Post by Admin on Jan 30, 2015 8:52:15 GMT -9
Ugly, incomplete, buggy: Windows 10 faces a sprint to the finish
Unpicking the past is a messy business for Microsoft
One Windows: Windows 10 will be delivered on multiple device types Twitter 55 Facebook 17 G+
Reg comments 131
29 Jan 2015 at 15:58, Tim Anderson
Review Microsoft does not have long to fix Windows 10. The company plans to release it this year, and if that implies hardware on the shelves, the operating system will need to be completed in the summer – and most features will need to be near-finalised well before that. Can Microsoft gets its new Windows ready in time?
Build 9926, released for public preview, is a chance to assess progress. I reviewed the new build both on a 12-inch tablet and on a traditional desktop.
There are plenty of changes from the last preview, November’s build 9879. Microsoft has revealed more of how Windows 10 will combine both tablet and keyboard/mouse support, as well as introducing new apps such as Photos, Maps, and the Cortana digital assistant.
Some features, such as live streaming of Xbox games, and the new Project Spartan web browser, are not yet included in the preview.
The new Photos app is rather good. The Maps app looks nice but assured me that a bus from Nottingham to London would take 30 minutes (reality is nearer 4 hours).
The first thing you notice is a major piece of backtracking. The Charms menu, introduced in Windows 8, has been excised and replaced by a notification and settings panel. Notifications, according to Microsoft, will sync between phone and PC, though presumably only where relevant. The new panel appears when you click the notification icon, or swipe from the right if using a tablet.
The problem with backtracking is that many things need to be unpicked. As a Windows 8 tablet user I have come to expect shutdown options when I swipe from the right, but these are now on the Start menu, as they were in Windows 7. Application-specific Search, Share and Settings, which used to be available through Charms, are now on the top left Window menu in each app. The taskbar, which used to be near-irrelevant for tablet users, is now essential for both desktop and touch users.
In rebalancing Windows back towards keyboard and mouse, Microsoft has perhaps made it worse for touch users, though the big push for universal apps (which are touch friendly) will more than compensate.
The new Notification Center is unexciting in the current build. Not many notifications show up, and when they do, the invitation to “click for more detail” often does nothing. There are also some focus problems. While typing in Word, I hit the Connect button in the Notification Center in order to connect a Bluetooth speaker. The Connect dialogue box opened underneath Word, so I thought it was not working.
Another innovation in this build is Tablet Mode. This engages automatically if you dock a tablet so it transitions to keyboard and mouse mode (Microsoft calls this Continuum), or you can turn it on manually via the Action Center at the foot of the Notification Center. The main effect of Tablet Mode is that apps run full screen – even desktop apps – though you still have the option to snap them to fill half the screen in order to have two on view.
Windows 10 Start
The full screen Start menu is different and more cluttered than in Windows 8
If you have Word and Calculator on the screen, for example, and you engage Tablet Mode, whichever app has the focus will maximise. This is jarring, particularly if it happens to be Calculator, which really does not need to run full screen. You also find that in Tablet Mode the Restore Down button on a window does nothing, even on desktop apps. It is all a bit odd, and you may find yourself preferring desktop mode even when using a tablet in order to recover full control.
Do not make the mistake of enabling auto-hide on the taskbar if you use Tablet Mode. In this mode the taskbar is meant to appear when you swipe up from the bottom, but I saw inconsistent behaviour with the taskbar flashing in and out of view. I also hit a bug in the preview where modern apps did not display at all, fixed by rebooting.
Start work not finished
Another Tablet Mode feature is that the Start menu shows full screen, though it is the new Windows 10 effort maximised rather than the Windows 8 effort. This is good for consistency, though not altogether better for tablet users. In the new screen, hierarchical groups have returned to the “All apps” view, a list of recently used apps always appears on the left, and Store apps are no longer separated from desktop apps. Search has moved from the right-hand panel to the new search box.
Overall it is busier and more cluttered than the old Start screen. It is also less important. In Windows 8 this screen was designed to be the centre of your Windows experience, whereas currently there is no longer even an option to boot into Start; it always goes to the desktop.
“The work on Start isn’t done yet, and we’ll have more changes that will show up in future builds including more personalization (and transparency!), drag and drop, Jump Lists, and the ability to resize the Start menu,” says Director of Program Management Gabe Aul.
Search and Cortana
Cortana makes an appearance in this build, though only if you have your region and language set to US. This “digital assistant” is already familiar from Windows Phone, and in general a promising piece of work. Voice recognition is decent in my experience, though some will be unlucky, and the feature provides a blend of personalised search, automation of common tasks, and reminders and alerts. Cortana bases suggestions on data stored in a “notebook” that you can view through settings.
Cortana is not very functional in the present build, though simple reminders work. Voice input is difficult in any noisy environment. This is really about personalisation, though, and in that respect the feature makes sense as Microsoft’s equivalent to Google Now, and with more transparency about what personal data is used. Cortana always searches with Bing, even if your browser is set to another provider, so there is some cross-promotion in there too. The automation aspect, where you ask Cortana to send an email, for example, would be more interesting if opened up for extension by app developers.
Cortana
Cortana is here, but does she belong on a PC?
The Cortana app doubles as the search app, and if Cortana is disabled or cannot come up with anything special, you get search instead. It is still “Search the web and windows”, so the same box serves for finding apps or documents as well as searching the web. If you click a category in the results, such as Apps, an expanded search box appears, with categories along the top, though it is buggy in this build. A search for Printers, for example, showed three results in Settings, but when I clicked Settings to show the extended view, it reported: “No matching settings found.”
That rather good Windows 8 search app, which showed rich images, biographies and interactive features in horizontal scrolling view, seems to have been expunged from Windows 10.
OneDrive, Microsoft’s cloud storage, remains crippled in this release by the absence of the placeholder feature, which showed the entire contents of OneDrive in Explorer but only downloaded the files on demand. You now have to right-click the OneDrive taskbar icon, choose Settings, and specify which folders to sync. You cannot specify subfolders, but only top-level folders.
Internet Explorer – you still get two
Microsoft has demonstrated a new Windows 10 web browser, called Project Spartan, but it is not yet included in the preview. The story here is that Microsoft now has two browser engines, a new one called EdgeHTML and the old one called MSHTML (also known as Trident).
Project Spartan is the equivalent to Metro IE in Windows 8. It is a universal app, which in Windows 10 will run in a desktop window as well as full screen, and uses EdgeHTML by default. However it can fall back to MSHTML for compatibility where necessary. Compatibility with old Internet Explorer (IE) apps is not great in Project Spartan even with MSHTML, since some features including ActiveX controls and Browser Helper Objects do not work, so IE itself is also provided in Windows 10.
This build only includes IE, but to further confuse matters, IE can also use both rendering engines. You can enable EdgeHTML in IE by navigating to about:flags and enabling Experimental Features. New features in IE include HTTP Strict Transport Security headers, HTTP Live Streaming and MPEG-DASH adaptive video streaming, VideoTrack support, and the beginnings of XPath DOM access. There are also updated F12 Developer Tools (press F12 to see them) including improved network traffic inspection and more powerful debugging tools; this is a nice set of tools now.
Enabling the new engine gives much faster performance in some cases. Google’s Octane benchmark returned a score of 7973 using the old engine, on this elderly Core i5 tablet, and 11934, nearly 50 per cent faster, using the new engine.
Bundling two web browsers into Windows is confusing, but how much so will depend on the defaults. It sounds as if Project Spartan will be the normal browser, with IE tucked away for business app compatibility, and that makes perfect sense.
New Settings app
Settings were a problem in Windows 8, since some were migrated to a simplified user interface in a modern-style PC Settings app, while others are only available in the old desktop Control Panel. This new build introduces a new, more extensive Settings app. Search in the app can find settings that are elsewhere as well. For example, search for VPN and the results include “Network Connections” in the old Control Panel, which is the best place to set advanced VPN properties. It is still messy and inconsistent in places. Search for Mouse, and you get a few simple settings. Open Control Panel and search for Mouse, and you get the real deal with far more options. This is annoying. The new app is promising, though.
Mouse in the control panel
Modern app settings for mouse (L) vs. more extensive Control Panel settings (R)
Windows 8 unpicked
More than earlier previews, this Windows 10 build shows how much of Windows 8 has been removed by the new team. The Charms menu has gone and the Start screen replaced, removing two key features. Windows is desktop-centric again, which will please most users, but does at times compromise the tablet experience.
Microsoft has not forgotten the tablet side, with the prominence of touch-friendly universal apps ensuring reasonable usability.
Bugs and rough edges are expected in a preview, but the number of issues I encountered is a concern; it is worse in this respect than Windows 8 was at the equivalent time before release. Most of the problems are with universal apps, and include apps appearing off screen, buttons and links not working, and focus issues, the only fix being a reboot.
Microsoft also has work to do on fit and finish. Inconsistency of design between universal and desktop apps is inevitable, but that does not excuse ugliness like panels with excessively tight left margins and too much white space below. The split personality of Windows 8 has been disguised but not eliminated in Windows 10, and issues like “is it in Control Panel or is it in Settings” continue to annoy.
Unpicking and replacing Windows 8 features and unifying Windows across devices, while also providing marketable new functionality, is a challenging task for Microsoft’s team. The state of this build suggests that there may still be rough spots on release, especially for tablet users. Chief exec Satya Nadella has promised “Windows as a service” though, suggesting continuous refinement, and my hunch is that this will be needed.
More positively, this build shows strong progress in making Windows 10 more consistent across tablet and desktop, as well as a palatable upgrade for Windows 7 users. It will get better, and once over this hump, Microsoft and its third-party developer partners can focus on delivering compelling apps for its new platform.
The extent to which they do so will in the end determine the success of the release.
Unpicking the past is a messy business for Microsoft
One Windows: Windows 10 will be delivered on multiple device types Twitter 55 Facebook 17 G+
Reg comments 131
29 Jan 2015 at 15:58, Tim Anderson
Review Microsoft does not have long to fix Windows 10. The company plans to release it this year, and if that implies hardware on the shelves, the operating system will need to be completed in the summer – and most features will need to be near-finalised well before that. Can Microsoft gets its new Windows ready in time?
Build 9926, released for public preview, is a chance to assess progress. I reviewed the new build both on a 12-inch tablet and on a traditional desktop.
There are plenty of changes from the last preview, November’s build 9879. Microsoft has revealed more of how Windows 10 will combine both tablet and keyboard/mouse support, as well as introducing new apps such as Photos, Maps, and the Cortana digital assistant.
Some features, such as live streaming of Xbox games, and the new Project Spartan web browser, are not yet included in the preview.
The new Photos app is rather good. The Maps app looks nice but assured me that a bus from Nottingham to London would take 30 minutes (reality is nearer 4 hours).
The first thing you notice is a major piece of backtracking. The Charms menu, introduced in Windows 8, has been excised and replaced by a notification and settings panel. Notifications, according to Microsoft, will sync between phone and PC, though presumably only where relevant. The new panel appears when you click the notification icon, or swipe from the right if using a tablet.
The problem with backtracking is that many things need to be unpicked. As a Windows 8 tablet user I have come to expect shutdown options when I swipe from the right, but these are now on the Start menu, as they were in Windows 7. Application-specific Search, Share and Settings, which used to be available through Charms, are now on the top left Window menu in each app. The taskbar, which used to be near-irrelevant for tablet users, is now essential for both desktop and touch users.
In rebalancing Windows back towards keyboard and mouse, Microsoft has perhaps made it worse for touch users, though the big push for universal apps (which are touch friendly) will more than compensate.
The new Notification Center is unexciting in the current build. Not many notifications show up, and when they do, the invitation to “click for more detail” often does nothing. There are also some focus problems. While typing in Word, I hit the Connect button in the Notification Center in order to connect a Bluetooth speaker. The Connect dialogue box opened underneath Word, so I thought it was not working.
Another innovation in this build is Tablet Mode. This engages automatically if you dock a tablet so it transitions to keyboard and mouse mode (Microsoft calls this Continuum), or you can turn it on manually via the Action Center at the foot of the Notification Center. The main effect of Tablet Mode is that apps run full screen – even desktop apps – though you still have the option to snap them to fill half the screen in order to have two on view.
Windows 10 Start
The full screen Start menu is different and more cluttered than in Windows 8
If you have Word and Calculator on the screen, for example, and you engage Tablet Mode, whichever app has the focus will maximise. This is jarring, particularly if it happens to be Calculator, which really does not need to run full screen. You also find that in Tablet Mode the Restore Down button on a window does nothing, even on desktop apps. It is all a bit odd, and you may find yourself preferring desktop mode even when using a tablet in order to recover full control.
Do not make the mistake of enabling auto-hide on the taskbar if you use Tablet Mode. In this mode the taskbar is meant to appear when you swipe up from the bottom, but I saw inconsistent behaviour with the taskbar flashing in and out of view. I also hit a bug in the preview where modern apps did not display at all, fixed by rebooting.
Start work not finished
Another Tablet Mode feature is that the Start menu shows full screen, though it is the new Windows 10 effort maximised rather than the Windows 8 effort. This is good for consistency, though not altogether better for tablet users. In the new screen, hierarchical groups have returned to the “All apps” view, a list of recently used apps always appears on the left, and Store apps are no longer separated from desktop apps. Search has moved from the right-hand panel to the new search box.
Overall it is busier and more cluttered than the old Start screen. It is also less important. In Windows 8 this screen was designed to be the centre of your Windows experience, whereas currently there is no longer even an option to boot into Start; it always goes to the desktop.
“The work on Start isn’t done yet, and we’ll have more changes that will show up in future builds including more personalization (and transparency!), drag and drop, Jump Lists, and the ability to resize the Start menu,” says Director of Program Management Gabe Aul.
Search and Cortana
Cortana makes an appearance in this build, though only if you have your region and language set to US. This “digital assistant” is already familiar from Windows Phone, and in general a promising piece of work. Voice recognition is decent in my experience, though some will be unlucky, and the feature provides a blend of personalised search, automation of common tasks, and reminders and alerts. Cortana bases suggestions on data stored in a “notebook” that you can view through settings.
Cortana is not very functional in the present build, though simple reminders work. Voice input is difficult in any noisy environment. This is really about personalisation, though, and in that respect the feature makes sense as Microsoft’s equivalent to Google Now, and with more transparency about what personal data is used. Cortana always searches with Bing, even if your browser is set to another provider, so there is some cross-promotion in there too. The automation aspect, where you ask Cortana to send an email, for example, would be more interesting if opened up for extension by app developers.
Cortana
Cortana is here, but does she belong on a PC?
The Cortana app doubles as the search app, and if Cortana is disabled or cannot come up with anything special, you get search instead. It is still “Search the web and windows”, so the same box serves for finding apps or documents as well as searching the web. If you click a category in the results, such as Apps, an expanded search box appears, with categories along the top, though it is buggy in this build. A search for Printers, for example, showed three results in Settings, but when I clicked Settings to show the extended view, it reported: “No matching settings found.”
That rather good Windows 8 search app, which showed rich images, biographies and interactive features in horizontal scrolling view, seems to have been expunged from Windows 10.
OneDrive, Microsoft’s cloud storage, remains crippled in this release by the absence of the placeholder feature, which showed the entire contents of OneDrive in Explorer but only downloaded the files on demand. You now have to right-click the OneDrive taskbar icon, choose Settings, and specify which folders to sync. You cannot specify subfolders, but only top-level folders.
Internet Explorer – you still get two
Microsoft has demonstrated a new Windows 10 web browser, called Project Spartan, but it is not yet included in the preview. The story here is that Microsoft now has two browser engines, a new one called EdgeHTML and the old one called MSHTML (also known as Trident).
Project Spartan is the equivalent to Metro IE in Windows 8. It is a universal app, which in Windows 10 will run in a desktop window as well as full screen, and uses EdgeHTML by default. However it can fall back to MSHTML for compatibility where necessary. Compatibility with old Internet Explorer (IE) apps is not great in Project Spartan even with MSHTML, since some features including ActiveX controls and Browser Helper Objects do not work, so IE itself is also provided in Windows 10.
This build only includes IE, but to further confuse matters, IE can also use both rendering engines. You can enable EdgeHTML in IE by navigating to about:flags and enabling Experimental Features. New features in IE include HTTP Strict Transport Security headers, HTTP Live Streaming and MPEG-DASH adaptive video streaming, VideoTrack support, and the beginnings of XPath DOM access. There are also updated F12 Developer Tools (press F12 to see them) including improved network traffic inspection and more powerful debugging tools; this is a nice set of tools now.
Enabling the new engine gives much faster performance in some cases. Google’s Octane benchmark returned a score of 7973 using the old engine, on this elderly Core i5 tablet, and 11934, nearly 50 per cent faster, using the new engine.
Bundling two web browsers into Windows is confusing, but how much so will depend on the defaults. It sounds as if Project Spartan will be the normal browser, with IE tucked away for business app compatibility, and that makes perfect sense.
New Settings app
Settings were a problem in Windows 8, since some were migrated to a simplified user interface in a modern-style PC Settings app, while others are only available in the old desktop Control Panel. This new build introduces a new, more extensive Settings app. Search in the app can find settings that are elsewhere as well. For example, search for VPN and the results include “Network Connections” in the old Control Panel, which is the best place to set advanced VPN properties. It is still messy and inconsistent in places. Search for Mouse, and you get a few simple settings. Open Control Panel and search for Mouse, and you get the real deal with far more options. This is annoying. The new app is promising, though.
Mouse in the control panel
Modern app settings for mouse (L) vs. more extensive Control Panel settings (R)
Windows 8 unpicked
More than earlier previews, this Windows 10 build shows how much of Windows 8 has been removed by the new team. The Charms menu has gone and the Start screen replaced, removing two key features. Windows is desktop-centric again, which will please most users, but does at times compromise the tablet experience.
Microsoft has not forgotten the tablet side, with the prominence of touch-friendly universal apps ensuring reasonable usability.
Bugs and rough edges are expected in a preview, but the number of issues I encountered is a concern; it is worse in this respect than Windows 8 was at the equivalent time before release. Most of the problems are with universal apps, and include apps appearing off screen, buttons and links not working, and focus issues, the only fix being a reboot.
Microsoft also has work to do on fit and finish. Inconsistency of design between universal and desktop apps is inevitable, but that does not excuse ugliness like panels with excessively tight left margins and too much white space below. The split personality of Windows 8 has been disguised but not eliminated in Windows 10, and issues like “is it in Control Panel or is it in Settings” continue to annoy.
Unpicking and replacing Windows 8 features and unifying Windows across devices, while also providing marketable new functionality, is a challenging task for Microsoft’s team. The state of this build suggests that there may still be rough spots on release, especially for tablet users. Chief exec Satya Nadella has promised “Windows as a service” though, suggesting continuous refinement, and my hunch is that this will be needed.
More positively, this build shows strong progress in making Windows 10 more consistent across tablet and desktop, as well as a palatable upgrade for Windows 7 users. It will get better, and once over this hump, Microsoft and its third-party developer partners can focus on delivering compelling apps for its new platform.
The extent to which they do so will in the end determine the success of the release.