assume that responsibility themselves, they're doing exactly that-- assuming responsibility. They had better be sure that the patches they force on me are up to my standards before installing them, since they no longer allow me to judge for myself whether the patches meet my standards.

            The absolute bare minimum standard for me is that the patched system works at least as well as it did before the patch in every conceivable way (and presumably better in at least one way, or else why are we patching at all?). If the original code is capable of being as good as itself (and it is, since it is itself itself), then so should the replacement code. No ifs, ands, or buts-- if the new code is not at that level, go work on it some more and get back to me when it is.

            MS. of course, has hit the trifecta of poor patch quality with 10. They've gone to a rapid release schedule, throwing in tons of code-churning features whose only purpose seems to be generating bullet points on patch notes so that people feel like they're getting something to go with all of these headaches.

            Then they eliminated the QA testers. Right when they've gone to a release schedule that demands more testing, they got rid of their testers. Just... brilliant. But wait, there's more!

            Next, they went to a system where they take unprecedented control over patching, removing the ability for ordinary users to have control over their own updates, which imposes an additional amount of responsibility on Microsoft to get the patches right before sending them out into the wild. Microsoft even said that they "feel" (I love that... what emotion exactly are they relying upon for this?) that their updates have evolved to a high enough quality to where people don't need the ability to control updates themselves anymore; they should just trust MS to do their job and not worry about it.

            They did all three of these changes at the same time. If Nadella was a plant from Google or some other competitor, and he wanted to reduce Windows 10 patch quality to the lowest possible level, this would have been the perfect recipe. I don't know what else he he could do that wouldn't make it so obvious that he was sabotaging the process that he would reveal himself as a saboteur. It boggles my mind even now, and the only conclusion I have been able to reach is that Windows is in the process of being scuttled.

      4. CFtheNonPartisan

        Re: Start menu

        Control AND annual subscription fees!

    4. Adam 52 Silver badge

      Re: Start menu

      "Just install classic shell to have a real start menu again."

      I had classic shell. Anniversary Update removed it as incompatible.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Start menu

        Haven't read any comments and stopped reading the article at "...install your preferred distro from the Store" (you're insane to put that in the article).

    5. Captain DaFt

      Re: Start menu

      Just install classic shell to have a real start menu again.

      <TIC>Didn't you notice? Windows now offers the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL).

      Run a real OS any way you want it, Microsoft doesn't care.

      As long as theirs is running quietly in the background, sending everything you do on the computer to Redmond to 'Enhance your user experience'.</TIC>

      (El Reg does support the Tongue In Cheek protocol? Right?)☺

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Have they fixed the decades old bug in File Explorer ?

    Have they fixed the decades-old bug in File Explorer that means it cannot handle NTFS long file paths, THAT IT ITSELF CREATES ?

    NO.

    They throw more random shit in, and leave in all the old shit.

    1. bombastic bob Silver badge
      Trollface

      Re: Have they fixed the decades old bug in File Explorer ?

      "leave in all the old shit."

      'shit' is Micro-shaft-ese for "feature"

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Have they fixed the decades old bug in File Explorer ?

        Win 10 has had long file path support for more than a year

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Have they fixed the decades old bug in File Explorer ?

          "Win 10 has had long file path support for more than a year"

          Yes, and File Explorer does not use it.

          Thanks for making my point, I assume that was your intention.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Have they fixed the decades old bug in File Explorer ?

            Shouldn't you be using that search thing rather than going looking for files yourself?

            Just another reason why I'll be retiring my last Win 7 box at the end of the year.

        2. kain preacher

          Re: Have they fixed the decades old bug in File Explorer ?

          What he is talking about is some programs will auto generate an super long file name for a folder. NTFS parser can not handle it. The only thing you can do is delete it or rename it.. If try to do some thing like move it it throws up an error and says file name is a to long please rename it.

          1. Lysenko

            Re: Have they fixed the decades old bug in File Explorer ?

            What he is talking about is some programs will auto generate an super long file name for a folder

            The most obvious example being old versions of npm creating undeletable node_modules directories.

          2. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Have they fixed the decades old bug in File Explorer ?

            "What he is talking about is some programs will auto generate an super long file name for a folder. "

            Or, as I stated, File Explorer can make a long path for a folder ITSELF ( nothing super about it, incidentally ) and then File Explorer itself cannot handle that folder.

          3. Steve the Cynic

            Re: Have they fixed the decades old bug in File Explorer ?

            "NTFS parser can not handle it"

            NTFS itself handles it just fine. The system path parser that understands how to resolve ".", ".." and other oddities, as well as transforming forward slashes into backslashes, and also converting relative paths into absolute ones? No, it can't handle it on ANY file system.

            Using the APIs correctly allows your program to handle it just fine.

            Specifically, taking *just* the example of CreateFile (which *also* opens existing files, but ...):

            * CreateFileA (MBCS version that works with "narrow" characters) cannot do it.

            * CreateFileW ("Unicode" or "Wide character" version) *can* do it.

            * Specifically, your filename must be fully parsed (so the *system* parser - it has nothing to do with NTFS as such - cannot handle it, you are right), with no elements being "." or "..", and all separators being backslashes and no stars or question marks, AND it must be an absolute path.

            * Then you must prefix the fully-parsed absolute path as described above with backslash backslash dot backslash. And yes, that means that if the absolute path is a UNC path, you end up with three backslashes in a row.

            If you do all that, you can access paths up to 32K-1 wide characters long. It's annoying, but overall the main annoyance, from the programming point of view, is having to work in wide characters.

            That Explorer doesn't use these APIs like this *could* be regarded as lazy programming, or it could be regarded as a deliberate decision to protect the user from feebleminded software that doesn't know how to handle super-long paths. (Notably, I'm not sure how CreateProcess and ShellExecute handle these paths.)

      2. Tim 11

        Re: Have they fixed the decades old bug in File Explorer ?

        hardly - you can't even create a file called aux.txt because of some legacy MS-DOS limitation from 1985

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Have they fixed the decades old bug in File Explorer ?

          " you can't even create a file called aux.txt because of some legacy MS-DOS limitation from 1985"

          That must be such an inconvenience for you that Windows can still support and run software written in 1985!

          1. oldcoder

            Re: Have they fixed the decades old bug in File Explorer ?

            Except that it doesn't.

    2. Craig100

      Re: Have they fixed the decades old bug in File Explorer ?

      That seems to be standard policy though. To wit, one Visual Studio 2017. Full of all the latest and greatest stuff I bet only 0.5% of their users bother about, but still you can't switch off auto-f*****g-code-formatting which touches everyone that uses it! They've been told and told, but they don't care. Onwards and upwards, while the ships sinks.

    3. TheVogon

      Re: Have they fixed the decades old bug in File Explorer ?

      "Have they fixed the decades-old bug in File Explorer that means it cannot handle NTFS long file paths, THAT IT ITSELF CREATES ?"

      That's deliberate behaviour for compatibility and not a bug. Tens of thousands of software packages use Win32 APIs to handle files and they expect a defined maximum path length of 260 and allocate buffers accordingly.

      Starting in Windows 10 version 1607 these limitations were removed from common Win32 file and directory functions. However, you must opt-in to the new behavior. To enable long path support set the registry key at HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\FileSystem LongPathsEnabled (Type: REG_DWORD)

      If you enable this, some Win32 applications may not behave correctly if they encounter long paths.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Have they fixed the decades old bug in File Explorer ?

        "However, you must opt-in to the new behavior."

        YES, AND I DID, FFS.

        But File Explorer does not support that flag.

        Did you read the posts you replied to ?

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Have they fixed the decades old bug in File Explorer ?

          "But File Explorer does not support that flag."

          Because as was mentioned, thousands of legacy software packages rely on this behaviour for compatibility.

          "Did you read the posts you replied to ?"

          He clearly stated that it enabled it in the APIs, and didn't say it changed Explorer.

          If this is a common issue for you, an easy fix is to use SUBST.

          e.g. SUBST D: C:\Some\Long\Path

          and you can then access a path of 260 characters from D: in Explorer.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Have they fixed the decades old bug in File Explorer ?

            > If this is a common issue for you, an easy fix is to use SUBST.

            That's not so much a fix as a hack.

      2. Kiwi
        FAIL

        Re: Have they fixed the decades old bug in File Explorer ?

        That's deliberate behaviour

        No. It's a bug, always has been, always will be.

        "For compatibility"? Bull. If it was "for compatibility" then "for compatibility" that limit would always have been set, not some progams creating >260char paths/names that File Explorer couldn't do anything with (the native Windows file manager should've been able to handle cases that were already made, but not let you go over that limit with new stuff if it was "for compatibility" rather than the usual "ms asshattery").

        Usual MS bullshit though. Make a total fuckup of something that causes pain for the victims, then claim "Oh that's not a bug, it's a feature - this is a good thing" [image of "The Operative" in Serenity saying "This is a good death" to his murder victims]

      3. This post has been deleted by its author

    4. gc23

      Re: Have they fixed the decades old bug in File Explorer ?

      "It's not a bug, it's an unintended feature."

  3. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    Inivitably!

    Just had Nan on the phone in tears after Windows 10 upgrade rebooted her PC without any warning and she lost the recipe for Pineapple Upside-down Cake she was typing into Notepad.

    Also, Nan says Cortana mumbles which means Nan can't hear what it says.

    Well done, Satnav!

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Inivitably!

      There's a setting to stop it rebooting after an update while it's actually being used or you can set working hours . Maybe go over and sort out Nans PC for her....

      1. Dan 55 Silver badge
        Facepalm

        Re: Inivitably!

        So the OS reserves the right to restart at any time unless you find a setting buried somewhere. That's very useful.

        It also happened to someone where I work, but they can't do a thing about it as updates are set by group policy.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Inivitably!

          If it happened to someone at work then they've got lousy admins.

          That's not Microsoft's fault, the admins should set the system up so it doesn't happen while staff are working.

          1. nkuk

            Re: Inivitably!

            Its Microsofts fault for putting the obnoxious feature in in the first place, not the Admins that have to do extra work to disable it.

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: Inivitably!

              Part of an admins job is to update and maintain the system. In Pro & Enterprise they have more control than home users over how updates are delivered and applied. One of the things they should be doing is preventing ordinary users from messing about with the system. It's not extra work, it's their job and all versions of Windows have had similar features in some form or other.

      2. mrmond

        Re: Inivitably!

        Hah! and thumbs down obviously from anyone who doesn't know how to adjust settings to prevent reboots while working on the PC or adjust notifications so they don't get any 'nagging' posted in other comments.

        Not a die hard MS fan btw, mine came with WIn10 pre-installed and I also dual boot with Linux. I just can be bothered to find out how to do things.

        And it's hardly buried . All setting menu, Windows update (where else?) Active hours

        1. Dan 55 Silver badge

          Re: Inivitably!

          Is someone's nan supposed to know that it automatically updates and reboots whenever it wants? Perhaps there should be a dialog box on first run if MS can't come up with an auto update which doesn't bother the user.

          As for the second post, how about the computer not rebooting when people are logged in and working? No other OS seems to need to do this.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Inivitably!

            Well the default setting is to pop up a notification to alert you that the system has downloaded and installed updates and that it's going to restart in X number of minutes. Usually 10 I believe. If someone's Nan has missed it because they're typing their upside down apple cake recipe into Notepad then that's unfortunate. Unless someone else has turned off the notification because they got annoyed by having popup notifications.

            As for the second post when people are working. You have Tech admins using at the very least Win10 Pro or Enterprise who can't be bothered to set the system up to install updates outside of usual working hours when staff aren't going to be using the system ? Like most businesses I've ever worked in. If it's a 24 hour running system they need to have their own policy about when to schedule which machines to update. Pretty much standard policy at most places I've ever worked.

            1. Dan 55 Silver badge

              Re: Inivitably!

              You don't seem to understand - Windows 10 computers can reboot without notifying while you are at the keyboard. His nan's seen it, my workmate has seen it, and if you Google it, the Internet has seen it.

              Let's have a look at MS' answer... Oh dear, the guy had to disable the update service.

            2. Zippy's Sausage Factory

              Re: Inivitably!

              "Well the default setting is to pop up a notification to alert you that the system has downloaded and installed updates and that it's going to restart in X number of minutes. Usually 10 I believe. "

              Nope. That's turned off by default these days and in the same dialog as the "active hours" nonsense.

              1. Anonymous Coward
                Anonymous Coward

                Re: Inivitably!

                "Nope. That's turned off by default these days and in the same dialog as the "active hours" nonsense."

                Nope. There is no option to turn it off completely in the GUI. Windows 10 ALWAYS warns you it's going to reboot for an update with an option to postpone. There is however an option to show extra notifications.

                1. Gordon 11

                  Re: Inivitably!

                  Nope. There is no option to turn it off completely in the GUI. Windows 10 ALWAYS warns you it's going to reboot for an update with an option to postpone.
                  What you don't get is an option to delay the patch/update in the first place. So once Windows has decided to "upgrade" you're forced to go through the let's-reboot-3-times reboot when you next shutdown.

                  In my case it was "worse" (it didn't really matter to me, but it could have done so).

                  Last night I asked my laptop to look for updates. It reported it had found none. I then looked at the Microsoft blog page about how to force an update (happy for my laptop to go first...) and suddenly the update page (open next to my browser) decided it had two updates - an Adobe Flash one (again) and Windows 1709.

                  That was the better part of 3 hours (and that's on a system with an SSD).

                  So it downloaded them and installed them. Except the 1709 download failed to install, so it downloaded it all again. This time it installed OK and I was left with a Restart option. Whcih I selected and 3 reboots later I had Windows 1709. I then had to go in a patch the registry to switch off auto-login on accounts with no password (which MS always decides to reset for me...how kind) and remove the login page image.

                  1. anonymous boring coward Silver badge

                    Re: Inivitably!

                    Smooth sailing indeed -as always with MS updates!

                    Who doesn't love giving up the PC for 3-5 hours so that MS can increase their invasion of privacy?

          2. David Neil

            Re: Inivitably!

            1: That'll teach her to save her work - something we all learn at one point or another

            2: If she was in front of the machine it pops up a reminder a good 15 minutes before it goes off and restarts.

            1. bombastic bob Silver badge
              FAIL

              Re: Inivitably!

              at least, if she'd been using 'pluma' in Linux with a Mate desktop, she could've walked away from her computer for more than 10 minutes [let's say it takes her a bit of time to get around the house] and then come back an hour or two later, and the text would still be there, and she could realize she hadn't saved it yet and then do so. Maybe it was a bathroom break that distracted her, or a phone call, or any of a NUMBER of things that happens during a normal day, and I bet 'David Neil' has walked away from HIS computer once or twice without saving, too.

              I'd rather not have an operating system that treats the end-users *HARSHLY*. Or arrogant windows-fans that act the same way toward's someones grandmother who (maybe) just uses a computer for recipes, e-mail, photos, and other "consumption" kinds of things.

              I bet she could learn Linux in only a few minutes, and then it would be like nothing's different, except it wouldn't be Win-10-nic, and it wouldn't be doing *THAT* to her...

            2. andersenep

              Re: Inivitably!

              @David Neil

              I've been using computers for 33 years now. I get what you are saying about saving your work. I've been burned by crashes, power outages, my kid hitting the reset button on my PC, etc. etc., but Windows 10 takes the cake. It's not an error, bug, or a fluke of nature. It's specifically designed to reboot your machine to install "security updates" with no warning whatsoever. You're high on crack if you think it pops up a reminder 15 minutes prior, because I can assure you it does not. I've had it happen to me 3 or 4 times since I started using Windows 10, but I never lost anything of value until the last time. And it will be the last time, because I don't use it anymore other than in a Virtualbox VM solely for when I absolutely need it. I was willing to put up with allllll the other bullshit...shitty UI, ads, unwanted apps, telemetry, you name it...but rebooting my machine against my will in the middle of time-sensitive work? Sorry, no thanks. Windows 10 is simply not fit to be a primary OS for me. YMMV.

              1. anonymous boring coward Silver badge

                Re: Inivitably!

                What sort of stupid fanboy would downvote a post like that?

                If you did that you must search your fanboy soul and deal with your issues.

            3. I3N
              Coat

              Re: Inivitably!

              If a recipe was all Nan ever lost, she must be blessed ....

            4. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: Inivitably!

              That'll teach her to save her work - something we all learn at one point or another

              Oh come on, that advice was from the 90's. Good advice, yes, but things should have improved by now so you don't have some nerd shouting "CTRL+S next time!"

              I don't want to "save" it, I just want it to be there still when I come back from a crap.

          3. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Inivitably!

            "Perhaps there should be a dialog box"

            There is. It clearly warns you in advance before a reboot.

          4. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Inivitably!

            "No other OS seems to need to do this."

            Android does.

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Inivitably!

          No, thumbs down from people who consider the inability to completely prevent the OS from rebooting itself to be a major design flaw. If one steps away from the PC momentarily, leaving unsaved files, then gets distracted and doesn't come back, said unsaved file should not be lost except in the event of a failure of some kind. Or at least it should be possible to configure the PC so that is the case without hackery. The active hours setting mitigates the problem somewhat, but it does not solve it.

        3. david bates

          Re: Inivitably!

          If only it were that simple.

          My laptop would update itself and then crawl until I relented and rebooted manually.

          Very useful.

        4. Kiwi
          FAIL

          Re: Inivitably!

          Hah! and thumbs down obviously from anyone who doesn't know how to adjust settings to prevent reboots while working on the PC

          "user doesn't know how to stop this" is the wrong concept. The real concept - question - is, "In what frame of mind does one have to be to think it reasonable to have to adjust settings to stop the bloody thing rebooting while you're using it?"

          No other OS thinks it's reasonable to force reboots on the user unless they know they have to change some setting (easy to find or otherwise). A great many users (including JJ Carter's Nan) have no idea how to even start getting into the system settings, let alone finding "all settings" and then update. A number probably aren't even able to figure out the link - not everyone is as capable of using computers as the least of us here on El Reg.

          And if you really think this is a "good thing", I suggest you look at Mr Carter's posting history - he ain't exactly "anti MS" y'know (even if he may dislike "SatNav")

      3. MarkSitkowski

        Re: Inivitably!

        When my 10am presentation slowed to a jittery crawl, I waited the two minutes it took to start 'Task Manager' and, finding a load of Windows Update poison dwarfs eating 100% of my CPU, I tried to kill them.

        As with HAL, it silently did the 'I can't let you do that' routine, even though updates had clearly been told to stay away between 9 and 5.

        All those settings are just a placebo. Windows downloads its updates in background, without asking you and, later, runs the updates in background. The only clue is the 100% CPU usage.

    2. This post has been deleted by its author

      1. bombastic bob Silver badge
        Linux

        Re: Inivitably!

        *ahem*

        Being harsh towards politicians, liars, bullies, arrogant people, and Micro-shaft: thumbs up [they deserve it]

        Being harsh towards grandmothers: thumbs down.

        And Linux Mint (with Cinnamon or Mate) could be learned in minutes, and would prevent MOST of the "exploit" problems that the non-savvy users might not know how to deal with nor prevent..

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Inivitably!

          If my original reply is harsh to anyone it's Nans grandson. I fully sympathise that she might have missed the popup, I even said as much for gods sake. But as someone who sorts out my elderly inlaws Win10 laptop when they have problems, I merely suggested perhaps he could do the same.

          1. MartinBZM
            Flame

            Re: Inivitably!

            One of my mayor grievances with "modern" "computing" is that every bleeding developer believes his app, application, popup, message, process, fart-of-the-day is THE Most Important Thing That Happens To You the lUser.

            So, when you try to be produktive with, say, typing in text in someone else's application, mr. fickdarts program decides it is time to remind you of something and pops up a window with the 'acknowledge', yes, ok, fine, take-my-soul-and-sell-it button in focus by default *AND* that popup *instantly* grabs control of the inputcontrols, like the keyboard.

            Then, as you type in reasonable grammar a sentence concentrating on hitting the right keys -not everyone can touch-type you know, and after that said popup discards some invalid input, like normal letters, and when you hit the spacebar -as you would in a sequence of words to form a sentence- which *incidentally* translates to left-click on the active screen-element called the button ...

            And then the popup registers the keystroke of the spacebar to mean you've clicked on the default active button, gets the 'okay', yes, fsck-me message and proceeds to do whatever the malfarious crafter of incompetent software design wants to do. In this case mickeyslurp decides you have egreed to an instant reboot.

            Let's have a revolution and put the arsehats in Richmond in front of a wall ... eh ?

            </rant>

        2. mhenriday
          Pint

          Re: Inivitably!

          Indeed. And besides, LM installs in five minutes with a decent internet connexion and a fairly recent computer, one doesn't encounter the updating problems which are so rife with Windows Update, etc, etc....

          Henri

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Inivitably!

        >>...after Windows 10 upgrade rebooted her PC without any warning...

        Unlikely, but do continue...

        Highly likely I've seen it several times!! Personally and with best mate phoning me and bitching....

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Inivitably!

      "Also, Nan says Cortana mumbles which means Nan can't hear what it says."

      Cortana says Nan mumbles which means Cortana can't hear what she says.

      TFTFY.

    4. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Inivitably!

      Warnings, active hours, dialog boxes, all totally irrelevant. MS has no moral right to be doing anything with a user's PC without express permission. If they want to mess about with a PC they should buy one of their own.

    5. Ken Moorhouse Silver badge

      Re: Just had Nan on the phone...and she...

      I thought you were referring to Patrick McGoohan there, until you used the word "she"....

  4. Warm Braw

    Windows 7 ... missing features

    I don't consider Mixed Reality, Video Remix, integrated Windows and Xbox Store, and pinning contacts to the taskbar to be features I miss. Nor buried dialog[s], mysterious ... Add On[s], apps nagging you, nor a frustrating user interface.

    I think I'll wait for the Destroyers Update.

    1. James 51

      Re: Windows 7 ... missing features

      I keep reading fall update as fail update. Wouldn't be the first time windows 10 has done that to me (background download and autoinstall killed a win 7 computer beyond recovery. Had to install linux to format the drive and get win 7 back on).

      1. frank ly

        Re: Windows 7 ... missing features

        "... Had to install linux to format the drive and get win 7 back on)."

        That's why the Fall Update has the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL). It helps you to deal with tricky recovery situations.

      2. Jonathan 27

        Re: Windows 7 ... missing features

        You don't need to install Linux just to format or even re-partition a hard drive. The Windows installer can do both. Just pick "New Install" and then the option to pick a partition. You've been able to do that from Windows 98 at least, but the version in Windows 7+ is much more flexible.

        1. James 51

          Re: Windows 7 ... missing features

          I didn't want Win 10 on my PC and my WIN 7 recovery tool saw a newer version of Windows and put its foot down. I had to erase every trace of WIN 10 before I could cajole the installer to work.

        2. Kiwi
          Linux

          Re: Windows 7 ... missing features

          You don't need to install Linux just to format or even re-partition a hard drive. The Windows installer can do both.

          Not when it refuses to do so because "The drive where Windows is installed is locked"

          (Ok, not sure if this is still an issue or not)

    2. Dan 55 Silver badge

      Re: Windows 7 ... missing features

      Article also says:

      As for Windows 7, it is an old operating system, and while its more consistent user interface and superior Start menu is still missed, security considerations and missing features are strong arguments for upgrading.

      Windows 7 gets security updates till 2020 and Microsoft should be fully taken to task if they try to skip one.

      1. Updraft102

        Re: Windows 7 ... missing features

        The "missing features" of Windows 7 are strong arguments for *not* upgrading. Windows 10 would be somewhat more appealing if I could make those features "missing" on it the way they are on 7. Tell me, please, how can I make Cortana, apps, Windows/Microsoft Store, UWP, WaaS, tiles, etc., be "missing?"

        It's the Windows 7 features missing in 10 that concern me the most. The ability to control updates, for one. Very important feature; it's a deal-breaker if it's not there. How about that? How about a coherent UI that looks like it was actually designed for the device I'm using it on instead of a phone (especially now that they've declared their phone ambitions dead)?

        How about an OS that never nags me to try their crappy unusable browser or pesters me with ads or installs crap I don't want or uninstalls things I do want? How about the killer feature of not changing my update or privacy settings whenever it wants to? (I didn't mention telemetry since MS tried to backport some degree of that to 7 and 8/8.1 too, but it's relatively easily dealt with in the older versions compared to 10).

        The more I look at this whole ongoing train wreck, the more I suspect that by the time security support runs out for Windows 8.1 in 2023, Windows as a whole will have been thoroughly destroyed by its maker and abandoned by its users. Microsoft can't go on abusing its users like this forever... history demonstrates that monopolies are temporary (how's IE doing these days, MS?). It looks to me like I'll get the same useful life from Windows over here on 8.1 as I am compared to 10... hell, it's so bad that Windows as a whole may not even outlive Windows 7's expiration date.

        To me, it looks like MS does not wish to be in the OS business anymore, and they're set on driving their users away with the abuse so that they can exit and become the "cloud" company that idiotCEO Nadella so desperately wants them to be. Stuff like making Windows 10, This Week Edition incompatible with drivers for Windows 10 in each new unwanted "feature" update isn't accidental. No one is as stupid as MS would have to be to think that this is a strategy that will leave Windows viable into the future. Not even Satya Nadella.

        1. Jason Bloomberg Silver badge

          Re: Windows 7 ... missing features

          I suspect that by the time security support runs out for Windows 8.1 in 2023, Windows as a whole will have been thoroughly destroyed by its maker and abandoned by its users

          So, year of the Linux desktop; 2023.

          There is a Mark Twain quote applicable to any prediction of Windows and Microsoft's demise. I am sure it will come one day but the alternatives haven't exactly been embraced so far. I expect it's more likely people will keep moaning about Windows but will still keep using it just as they have in the past.

          I do wish there was a better alternative. Linux advocates can (and probably will) tell me there is but I am afraid its rather low market share demonstrates most don't agree. Most Linux advocates can't even agree on which distro, which windows manager or 'desktop' I should be using, whether it should be systemd-based or not.

          I am not anti-Linux but I have battled with Linux enough to know it's not fit for purpose for the overwhelming majority of users out there.

          1. Updraft102

            Re: Windows 7 ... missing features

            > So, year of the Linux desktop; 2023.

            I never predicted Microsoft's demise. I am saying that Microsoft is specifically acting to destroy Windows, and will do so by any means they deem necessary. They are doing this intentionally and with the express goal of exiting the OS market to become the cloud company that Nadella wants them to be. As such, It's not betting on the failure of Microsoft... it's betting on their success. They're destroying their own product on purpose. People won't keep using it and moaning about it because MS will do whatever it takes to finally get them to act and to move away. Until then, they will be milked and "monetized" in the short term as much as possible.

            Can you not see that this is different than all the other stupidity MS has done over the years? They are making Windows very quickly into a completely unusable mess, and that is not going to stop. Two years after its release, Windows 10 is still an unusable steaming pile of stinky stuff... the quality of every release is beta quality at best, and the insane rollout schedule for enterprise customers (every six months) is untenable-- not to mention useless. No one wants these idiotic features they dish out twice a year whether people want them or not. It's an operating system... it's not supposed to be exciting or fun. It's supposed to be stable and reliable and to allow people to run other stuff that may or may not be exciting or fun. This is especially true in the enterprise, Microsoft's biggest stronghold of customers.

            Whether Linux emerges as the winner or some other thing (by Google, perhaps) isn't really the issue. MS seems as convinced as a bunch of the tech writers out there that the PC is dying, even though a casual glance at what PCs do reveals a lot of things that a phone just doesn't do well. MS isn't making money hand over fist with Windows the way it used to, and MS profits from the Windows division reportedly are but ten percent of the total, and no doubt this is forecast to decline as the PC continues, in Microsoft's view, its slide into oblivion.

            That ten percent of their profit represents a good deal more than ten percent of their resources, and the development costs are a lot more constant than the revenue. Even if half as many people buy Windows, the cost to make the next version is still the same. I haven't read Nadella's self-congratulatory tome, but one person on this site quoted him as having said (paraphrasing) that he's not interested in things that are only mildly profitable; he likes things that make a PILE of money. Well, Windows is only mildly profitable, and it's not hard to see how all of the people working on Windows could be repurposed to some other task that might have a better return on their investment in terms of the human capital.

            Nothing else about all this makes sense. Microsoft is aggressively destroying Windows with a determination that I find amazing. If Nadella was secretly a Google plant whose goal was to destroy Windows from within, I don't think he'd be doing anything any different. He's either the dumbest man alive or crazy like a fox, and he seems to be able to speak in complete sentences, so I doubt very much the former. We know he's a cloud guy, and we know that he doesn't mention Windows at all in his big speeches about Microsoft's direction. It all points to one thing, and it's not a future that includes Windows, at least not as a general purpose OS. It could become a thin client frontend for their cloud services, but as an OS, it doesn't look like it has a future.

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: Windows 7 ... missing features

              @Updraft101

              I don't think MS are trying to destroy the OS... I suspect the future is that Windows will retreat to being a corporate OS just as IBM still makes good money from mainframes.

              However - the Windows 10 new features don't seem to be of significant value to corporations - just consumer toys - which kinda blows my theory out the water.

              At the moment all I can guess is that they are thrashing around wildly, trying to find something, anything, that will restore the hold that they had over the man in the street (& which has now been lost to Apple and Google).

              In a little while they will wake up and remember that they have a very stable and lucrative corporate business, and if they stop pissing money away on "initiatives" there is still a healthy profit margin to be made on that core business.

            2. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: Windows 7 ... missing features

              Exactly. They're a "Mobile first, cloud first" company. Desktop is dead as far as MS are concerned, relatively little money is made from the OS itself - hence the data+ads, so they're screwing as much as they can out of that cow while it's standing.

              They've seen first hand where the future is. A third of Azure is Linux (and who would think Microsoft when they want Linux?).

              It's Linux for the workstation, not consumer devices. And Apple and Google have the consumers.

              1. Updraft102

                Re: Windows 7 ... missing features

                "Exactly. They're a "Mobile first, cloud first" company. Desktop is dead as far as MS are concerned, relatively little money is made from the OS itself - hence the data+ads, so they're screwing as much as they can out of that cow while it's standing."

                It's a shame MS doesn't have the faith in the desktop that I do. From where I sit (behind a desktop PC's monitor at this very moment, at home), lots of consumers still want and use PCs. Not as many as there once were, certainly, but the idea that we are all going to move to phones for everything is just silly. Not all PC fans are as die-hard anti-smartphone as I am (I hate the cursed things), but even my smartphone-loving friends and family use PCs in conjunction with their phones. One of them has a fairly high end phone that cost a lot of money, yet he still prefers his good old desktop PC when he's at home. (And I do mean "old" literally!)

                It's true that like me, these friends and family have not contributed to the "new PCs sold" statistic in a long time, and the continuing drop in sales of new PCs is usually taken as evidence of the death of the PC as a platform. For people like myself and the PC people I've mentioned, what the sales drop really signifies is not the death of the PC genre so much as the survival of one individual PC-- the one I am using. if it still works, and is still quick enough to do what I want without frustration, I still use it.

                Of course, that also means that I am not buying new PCs with the newest Windows on them every couple of years, and if they're not selling more copies of Windows to me every so often, I might as well be on Android or Linux or iOS or MacOS. If you live and die by PC sales (and for MS, consumer-market revenue from Windows is nearly all from OEM preinstalls on new PCs), a loyal Windows user who doesn't upgrade on command (as we didn't when Vista and 8 came out) is of no use whatsoever, other than to be a potential customer for Microsoft cloud services or application software-- for which one need not be a Windows user anyway.

                This would be a miscalculation on Microsoft's part for me specifically, as I've purchased several Windows versions for my own older PCs over the years. Few people do this, though; by and large, a PC always runs what it came with, before the GWX push anyway. MS knows what its own Windows sales figures are, and people like me who do buy and install Windows on their own are not the norm.

                As such, I don't begrudge MS wanting to make more money with Windows or to cut costs. I do have a problem with the way they've chosen to do it with Windows 10. Firing the QA department is not a good way to save money, and adding ads to the OS itself is not a good way to make it. If this is them trying to save Windows revenues from oblivion, then they're far more ham-fisted than I thought possible, since every single thing they do with Windows these days seems like an attempt to annoy Windows users.

                I'd pay (again) for Windows if it came as, say, Windows 10 "Classic" edition (since we've already been told that they all have to be Windows 10 these days). It needs an OFF for the telemetry (not just a "less" button) that stays where I put it, Win 7 style update control, an option for a desktop-only Win32-based UI with a fully functioning Control Panel (while it seems trivial, a lot of system dialogs fall under Control Panel or Settings even though they have distinct entry points other than the Control Panel itself, so what this really means is no UWP or app-looking stuff should ever appear on my screen), a ribbonless File Explorer, along with an option for a non-tiled start menu.

                Cortana would either be gone or at least uninstallable (and once that is done, it should remain that way). There would be no ads, no nags for me to try Edge instead, no unwanted downloads of apps, and nothing would ever be uninstalled unless I initiated it. It would be based on a LTSB branch of Windows 10, without the constant barrage of features I don't care about (at the cost of stability).

                That I would pay for. Windows 10 as it is I would not use for free (and it was, and I don't).

          2. Palpy
            Gimp

            Re: Windows 7 ... missing features ... Linux...

            Yeah, I understand. But "fit for purpose" depends on what you are doing. And many users -- like Nan, above -- are probably checking Facebook, typing simple documents, and doing a family spreadsheet. Storing a few lightly retouched photos.

            Linux is a simple install, and can do all that stuff without twitching.

            If you need Adobe Photoshop instead of, say, Paint.net, yeah, you need Windows. But if all you do is resize-crop-and-saturation/contrast, you're OK with Linux.

            If you need all the games, you need Windows -- at least until Steam gets all the games. But if you do a little light gaming, carry on with Linux.

            But look. You install Mint, or Q4OS, or Ubuntu Studio (my current fave) and in 15 minutes you have a stable system that doesn't stab you in the back or suck personal information. You can just use it. It updates. You can mostly not worry about hijacks and ransomeware and viruses.

            And as far as the plethora of choices go -- for f*scks sake, you can walk into the produce section and figure out that oranges are different from cabbage, can't you? You can figure out that a Peugeot is different from a Land Rover, can't you? You can figure out that trousers are different from skirts, and why you would wear one or the other, can't you? Even if you have to go online to know why a cabbage is not an orange, you know how to do that don't you? This "variety is so hard and bad and makes me cry" stuff is bloody daft when you stoop an' thank aboot it.

            And sorry for being bitchy. Home sick and me guts is gripin' me.

          3. mhenriday
            Stop

            Re: Windows 7 ... missing features

            «I am not anti-Linux but I have battled with Linux enough to know it's not fit for purpose for the overwhelming majority of users out there.» Which purpose would that be, pray tell, which the overwhelming majority of users would find a Linux distro like, e g, Linux Mint, unfit ? Just what were those «battle[s]» you found yourself engaged in with «Linux» and with which distro did those struggles, no doubt epic, take place ? Or is your post simply yet another example of FUDD ?...

            Henri

        2. nkuk

          Re: Windows 7 ... missing features

          @Updraft102, I completely agree with your comment. Windows 10 is a major step backwards.

          The migration is already happening and Windows is dying, Windows 10 only has 29% marketshare even after force-feeding it onto PCs and giving it away free. Windows 7 still has almost double the marketshare at 47%. Windows 7 share is static and Windows 10 usage has stalled and even dropped. (https://www.netmarketshare.com/operating-system-market-share.aspx?qprid=10&qpcustomd=0)

          Windows mobile is also dead. The future is mobile except old legacy programs and niche markets, most people in business and at home do not need a Windows PC any more to accomplish their work / hobbies / gaming / research / etc.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Windows 7 ... missing features

        "Windows 7 gets security updates till 2020 and Microsoft should be fully taken to task if they try to skip one."

        But Windows 7 doesn't have many of the advanced security and mitigation features of Windows 10 and never will have. Security updates means patches to existing features, not getting new ones...

        1. Roland6 Silver badge

          Re: Windows 7 ... missing features

          >But Windows 7 doesn't have many of the advanced security and mitigation features of Windows 10 and never will have.

          Just install EMET and a decent third-party firewall/security suite, remember with Win10 MS have, in the main, simply integrated EMET - hence why EMET is no longer supported on Win10 and the Fall update will uninstall it if found...

          As for new features, I'll skip on the not-ready-for-primetime VR stuff and all the rest.

          A typical business desktop/laptop is running Windows and Office: what new features in Win10 (and specifically the Fail update) improve the operation of Office?

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Windows 7 ... missing features

            "Just install EMET and a decent third-party firewall/security suite, "

            And still not have all the security features of Windows 10 and now have to configure EMET for each application you install. Or you could just run Windows 10....

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Windows 7 ... missing features

      Isn't the destroyers update only for "Windows for Warships" ? ... joke icon if I wasn't anon.

      Or were you thinking that some comic-book bad guy needs a specific windows edition to run his volcano based operations centre?

      1. Warm Braw

        Re: Windows 7 ... missing features

        Isn't the destroyers update only for "Windows for Warships"

        Perhaps someone can check if it includes the "CARRIER LOST" message.

        But for W10, I think the message is still: just say FRIGATE.

  5. James 51
    FAIL

    Can we completely disable one drive?

    Can we completely disable Cortana?

    Can we stop it ringing the mothership and forking over all our data?

    I know most people out there don't give a damm about this but it still bugs the hell out of me that the OS manufactures are allowed to force their 'customers' to spy on them to some extent if they want to basically buy a modern computer. Imagine if car manufactures force people to hand over all location data, info on who was in the car at all times and full audio and possibly video of people in the car and its surroundings.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Can we completely disable one drive?

      You could install O&O Shutup10, as a compromise. Sadly, this is Microsoft continuing to ignore the customer. I don't want junk like Cortana, I don't want "mixed reality", I don't want Onedrive, I don't want my UI further messed around with, I don't want my settings defaulted back to Microsoft's choices, and I want things I've installed such as Classic Shell, left in place, working as I have them set up.

      How about a Windows 10 Non-creative Update, in which Microsoft do nothing other than fix the security flaws and broken bits that it shipped out in the first place?

    2. rmullen0

      Cortana can be disabled using a Registry key. I disabled it on the last update when they removed the UI that let you do it. Luckily, the setting stuck and Cortana is still gone after installing this latest update.

      I hate this also. Unfortunately, I think the only real solution is to switch to Linux though. Corporations such as Microsoft and Apple simply can't be trusted. You can't trust a corporation who worked with the NSA while designing the OS, as Microsoft did with Vista and admitted it. Closed source, also can't be trusted.

      1. Wibble

        I hate this also. Unfortunately, I think the only real solution is to switch to Linux though.

        But which Linux?

        Seriously, which Linux to switch to? As a Mac user also sick of Apple buggering about and having given Windos up well over 10 years ago (Vista, just say no), it would be useful to examine switching to a Linux. But which one?

        1. ForthIsNotDead

          I've been absolutely delighted with Linux Mint, both in its 32-bit and 64-bit incarnations.

          I recently bought a Lenovo IdeaPad from PC world with the intention of running Linux on it. I bought a new half gigabyte SSD for it, removed the factory-fitted 1TB spinning rust drive (didn't even power the laptop on, just took the drive out!)put in the new SSD and booted a Linux Format Magazine cover disk and installed Linux Mint 18.2 (IIRC).

          BOOM!

          So fast and snappy. And no nagging "Hi! I'm Cortana!" and no spyware. Found all the hardware on the laptop, no issues whatsoever.

          I'm getting the hang of repositories, and simple sys admin tasks. It's not too hard. Installation of software via the software manager is simple - just search for it. Installation of software via the terminal (sudo apt-get install) seems pretty fool-proof. It just works.

          It's found my WIFI printer and didn't need any drivers installing.

          So simple.

          Good luck. I've now left windows behind. I use it at work, and I'll keep a Windows laptop for legacy personal use (Siemens PLC programming software) but other than that I'm in Linux land and so far I'm enjoying it.

          1. shade82000

            +1 for Mint.

            Give Peppermint a try as well, but plain Mint is well established and almost too easy.

            MATE on the servers, KDE on the desktop / laptop.

            VirtualBox, Win 7 VM & Win 10 VM ... Perfect

            :)

            ^Edit: this is not a recommendation, but what works for me.

          2. Anonymous Coward
            Linux

            @ Forth

            " and no spyware." You do not know that for sure. Just because the source is open doesn't mean all the compiling done used only the published code. Moreover, unless you both 1. compiled it yourself, and 2. built the compiling tools yourself .. and so on. The NSA has taken great interest in Linux even to the point of creating its own distro.

            We just do not know for sure what is spyware and what is not, Linux, Windows, macOS ... or even if the CPUs themselves are compromised through some deal between Intel and a three letter agency.

          3. RyokuMas
            Facepalm

            "no spyware"

            ... until you hit a website and those Google analytics kick in...

            1. Mage Silver badge

              Google analytics

              NoScript also cookies

              I have all analytic and other tracking ware explictly blocked

              I only enable enough for a site to be usable, and only non-temporary on non-slurping regular sites I use

              3 party cookies NEVER allowed

              Noscript also blocking some other stuff by default.

              Firefox 52 ESR on Windows and Linux.

          4. Craig100

            +1 for Mint too!

            I ditched Windows at Vista. Switched to Ubuntu, all great. Then switched to Mint with the Cinnamon desktop when Ubuntu introduced the Unity interface. That was the precursor to MS's Metro interface. (You'd think MS would have smelt the coffee!). I can honestly say it's the best move for my sanity in my 20 year IT career. Ok, the Libre Office apps might not be as sexy as the Office 365 stuff, they they work, they're consistent and they use open standards. When stuff does go wrong, which is rare, it's usually easily fixed as it's not all hidden away in proprietary Dlls, you CAN get in there and tweak it.

            I do web development, some on the Windows stack so I run a Windows 10 instance on VirtualBox. No issues. Don't be scared to move to Linux, and relax ;)

          5. gordynorth

            MS should be producing two different versions of Windows, one being all the MS stuff built in that would be installed on new machines and another, call it, Windows Linux edition, which would make all the stuff most techies turn off or take out of Windows because they use Windows for real work.

            No more Cortana, having all those modern apps, turning of the data feeds back to home base. Having the ability to install/remove these separately would be great. I would be willing to pay for the ability to remove these things to be able to have a more server type OS.

            1. Sandtitz Silver badge
              Boffin

              @gordynoth

              "MS should be producing two different versions of Windows [...] No more Cortana, having all those modern apps, turning of the data feeds back to home base [...] I would be willing to pay for the ability to remove these things to be able to have a more server type OS."

              You can either buy Windows Server, or (via a volume license) Windows 10 LTSB. Both omit the "modern apps", the appstore, Cortana and so forth, and get no feature updates, just boring security updates.

              1. Anonymous Coward
                Anonymous Coward

                Re: @gordynoth

                @ Sandstitz That's what I do, run a version of the Windows 10 family other than Home or Pro.

                But that's easier for me because I've been paying big bucks for the Technet and MSDN subscriptions over the years and I have access to the ISOs and keys (yes, my computers are properly licensed as well).

                The price tag of Server 2016 for someone just wanting a copy of Windows to run a local account is prohibitive though, 500 US bucks? And since such a buyer would not be interested in Active Directory or Containers .. they just want to be free of Cortana,excessive telemetry and "apps", that's really not fair? There really is room for a Windows 10 Tech edition at a more reasonable price I would venture.

            2. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              "MS should be producing two different versions of Windows ..."

              I agree with you sir, and I would pay more money for the stripped down version than what a retail WIn 10 licence currently costs.

              It would make sense but they won't do it.

        2. frank ly

          @Wibble

          I'd go with Mint or Ubuntu and give it a year. Use the forums because they are usually helpful and useful.

          (Edit: I use MATE on the dektop because KDE is a bit too 'futuristic' for my liking.)

          You can try another distro or desktop manager any time you like if you have a spare hard drive and you can decide if you want to stay or migrate when you get used to things.

        3. Jonathan 27

          I'd say Ubuntu too, it's got a huge community and it's easy to install and keep up to date even if you've never seen a command line in your life. It even supports simple installs for proprietary drivers, which you probably want unless you're a huge open-source wonk.

        4. Updraft102

          "But which Linux?"

          Mint. As long as you're asking, you might as well go with Linux Mint. It's a good, solid, stable distro, easy for beginners, smooth, polished. The Mint user community is more friendly than many other Linux communities, and most of the info you get online searching for how-tos are either for Mint or Ubuntu, and as a direct descendant of Ubuntu, most of what you read about that relates directly to Mint as well.

          As you learn more about Linux, you will begin to get an idea of what is lacking, if anything, in your opinion, and what else to try if you don't like Mint.

          I like the Cinnamon variant of Mint myself. It's not hard to try other desktop environments... experiment, see what feels right to you.

        5. BitDr

          But which one?

          Mint with Cinnamon are two flavours that go quite nicely together.

        6. Palpy
          Devil

          Oh, broody herr.

          You're used to Mac? I recommend typing "Linux that looks like Mac" into a search engine. Perhaps you could try Google, you've heard of it?

          Hint: First result is Elementary OS. Currently quite popular I believe.

          Mother of chickens. Kids these days. And get off my lawn!!! That's a Gnu Gnome you Gnocked over, there! It's FOGG -- Free Open-source Garden Gnome!

        7. eldakka

          > But which Linux?

          In most cases, it doesn't really matter.

          For most of the desktop-oriented distros, the only difference is the out-of-box experience.

          You get a distro that comes with KDE desktop and don't like it? You can download MATE or gnome or whatever to it and run it instead.

          A desktop distro is, basically, that organisations "my favourite packages/applications". They all have a linux kernel, they all have a GUI of some sort, they all come with a pre-canned set of apps. Therefore the only real way to decide which one is better is to try it - many come with live CD/thumb-drive versions that you can just boot straight off the media and have a poke about and see if you like it.

          It's like buying a new car, you have to take it for a test drive before you buy it - maybe the indicator stalk is on the wrong side of the steering wheel, or you prefer a between the front seats 'lever' handbrake to pull-out under-dash one, or you want the radio to have actual nobs for volume, or having the speedo in the middle of the dash (e.g. a mini) versus directly behind the wheel will drive you crazy, or you want one with stability control, or it must have a limited-slip diff - or a full-on diff locker for a 4x4 - only you can know those things, therefore you have to sit in it and have a look first.

          And like ANYTHING, if you are not an enthusiast or professional in that area - or just a know-it-all (how many typical car buyers know or care about diffs and limited-slip/locking?) - you just get a common/mainstream one (e.g. toyota corolla) - mint, ubuntu, whatever - and use it.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            > But which Linux?

            > In most cases, it doesn't really matter.

            I'd avoid trying 'any' distribution. What if a beginner tried Arch and decided Linux is too complicated based on that one experience?

            I think the general view here is try Mint and go from there.

            Otherwise it might be like me buying a self-assembly car with no dashboard and deciding that 'driving isn't for me' based on that single purchase.

            Try Mint, go from there if you like it ...

        8. William Wood

          Which Linux

          To start, I would suggest Ubuntu or Mint. You can try them in a Live version and boot from a DVD or a USB stick (8 gig or larger). You can see which looks better for you. These are very complete general purpose distributions. You can check Distrowatch for different distros if you want a more focused one for your particular uses. I prefer Arch Linux, but it's a learning experience to install it. Ubuntu and Mint are an easy start.

        9. mhenriday
          Linux

          But which Linux?

          Seriously, which Linux to switch to?

          Allow me to suggest Linux Mint with the Cinnamon desktop. Intuitive for all who have ever used Windows and extremely user-friendly - and, as noted above it takes about five minutes to download and install with a decent connexion and a fairly recent machine. (You might want to put off downloading and installing until the end of this month, by which time version 18.3 is likely to have been released....)

          Henri

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      @James, I would add to your list.

      Can we completely replace the flat featureless interface with something that allows you to see what you are doing?

    4. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      "Can we completely disable one drive?"

      This should do it:

      DISKPART

      SELECT DISK 0

      CLEAN

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    But have they fixed this PIA bug?

    From about 1511 onward, you need the local user to have local admin access to push (via GPO) settings for RemoteApps (the URL and the task that updates them).

    Apparently MS are aware of the issue (but they just don't give a ^£$% about the enterprise who run on prem stuff)

    https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/de-DE/5205e5b7-bbce-4e4d-86a6-ffae778835d2/remoteapp-gpo-is-not-applying-for-users-without-local-admin-access?forum=winserverTS

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    'security considerations and missing features'

    Nice propaganda piece El Reg... Think I'll pass on those missing features like 'forced updates' etc. Win7 is perfectly fine for now...

  8. Roland6 Silver badge

    Device support any better than build 1703?

    MS finally delivered the 1703 update for my canary Win10 tablet in September, until then it had been on 1605 since March 2017.

    I wonder if it will receive this update (1709) before Christmas or it will be receiving it in March again...

    1. Hans 1
      Joke

      Re: Device support any better than build 1703?

      You do know that 1709 the best before date, right ?

  9. rmullen0

    Backup your firewall rules first

    Make sure you backup your firewall rules first, or you will be recreating them. It is more like an upgrade/reinstall than an update. Every time a major update comes out like this, I end up losing my firewall rules and have to recreate them. My other gripe is the fact that it adds tons of rules for incoming connections to Windows Store apps which automatically get re-added if you delete or disable them. There is no way to get rid of them as far as I know. It doesn't instill confidence in the security of Microsoft's products. I did the install over Remote Desktop and got locked out because it shut off the Remote Desktop firewall rule.

  10. msknight

    Let's be realistic...

    "Should you install Fall Creators? If you run Windows 10, absolutely yes. "

    ... because you don't have much of a choice, really.

  11. ibmalone

    What has this got to do with Mark E Smith?

  12. johnnyblaze

    The big question is - exactly how many waste-of-time, gimmicky features can MS squeeze into one OS? The next release in Spring 2018 is now officially called the 'Kitchen Sink Update' as we're litterally getting to that point.

    Hey, Microsoft. It's a god damn operating system - an app launcher - it should be a simple, reliable and consistent allowing you to run your own programs without all this other crap getting in the way. At what point exactly did you forget this? Oh, I remember, straight after Windows 7.

    1. Updraft102

      "At what point exactly did you forget this? Oh, I remember, straight after Windows 7."

      Ah, for the days when Windows 8 seemed like the worst possible Windows ever. It was pretty bad out of the box, but it still had a lot of neat stuff you can't get in 10, like complete control of updates. It was a desperate attempt to use the desktop Windows platform to sell Windows phones and the Windows Store upon which they depended, but it didn't work. Even so, 8.x was starting to evolve in the right direction; 8.1 addressed several of the chief complaints about 8, and the 8.2 update that was once planned was going to be a big desktop update that would optionally restore the 7-style start menu and other things. That update was named "threshold," a name everyone surely will recognize, but not as an update for 8.1.

      Then Satya Nadella came on board. The cloud guy who doesn't really care much about Windows as a PC OS... the one who told us they were mobile first, cloud first. Windows 8.x was abandoned, which seemed like good news at the time (by then, its name was as badly tainted as Vista, so it seemed that going back to the drawing board was a positive step), but it reversed the trend of 8.x evolving in the right direction and started it evolving again in a slightly different wrong direction.

      Windows 8.1 didn't have forced updates or the massive telemetry or "Windows as a Service" and its constant beta quality and breakage of important stuff every six months in what's supposed to be a release quality piece of commercial software. It had a bizarre "am I a PC or am I a phone" UI, but so does 10. Win 10's is a little different than 8.1's, but they both have the distinction of being completely inappropriate on non-touch devices, which is to say the vast majority of devices they're running on.

      The best thing about 8.1 is that the stupid crap can be removed or walled off. By "stupid crap," I mean anything in the Metro/Modern "design language." I have very little tolerance for any of that stuff Bob lovingly calls "FLATSO FUGLY," but I still use 8.1, and for the most part, that Metro crap just isn't here anymore. I forcibly uninstalled all the apps (including the store), installed Classic Shell (which I had already found indispensable in Win 7), installed Old New Explorer to kill the ribbon, and a neat little beast called Metro Killer that does what it says on the tin. None of the Metro UI elements work at all with Metro Killer; attempts to call them either results in no action or a charming "Catastrophic failure" dialog (but nothing more... no BSOD, no crash, nothing). It's a "scorched earth" bit of insurance that makes me happy knowing that Metro is not going to make an appearance.

      A lot of this can be done with 10 also, but the difference is that once I remove it in 8.1, it's GONE. It doesn't come back. I ripped out the apps once, and that was it. The permanence of the changes I make is a HUGE feature that I won't go without.

      There are still a few Metro-like fragments remaining, but they're not that bad. The Windows login dialog is Metro-ugly, but it doesn't take me that long to log in and make it go away. The Alt-tab task switcher looks vaguely Metro, with the same color as the Metroish login screen and no border around it, but it's not too bad, and the old XP style thumbnailless "Coolswitch" is still there as a registry tweak if you wish.

      The "Which app [sic] do you wish to use to open this" dialog is Metro-looking, and unfortunately the otherwise excellent "Open With Enhanced" program is blocked from doing what it is meant to do, since now Windows insists that only it gets to change file associations, and every time a new program that may be able to open a file type is installed, it has to ask if I still want to use the old program to open it.

      Finally, the "The following apps [sic] are preventing Windows from shutting down" dialog and the Ctrl-Alt-Del menu are Metroish, but the latter only in that it is a full-screen with the Metro background color and the Segoe UI font over that rather than that blue background with the stylized flowers or whatever they are in 7.

      That stuff really doesn't spend more than a minute a day on my screen (and probably a lot less than that). Otherwise, Metro is gone... Control Panel still has 99% of its functionality as compared to Windows 7, and the few things that have been removed can be worked around without using Settings. NetSetMan can be used to choose wifi networks and manage profiles, since the hideous Windows UI for it is blocked by Metro Killer. Settings (the app) is completely blocked by Metro Killer, and I haven't missed it a bit, once I set up the few alternatives necessary like NetSetMan.

      The last thing was to port my Win 7 theme to Win 8, so that everything looks just like it should. You'd be hard pressed to see the difference between my setup and when I had that same theme on 7... the most obvious differences are that the titlebar captions are centered and the "up" arrow in File Explorer isn't themed (it didn't even exist in 7 until Classic Explorer put it there). Otherwise, it's a dead ringer for 7 as I had it until you hit one of those areas I mentioned above.

      Of course, it is absurd how much heroic work has to be done to make an OS usable, and had MS not tried so hard to force me (and everyone else) into 10, I would have seen it as offensive that I would even have to work at it as much as that. In the Windows 10 era, though, it doesn't seem so bad; I like tweaking PCs anyway, and compared to what I'd have to deal with in 10... wow. It's worth it to get the extra three years of update support, even if I do have to put up with the occasional intrusions of metro-like UI dysfunction for a few seconds a day.

      1. mhenriday
        Boffin

        Installation of Classic Shell remedies a great deal of what went wrong with Windows 8.x and saved a lot of retirees I know from throwing their computers out the (other type of) window, thereby saving them from littering or, for that matter, bodily injury or involuntary manslaughter charges....

        Henri

  13. nijam Silver badge

    Fall Creator - is that we call a trip hazard?

  14. MJI Silver badge

    Fail Creators still looks bad

    Still prefer 7

    Cannot see any valid reason for a business computer to be lumped with all this junk.

    Removing of edges of screens. Removal of buttons.

    What were they thinking?

    1. Jason Bloomberg Silver badge

      Re: Fail Creators still looks bad

      Still prefer 7

      I still prefer XP.

      I can't think of anything Windows 7 or later has given me which I really needed or desperately wanted; security fixes excepted.

      1. Updraft102

        Re: Fail Creators still looks bad

        "I still prefer XP.

        I can't think of anything Windows 7 or later has given me which I really needed or desperately wanted; security fixes excepted."

        UI wise, I agree... but the DWM compositor is something sorely lacking in XP, and DX11 is kind of nice.

        Windows 2k remains the gold standard for UIs for me. Of course, XP was really easy to de-Luna and restore to the classic start menu, making it look almost just like 2k, but 2k still has icons that actually look like stuff and not abstract pastel-colored blobs that don't look like anything (particularly in their 16x16 form). IMO, of course.

  15. MrKrotos

    and another layer of glitter is added to the turd!

  16. ForthIsNotDead
    Alert

    You know things are bad when...

    ...you DREAD receiving an OS update from your OS vendor.

  17. davidp231
    Trollface

    Themes and Teams

    Imagine the fun you could have with asking Cortana about four candles.

    1. MJI Silver badge

      Re: Themes and Teams

      Fork Handles

      They do.

      Was in a set my wife had to transcribe, We joked about this one.

  18. JimmyPage Silver badge
    Linux

    Reading with detached interest

    None of these problems on my Mint laptop. Including needing anything that *has* to run under windows.

  19. elgarak1

    Windows 10 (Home and Pro Editions, that is) has become unrecommendable for professional work. If you need to do actual work, with control over where your work files are stored, you need to fork over for an Enterprise, or the upcoming Workstation Edition (ostensibly). Or buy a Mac.

    I should think that this is highly problematic for Microsoft. But I guess they don't see it that way, since they still make money by ripping off people.

    1. deadlockvictim

      Win 10 & Internet access

      I've disabled Internet access to Windows 10 at home.

      I don't often need it when I'm working on making videos, sorting out and storing photos, working on databases and the like. It removes a lot of distractions and software that would ordinarily require to be installed.

      I turn it only when I need to activate software and then turn it off & unplug the ethernet cable once the activation is complete. And at work the sysadmins take care of all of the unpleasantness that Win 10 presents.

      I do have a Windows machine with Internet access and tough decisions will have to be made in 2020.

      1. elgarak1

        Re: Win 10 & Internet access

        At some point, you HAVE to go online. Say, to submit work files. Related, at some point you HAVE to update Windows. At which point anything might happen, as we have seen – settings may change, features (that one might RELY on) vanish or pop up, installed apps gets uninstalled, unwanted apps do get installed etc.

        Yes, at an enterprise workplace there's an IT department. At home, there isn't. One has to do the maintenance work oneself. But why, oh why, do I NEED to do all this extra work on top of my paying-bills-work?

        That's right, I don't. Because I use a Mac. And Linux boxes. Because Microsoft's offerings for freelancers or small business workers are non-existent.

        1. deadlockvictim

          Re: Win 10 & Internet access

          elgarak1» At some point, you HAVE to go online.

          Without doubt. I do intend to prolong this as long as possible. I have configured the machine so that it is a single use machine. There is no internal drive, instead, there are drive trays at the front. One drive per use.

          Transfer of files from the Win 10 machine to the Internet machine is done via sneakernet, in the event that files must be uploaded or sent be e-mail.

          At the moment, we have a Win 7 machine for Internet use. When I must access my work-machine from home, there is the VMWare client. When Win 7 loses support, I may buy a Mac mini as the new internet machine.

          In short, I am doing my damndest to fight the trend to have the Internet everywhere.

  20. Mage Silver badge

    still a must-have upgrade

    No.

    Not till they make it back to being a GUI instead of a monochrome laser printed page

    Not till they stop basing GUI on worst aspects of "modern" web pages.

    Not till there is no slurping

    Not till updates play as nice as Linux.

    Turn off Windows Store, or switch to kill it and all its stupid phone centric apps

    Kill Cortana

    Make using alternates to Edge & IE less fussy.

    Fix settings

    Allow win7 and earlier level of customisation

    Stop crippling entry level versions.

    I've left. I have two machines (a PC and keyboard/tablet) so as to track how MS is going. They still have not got it yet.

    They need to go back to Win9x/NT4/Win2K/XP era GUI with explorer bugs fixed

  21. Daz555

    I'd love to give it a go but for the second time in 2 years Windows Update is irrepairably corrupt on my Windows 10 build. I can't face rebuilding my gaming PC again right now as I don't have the time.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      "but for the second time in 2 years Windows Update is irrepairably corrupt"

      Just do an in place upgrade from the latest ISO / media creation tool. No need to rebuild anything.

      1. Daz555

        I can't upgrade with that method either - it tries and fails. A clean rebuild is the only thing I can do and MS support have said the same. Brilliant eh!

  22. rmullen0

    Is there even a way to backup favorites in Edge?

    Does anyone know if there is a way to export/backup favorites in Edge? I don't understand how Microsoft can implement this other virtual reality crap when they don't even have the basics done. Why don't they store them the same way they did in IE? Probably, they are just using their tried an true technique of vendor lock in. Too bad it isn't working.

  23. Steve 114

    Backwoods appreciation

    Prior to routine pained calls from many ancient cousins, I tried this on the 5 elderly sample machines here. 3 successes, 2 bluescreens without damage, worked on restart. (Why does it always download the whole lot again?) Classic Shell recovered with one click on each, preferred XP-style desktop was unaffected. Spybot anti-beacon found only one reversion, but OOshutup found plenty to do. Claimed 'improvements' have no impact at all on geriatrics' use-case, but we should compliment Microsoft for not breaking anything. Oh yes - 'Fall' to those of us who were educated on Milton's 'Paradise Lost' suggests the very Devil's work - can't they look at language settings and substitute Autumn?

  24. tekHedd

    Winows as a what?

    Windows As A Service? *sigh* I guess I'm going to have to accept that as the new norm, but it's sad. I was just starting to like of Windows As An Operating System, finally. And now both Microsoft and Apple seem determined to ruin their OSes.

  25. Hans 1
    Meh

    One of the first things I did was to enable OneDrive Files on Demand. This displays all your OneDrive files in Explorer, but they only download when needed.

    I "assume" (sorry) that you never travel, then ? You know what, get a bigger drive, drives are cheap these days ... you should be avoiding putting data on OneDrive, anyway.

    Apart from that, if I read the article correctly, same old, same old ...

  26. big col

    I upgraded to 10 because I wanted to play with the 3D printing tools otherwise I would have stuck with 7.

    The spying was a worry, at first I used O&O ShutUp10 which does a good job of protecting privacy, but the settings kept reverting back on each upgrade.

    I then found the best add on for win10 was a Raspberry Pi , running PInhole, and using wally3k lists.

    It is amazing at how much traffic windows 10 generates on the network, it is constantly phoning home, fortunately all now blocked.

    And the big advantage of pihole - stuff, my daughter who has development delays is safe online and gets no add to click by mistake on her iPad, and my wife is now able to use the web advert free which is all the better for our bank account, and all windows 10 talemetry is blocked,

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      @ big col

      Yeah, it's a nice operating system, it's just that it requires work after installing to establish privacy. But yes, they've made Edge much better and you have the 3D "going on", so it should be good.

      1. anonymous boring coward Silver badge

        " it's just that it requires work after installing to establish privacy"

        How much work?

        And how trustworthy privacy?

  27. Anonymous Coward
    Happy

    I tried it yesterday

    I tried Windows 10 Fall Creators Update (x64/Pro/EN-GB version) and realized even more built in services no longer allow even an Admin to adjust them, making the log files near impossible to all delete. Then I looked at all the new "apps" I'm not likely to ever use. For some reason, all this lead me to feel a bit down. I did notice Edge has improved a lot - it really has - and at least I felt a little bit better over that - they've arranged things better and fixed the annoyances.

    Then I wiped the drive and put back on an iteration of the Windows 10 family that does allow me to control what goes on. Now I feel much better.

    Conclusion: Edge is really better, but Microsoft is still playing mind and control games with Windows 10 Home/Pro FCU. These games can be mitigated somewhat if you have the time and wherewithal .. but if you can instead obtain Education, Enterprise or Server 2016 (use as a workstation) you will be much happier with the Windows 10 family of operations systems.

  28. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    So they've refined the colour a bit...

    ...but the lipstick still doesn't suit the pig.

  29. chivo243 Silver badge
    Windows

    mixed reality!

    I'm sure all Win Admins have experienced this on a regular basis... The brick that runs flawlessly?

  30. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    All these so-called IT professionals having issues with Windows 10... I wonder if most of the readers here actually have any idea about configuring or using a Windows based machine as all that is seen is endless comments on how it doesn't work! Strange that it works perfectly fine on all the systems here and those that I administer! I must be the only person in the world that knows how to configure hardware & software to operate with no problems with Windows 10 as well as having users that know what they are doing even though they don't!

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      No, sorry, Windows 10 is completely shit, your users must be imagining. There's no way this many posters, who clearly know stuff about computers, can all be wrong! They maintain that it's unusable. So, nice try Redmond but it won't wash.

      Long live freedom!! Down with clippy the irritating paper clip! No more Weezer videos for me!

    2. Anonymous Bullard

      I must be the only person in the world that knows how to configure hardware & software to operate with no problems with Windows 10

      We all know how to do it, the point is you should have to fight with the OS. Still. By now it should be a mature system that just works. But it's not - every update breaks or changes something. And it's not for the better - changes for the sake of change, or to steer the herd through different gate.

      Aren't you tired of this now?

      Fall, creators.

  31. elgarak1

    Cortana: I actually don't care. I don't use Cortana, or any other speech recognition software. I do not want to talk with my desktop computer.

    That said, I'm not everybody. There are people, and/or situations, where this is helpful, or even necessary. I am sure that there are people who RELY on a tool/service like this. As such, if they offer it, they better make it work well. But that's something that Microsoft has never understood.

  32. Triumphantape

    I'll take the bad news first please.

    It's Windows.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: I'll take the bad news first please.

      I'm still on edge waiting for the good news.

  33. thexfile

    Windows 10 build 16299.16 after updates build 16299.19.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      "Windows 10 build 16299.16 after updates build 16299.19."

      Insiders are already on build 17017!

  34. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Seems a bit better with gaming with less lag. Other than that I couldn't care less. Everything else I do is on linux away from slurp. Strangely enough whilst it seems to have borked a few users menu, it actually fixed mine that hadn't worked properly since the last major update.

  35. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    THE FARKIN MEDIA PACK IS NOT UPDATED

    Microsoft release a new version of their OS, and then DAYS LATER late will release the Media Pack update that MILLIONS of users need to play videos in the new version.

    EXACTLY THE SAME AS LAST TIME, FFS !!!

    Microsoft is NOT JOINED UP FFS !

    And I can't watch ROBOTS FIGHTING because of this !!! ( hence the caps ).

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: THE FARKIN MEDIA PACK IS NOT UPDATED

      "Microsoft release a new version of their OS, and then DAYS LATER late will release the Media Pack update that MILLIONS of users need to play videos in the new version."

      You have to choose to download it at the moment. That will be fixed before they automate the deployment. And anyway there are plenty of free CODEC packs out there...

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: THE FARKIN MEDIA PACK IS NOT UPDATED

        No, they only made it available today.

        Pure incompetence.

  36. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Upgrade from 7 was painful

    Things that used to work no longer work. Why do my monitors now take 30 seconds or more to come back k up, when they were instant on 7.

    Why do I have to log out and back in after undocking my workstation to fix the wonky font scaling?

    Why does it keep resetting my security and privacy settings to suit Microsoft after I set it to send them nothing..

    Why is the start menu an abomination still after 5 years..

    Why is bing, cortana and candy crush saga so heavily baked on that they seeking can't be removed (or in the case of candy crush reinstall by themselves after 15 minutes of looking away)

    Will creators update fix any of this xrap? Of course not...

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Upgrade from 7 was painful

      (or in the case of candy crush reinstall by themselves after 15 minutes of looking away)

      Will creators update fix any of this xrap

      Yes, someone has looked in to why it took that long for the bundled crap to re-install.

  37. Len Goddard

    Problems with the game bar

    A number of my friends have had to disable the "game bar" feature as it prevented video being displayed if you were using DX11 (DX9 worked ok).

    Personally I wouldn't know, as my system is set up to delay functional upgrades for 6 months while other people beta test them for me. As I don't use one drive and have a real linux system (on an intel NUC) for doing most of my computing tasks there appears to be little in this upgrade I would want anyway.

  38. bill67

    whoops, no you are not a user

    Installed it last night. Ran first boot as Admin. All was okay. Signed out and switched to a user account. After entering password, it returned to the password screen as if I had signed out. Several attempts, could not get to any user account. Switched back to Admin and it says my users are sign in. Roll back the install in less than ten minutes. All was as before. As all my work is in my user accounts, this is a failure.

  39. Dagg Silver badge
    Mushroom

    What is this fall sh*t

    Classic septic arrogance. Only US and Canada call it fall (or should that be fall) The rest of the English speaking world call it Autumn.

    And if this is an Autumn release then it should have appeared 6 months ago for us here in the Southern Hemisphere. Oh yes, of course your average septic has no idea that the southern hemisphere is 6 months ahead on the seasons. Dumb fu*ks.

    1. sixit

      Re: What is this fall sh*t

      Microsoft's HQ is in the northern hemisphere. Get over it.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: What is this fall sh*t

      In most parts of the world, it would be called 'autumn'.

      But I get your point.

      SatNad's Microsoft is so hipster, it gives these highfalutin hipster names to major Windows updates: Creator's Update, Anniversary Edition etc. Version numbers e.g. 10.1, 10.2 or the good old Service Packs e.g. SP1, SP2.

      It's as if they treat these Windows updates like some video game's content update or DLC. Windows is a game to them now innit?

  40. thomas k

    Yay!

    Photo Viewer still works!

    1. anonymous boring coward Silver badge

      Re: Yay!

      "Photo Viewer still works!"

      But is it still as feature rich and good as ever?

  41. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Cortana? Microsoft account?

    No thank you.

    If you're using Windows 10, what's wrong with using a local account? There's no need to partake of Skype, Onedrive, the Microsoft Store.

  42. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Win 10

    Sounds positively ghastly.

  43. sixit
    FAIL

    Inverted

    Nearly everything you touted as good is a good reason to PASS! I don't want Cortana. I don't want XBox. I don't a store. I'd rather run Windows in Linux, not the other way around. The *only* thing I saw of interest was that Edge now runs inside a VM.

    Microsoft needs two versions: one for the general user, and one for those of us who are more than capable of controlling the system 100%. Control isn't for Microsoft to take. Ask for, sure, but not to take. Same goes for user data points. There's too much spying on the Windows user, and not enough stopping of it.

    No way in hell am I letting that on my computer.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Inverted

      Microsoft tried to carve out a niche in mobile; it failed spectacularly.

      Therefore, to make up for lost time it is now leveraging upon its desktop monopoly to 'embrace and extend', especially the cloud and big data stuff. Windows 10 ('Windows as a service', 'last version of Windows') would be the vehicle, the instrument to facilitate that.

      The old traditional Microsoft no longer exists under SatNad. This new Microsoft vacillates between frivolous pandering to the hipster millennial generation (Snapchat-wanabe Skype revamp, Paint3D, condescending 'user friendly' dialog/error messages) and guzzling more of your private information.

  44. bex

    search is still crap

    Indexing is still running on Windows 10, why is Cortana search still so bad. As a neanderthal, I still prefer startisback (classic start if you are a tightwad) using the search in stat(isback) it can instantly find any file or folder just like it did in Windows 7.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: search is still crap

      I know, right?

      The indexer consumes countless CPU hours, yet the search is still amazingly slow and misses the exact thing you're looking for. And the thing I'm after is on the fucking menu - that's the only place I want it to search!

      The online "recommendations" are always quick to display, however.

      I used to be able to do "<WinKey> + not<enter>", but now it's "WinKey + <wait>not<wait>pad<wait><down><down><enter>"

    2. anonymous boring coward Silver badge

      Re: search is still crap

      i suspect that MS prioritises finding ads and other crap online much higher than finding your own stuff locally. It has to serve up something that adds to their coffers before letting you get on with your day.

  45. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    love Windows 7

    And I hate when I have to work on a Windows 10 machine but the time it takes to install all the Windows 7 patches and then the off chance the pc breaks after the patches are installed are forcing me to move to Windows 10.

    Would love it if some third party company put out an Enterprise friendly OS that wasn't such a microsoft headache.

  46. anonymous boring coward Silver badge

    Cortana?

    Are you guys aware that in order to talk to your PC/Mac/Entertainment Hub, it will have to have an active microphone that listens to everything being said and done in the house?

    Are you?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      That's the only time MS will listen - when you don't want them to!

      But I'm guessing all they'll get is "oh for fuck...", "where have they moved..,", "oh, not again!", "piece of..", "oh fuck off cortana"

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Indeed, the 'home assistant' is a privacy nightmare

      Same goes for the offerings from Amazon and Apple. Even Sony has recently announced a similar thing: the Xperia Hello home assistant.

      I also suspect that your smartphone microphone listens to you all the time. Push-to-talk wasn't such a bad idea now, was it?

  47. shawnfromnh

    upgrade

    I'm waiting to boot into windows till they fix the bugs in the update then I'll let it update and remain on Linux till then. I've been hearing that the new update is screwing up grub2 on some multiboot systems making it so you have to either reinstall Linux or fix grub before your able to boot back into Linux which is probably done on purpose and if that happens then I'll reinstall but I'll also format over windows and then install a second type of Linux instead since I'm not into OS manufacturers playing games on MY computer.

    1. Tweetiepooh

      Re: upgrade

      One way around this if you have multiple hard disks is to put GRUB2 on to another disk's MBR and then set BIOS (or whatever) to boot from that.

      When Windows needs to update with multiple reboots, switch back to the primary disk and let Windows do what it needs. Then once all stable again, switch back to booting from other disk and there is the Linux menu in all it's glory. And you can still select Windows if you need to.

    2. Kiwi
      Linux

      Re: upgrade

      I've been hearing that the new update is screwing up grub2 on some multiboot systems making it so you have to either reinstall Linux or fix grub before your able to boot back into Linux

      That's been a common issue with Windows installs, not so much updates pre-10.

      Boot Repair Disk is a small ISO you can download and install on USB or CD/DVD which does a pretty good job of repairing these things. I've had to use it from time to time to fix other systems. Quick, straightforward, and effective.

      Tweetiepooh has a decent idea - putting Grub on another disk and setting the BIOS to boot from that normally. I have been known to go one further, disconnect the Linux disk completely so that no matter what Windows cannot touch it.

  48. This post has been deleted by its author

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: My word, there's some serious hating on MSFT today

      The one that had the desktop OS that was designed for the desktop, and doesn't extract data or display adverts.

      They've had to change tactic because they're now the underdog. Still the same Microsoft.

      Google "microsoft eee"

    2. Kiwi
      Linux

      Re: My word, there's some serious hating on MSFT today

      Hrm.. Well, under Gates the OS was intended to be user-friendly, didn't steal user's data, didn't dump a crapload of ads at them, didn't fight them every step of the way...

      You can't say that security has improved when opening a document is enough to get the machine infected.

      Like many others, I have stopped at W7. I have had to remove it's ability to connect to the internet because it is not safe to trust MS updates, and therefore I cannot in good conscience allow W7 to update, therefore I cannot risk it being online. As more of what I do can be done on Linux/WINE (only a few games left on Windows now) there is less need for me to boot Windows. Most of my family and friends are now Linux only (but many of them are not PC gamers, or play simple card games of which there are far more, far better free ones in Linux).

      There's nothing left for us here. Let's go.

    3. anonymous boring coward Silver badge

      Re: My word, there's some serious hating on MSFT today

      Which Microsoft would you rather have, the Gates/Ballmer version that cut off its competitors' air supply, had zero regard for security, gave us Windows ME, and actively tried to treat Linux as a cancer to be destroyed at all costs, or the Nadella version that has massively improved security, treats Linux as a rival but works with it, and has a cloud that provides a viable alternative to AWS?

      I preferred the honest about it's intentions first one.

      The new one still feckes up Linux installations, so it's not as if they don't play dirty any more. Now they want to own Linux instead, in the form of a layer on Windows.

  49. Dark_Ronius

    I'm, generally, preferring this approach of regular, smaller updates to my OS rather than big version updates akin to a new Windows OS. However, I fear it's falling for feature bloat. I don't mind this push for a more Mobile-like experience (at least from an update and new feature point of view), but at some point I think they should focus on the "barebones" experience, i.e. those that don't want a fancy 3D Paint app but also don't want something akin to Windows 2000.

    I'm thinking similar to the "native" Android experience. At the moment Windows feels more like one of these manufacturer deviations we see on Android, rather any kind of core vanilla experience. Again, my point isn't the need for an ugly or over-plain version, but just something we can liken to a "vanilla" Windows install, in the same way as a vanilla Android one. In particular, I don't like edge or Cortana forced down my throat; I actually like using the Microsoft Android apps and how they sync with Windows, but there should be a much stronger element of user choice. Give us a plain OS with lots of optional downloads, rather than an increasingly bloated "default"...

  50. Splork

    No mention of the all new Fluent Design

    What about the Aero, er Fluent display effects? No wonder the newest Surface Bookies has a GPU sporting 6GB of VRAM. You'll need those resources to support all the compute cycles needed to make this useless stuff work. This is especially funny after MS made the Windows 10 user interface as flat, featureless, and boring as possible...

  51. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Who’s coming to my Windows 10 party?

    this shit should be seamless and brilliant. Just rolling out iOS 11 and MacOS High Sierra this week. Not a single complaint. Happy as fucking Larry - and we have many wee whiney cnuts

  52. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Edge

    Will this update fix the broken Edge?

  53. davidp231

    Keyboards

    Turns out it also borks the touch keyboard. If you have it set to something that's actually usable (ie, the full size one with useful keys on), kiss goodbye to it after you've logged in. You get lumbered with the useless version designed more for phones (and this is with my tablet set to Desktop mode).

    Happily, there is a fix. Rename the 'ink' folder in Commin Files, and copy over the same folder from your previous install. Restart, and you have a useful keyboard again. Apparently, and according to an MVP post, the full keyboard has "issues" with the new update. Yet it works fine to log you on, and works fine after you've put it back.

POST COMMENT House rules

Not a member of The Register? Create a new account here.

  • Enter your comment

  • Add an icon

Anonymous cowards cannot choose their icon

Other stories you might like