Well would you look at that. Just today my brother discovered Tek Syndicate's Windows 10: It's Actually Not Terrible video on YouTube. It was the first I'd heard of Windows 10. Talk about coincidence.
Now, before I continue, I have to make this clear: I loved Windows XP, hated Windows Vista, love Windows 7 and
hate Windows 8.
Quote: "Who's on Windows 10 already?"
Not me, not yet. I've just finished (as in, 2 seconds ago) downloading the Tech Preview and I intend to set it up on VirtualBox (tomorrow - too tired tonight) and explore it
Quote: "Some say it's because Windows 9 is so similar to Windows 98 that some apps acted up (incorrectly checking the left hand side of the string)."
That's what I heard too, and it does indeed sound legit, but I also heard a rumour that it was to do with OEM licensing, where Win8.1 was actually called Windows 9 in the licenses. Either way Windows 10 sounds further away from Windows 8, which can only be a good thing
Quote: "How is 10 any different than 8? And more importantly, why would I want to leave 7?"
WELL. Quite a lot, actually.
For a little while now I've been getting progressively more upset at M$ for ruining Windows with Win8. I love Win7 and believe it to be one of the best OSs ever made, but since using Win8 I'd begun to feel like M$ would never make an OS as good as Win7 again. This was disappointing because it meant I'd eventually (support for Win7 will end one day) move to Win8-style crappiness or switch to a different OS altogether (nooooooo). I'd heard the start menu was coming back in Windows 9, and there was a glimmer of hope, but it was overshadowed with doubt.
And then today I found out about Windows 10. WOW. I won't say it's perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but M$ has listened and made great strides forward (or backward as some might say
). Here's a list of all the things I know of that have changed since Win8 that mean I'm not instantly horrified by Win10:
- The Start menu is back with a vengeance! It's got a Win7-style list of recent/pinned programs on the left with a customisable Win8-style panel of live tiles (which can be done away with by simply removing all the tiles if you're not a fan of them).
- Metro/Modern apps (now called Universal apps AFAIK) now launch on top of a normal desktop and have a title bar with close, minimize and maximise/restore buttons AND can be resized!
- The Win8 Start Screen is gone!! (Although you can still turn it on if you really want that horror)
- Win10 responds automatically to whether you have a touch device or whether you have a keyboard and mouse plugged in! Finally, useless touch features are gone on a desktop device!
- The file explorer is neater and less cluttered! Yes, they still insist on that silly ribbon bar thing, but it's done properly this time.
I hear you ask, "But what you're describing is Windows 7; why would I want to change?" Well, here are some reasons Windows 10 has hope for becoming a worthy successor to Win7:
- It's faster. Simply put, Win10 has the speed and battery-life increases of Windows 8 without the attached horrors.
- It's a tick-less kernel. Yup, they brought that over from Win8 too (and yes, I realise this is connected to "It's faster" but I felt it needed its own bulletpoint)
- Virtual desktops! Yes, something MacOSX has had for years has finally arrived in Windows. Built-in virtual desktops could be a very, very useful feature. In the current tech preview it's ever-so-slightly wonky, but that'll be fixed.
- Better task switching.
- Better window snapping. You can now snap your windows into quarters of the screen if you so desire.
- A revamped command prompt (for the first time in years!). FINALLY we can use keyboard shortcuts to paste commands in without having to right-click!
- The Start menu can be used to search the internet in the same search box that Win7 has. This could be cool, but for those people that will probably hate the idea (I'm verging on dislike) you can disable internet searching.
- More that I've forgotten.
It's not all great, though. Here's some things I dislike:
- The Charms bar still exists. I couldn't care less if it appeared on a touch device with no keyboard/mouse (in fact it may even be nice to use), but on a desktop system is crappy and annoying.
- It's still fairly touch-centric. This is an issue I expect to disappear pretty quickly as M$ finishes separating all the Win8 touch stuff to only be enabled on touch devices.
- Plenty more that I'm too tired to remember.
I'm going to bed now, but tomorrow I'll be starting up VirtualBox and testing out the tech preview of Windows 10. I'll give you my first impressions and probably add a lot to the list of things I dislike
