Windows 10

[Xenophon PCDGS]

I find this to being advertised at present, even on the "Windows Update" page, but someone has told me that certain features that Windows 7 and 8 enjoys will not be available with Windows 10.

Anyone on here with any news on that matter?

 

[ainsworth74]

Never be a first adopter if you want an easy life. Wait and see what it's like once it's out in the wild. Owners of Windows 7 and 8 will have a whole year to claim a free upgrade so wait and see.

 

[jon0844]

I'm running Windows 10 on a few 'test' machines and can probably check out anything if you ask?

It's looking really good now, after being very amateurish before. Not long to go!

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

I'm running Windows 10 on a few 'test' machines and can probably check out anything if you ask?

It's looking really good now, after being very amateurish before. Not long to go!

I don't know how well used this product is, but I did hear that Windows Media Player will be one of the items that will not appear in Windows 10.

Maybe you can confirm since your are running a trial of Windows 10, if matters such as automatic updating are having changes to what has gone on in past days.

 

[Crossover]

Correct regarding Media Player from what I have heard. There are alternatives though

I have got an old Release Candidate of Windows 10 that I managed to get a short time in a few weeks ago and it shows early promise - I'm actually quite looking forward to it as Windows 8/8.1 has been a bit of a fail. I guess we should have expected as much mind - every other Windows release seems to be a disaster!

 

[rdeez]

Some other things that won't be making an appearance in Windows 10...

http://uk.pcmag.com/operating-systems-and-platforms/42383/feature/6-features-disappearing-in-windows-10-and-how-to-r

• Windows Media Centre
• DVD Playback
• Desktop Widgets
• Solitaire, Minesweeper and Hearts
• Floppy Drive Support
• Windows Essentials OneDrive

Most, if not all, have alternatives available (or can be directly downloaded from Microsoft) if someone really needs them.

 

[SpacePhoenix]

DVD Playing and the games went in Windows 8. The games have to be downloaded from the Windows store and for DVD playing you have to use a 3rd party program (i went with PowerDVD Ultra).

Hopefully nearer the time Microsoft will publish a complete list of what's changed and what's removed from Windows 10

 

[DownSouth]

I don't know how well used this product is, but I did hear that Windows Media Player will be one of the items that will not appear in Windows 10.

That sounds like a bit of a win to me, WMP is an atrocity!

 

[TheKnightWho]

A completely free combined replacement for Windows Media Player and DVD support is VLC Player.

I've used it for years, and it's excellent - it also supports several more formats than WMP and tends to have fewer issues; it's also updated often.

 

[yorksrob]

I remember getting windows 7 for the first time to discover that the spreadsheet had miraculously disappeared. I'm not expecting any improvement with the next lot.

 

[AM9]

I remember getting windows 7 for the first time to discover that the spreadsheet had miraculously disappeared. I'm not expecting any improvement with the next lot.

Which spreadsheet is that? Windows 7 was probably one of the better releases in recent years.

 

[Class172]

I find this to being advertised at present, even on the "Windows Update" page, but someone has told me that certain features that Windows 7 and 8 enjoys will not be available with Windows 10.

Anyone on here with any news on that matter?

If your computer has installed the "Windows 10 Upgrade" tool that runs from the taskbar, you can get it to tell you what may not work on your current set-up. If you open the program and click the 'hamburger' icon, near the bottom of the menu is the self-test tool.

In my case it informed me that the Bluetooth adapter my not work, but that's probably dependent on a driver release from HP.

I won't be upgrading to Windows 10 in a hurry, as I'd rather wait and see the initial reports before I commit. After all, I've never upgraded to windows 8 (despite my laptop having installation disks for both 7 and 8) because I've disliked it so much.

 

[Harpers Tate]

+1 for VLC Media player. Just about unbreakable, free, and can even be used to convert audio and video files.

 

[AM9]

+1 for VLC Media player. Just about unbreakable, free, and can even be used to convert audio and video files.

As one who has been making videos for nearly 20 years, I find VLC indispensible. Much of its success is down to the application including all its ovn versions of CODECs meaning that compatibility is rarely an issue.
It also has a very good frame grab and conversion capability.
I tried the windows 10 trial about a year ago but the conditions regarding giving access to all my data were more onerous than even Microsoft usually do for trials.

 

[ASharpe]

Never be a first adopter if you want an easy life. Wait and see what it's like once it's out in the wild. Owners of Windows 7 and 8 will have a whole year to claim a free upgrade so wait and see.

This,
I got the notification on my work laptop this morning - no chance in hell of me upgrading that, I have about 20 fairly specialist programs that I couldn't risk not working.

I'll probably upgrade my home pc once any bugs are ironed out - I'm on windows 7 now and I know it's getting towards the end of it's support cycle.

I'm just hoping that it is actually better for users and not just different, the two are easily confused it seems.

 

[Puffing Devil]

Having experienced the horrible Win 8 UI on my daughter's laptop, there's now way I'm moving from Win 7 on my personal PC. I'm keeping it running and stable until it dies.

if I didn't need Lightroom and Photoshop I would be running Linux on this as well.

 

[jon0844]

Windows 10 is more like windows 7 now.

 

[yorkie]

I remember getting windows 7 for the first time to discover that the spreadsheet had miraculously disappeared. I'm not expecting any improvement with the next lot.

Spreadsheet software is not included in Windows, and Microsoft wouldn't be allowed to do this even if they wanted to as they have to give third parties a chance to sell us their software.

If you had spreadsheet software included when you bought your computer (e.g. Microsoft Excel) then your computer supplier will have installed it. It's not part of Windows.

 

[47802]

Windows 8/8.1 is fine if you download something like classic shell or other similar program, with gives you a windows 7 style start menu, I have a whole school full of PC's running that way and it works fine, and you can still use the Win 8 start menu if you want.

I have not really had chance to look at Windows 10 yet, but i'm sure it will be ok at the end of the day its only another O/S variant nothing to get really excited about.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Is there a specific reason why Windows 8 was not followed by Windows 9 rather than going straight on numerically to Windows 10?

 

[CharlieSpotted]

Is there a specific reason why Windows 8 was not followed by Windows 9 rather than going straight on numerically to Windows 10?

The story is that, way back when, lots of software developers used a cheap trick to determine whether the user was running 'old' Windows 95/98 or a more modern version of Windows. They would simply check the Windows version string started with "Windows 9" (which would catch 95 and 98).

It has to be assumed that this kludge is still present in software that is actually running on people's machines, so we couldn't call it Windows 9, because then lots of software would think we were running Windows 95 or 98 and then behave strangely/refuse to work entirely.

The solution was to skip 9 and go straight to 10.

I feel like I haven't explained this very well, but I'm sure you get the gist?

 

[yorksrob]

Which spreadsheet is that? Windows 7 was probably one of the better releases in recent years.

Really? Doesn't bode well!

XP used to have a handy little spreadsheet which seems to have been discontinued from the home package.

 

[WelshBluebird]

Spreadsheet software is not included in Windows, and Microsoft wouldn't be allowed to do this even if they wanted to as they have to give third parties a chance to sell us their software.

If you had spreadsheet software included when you bought your computer (e.g. Microsoft Excel) then your computer supplier will have installed it. It's not part of Windows.

With Windows 10 it will be a bit more complicated because Microsoft Office (and so Excel) will be included on mobile devices and smaller tablet devices (under 8" screen size I believe).
Also MS have been giving out year long trials of Office 365 with some Windows 8 tablets too.

 

[Crossover]

The story is that, way back when, lots of software developers used a cheap trick to determine whether the user was running 'old' Windows 95/98 or a more modern version of Windows. They would simply check the Windows version string started with "Windows 9" (which would catch 95 and 98).

It has to be assumed that this kludge is still present in software that is actually running on people's machines, so we couldn't call it Windows 9, because then lots of software would think we were running Windows 95 or 98 and then behave strangely/refuse to work entirely.

The solution was to skip 9 and go straight to 10.

I feel like I haven't explained this very well, but I'm sure you get the gist?

That sounds similar to what I have heard. That and that searching for Windows 9 on a search engine will pull up 95/98 too

I think there is a similar story in the NT versions - the likes of Windows 2000 and XP were in the regions of NT 5.0/5.1/5.2 (with their server equivalents) where Vista became 6.0. This is said to have been the reason that lots of software failed to work on Vista as it had been hard coded for NT 5.x
Since then, Windows 7 was NT 6.1, Windows 8 was NT 6.2 and Windows 8.1 was NT 6.3. It looks like Windows 10 may go to be NT 10 so hopefully we don't have a repeat performance of before with Vista

 

[transmanche]

The story is that, way back when, lots of software developers used a cheap trick to determine whether the user was running 'old' Windows 95/98 or a more modern version of Windows. They would simply check the Windows version string started with "Windows 9" (which would catch 95 and 98).

It has to be assumed that this kludge is still present in software that is actually running on people's machines, so we couldn't call it Windows 9, because then lots of software would think we were running Windows 95 or 98 and then behave strangely/refuse to work entirely.

The solution was to skip 9 and go straight to 10.

Sounds like an urban myth to me.

When a software developer wants to check the version of windows, he'll get the version number, not the marketing name. Windows 95 was 4.0, Windows 98 was 4.1 and Windows ME was 4.9.

I think there is a similar story in the NT versions - the likes of Windows 2000 and XP were in the regions of NT 5.0/5.1/5.2 (with their server equivalents) where Vista became 6.0. This is said to have been the reason that lots of software failed to work on Vista as it had been hard coded for NT 5.x
Since then, Windows 7 was NT 6.1, Windows 8 was NT 6.2 and Windows 8.1 was NT 6.3. It looks like Windows 10 may go to be NT 10 so hopefully we don't have a repeat performance of before with Vista

Windows 2000 was NT 5.0 and Windows XP was NT 5.1, Windows Server 2003 was NT 5.2 and as you say Vista was NT 6.0.

The only version confusion for a software developer could be between non-NT and NT versions of Windows

 

[CharlieSpotted]

Sounds like an urban myth to me.

When a software developer wants to check the version of windows, he'll get the version number, not the marketing name. Windows 95 was 4.0, Windows 98 was 4.1 and Windows ME was 4.9.

He *should* use the number, where available, but not all programmers are good programmers... The following example has been doing the rounds demonstrating the type of code that causes a problem:

https://issues.jenkins-ci.org/secure/attachment/18777/PlatformDetailsTask.java

(Java... eugh)
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

Really? Doesn't bode well!

XP used to have a handy little spreadsheet which seems to have been discontinued from the home package.

I wonder if you're thinking of Microsoft Works? This used to be bundled with a lot of brand-name PCs and there's a common misconception that it was therefore part of Windows, but it really wasn't. It was discontinued some years ago.

 

[transmanche]

He *should* use the number, where available, but not all programmers are good programmers... The following example has been doing the rounds demonstrating the type of code that causes a problem:

https://issues.jenkins-ci.org/secure/attachment/18777/PlatformDetailsTask.java

(Java... eugh)

Well, quite... Java!

But even then, effectively, he is checking the version number and only using the marketing name to distinguish between the non-NT v4.x (95/98/ME) and the NT 4.x flavours of Windows. He's just not thinking ahead...

 

[skyhigh]

I'm writing this from the Windows 10 preview (I use it as my normal OS, possibly not the best idea ever) and I quite like it. I'd say it's more like 7 than 8.

I think there's been some confusion though - as far as I can tell, it's Windows Media Centre that's going, not Windows Media Player. It's certainly still alive and well here.

All in all, as it's a free upgrade from Windows 7 or 8, I'm definitely going to upgrade come July the 29th.

 

[ASharpe]

Well, quite... Java!

Is Java not meant to be the future? I use Fortran or C and am frequently told to switch to a more modern language by colleagues.

 

[CharlieSpotted]

The future? I'm not so sure. They told us that when I was at University, which was some years ago now. There must surely be a huge surplus of Java developers by now.

In contrast, I'm told that if you're of the old school, know COBOL, and have a proven track record there's serious money to be made looking after legacy systems. Fortran too, I bet.