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Windows GUI Microsoft Upgrades

The Most Highly Voted Requests In Windows 10 Feedback Pool 159

Posted by timothy from the those-sound-reasonable dept.
jones_supa writes: Some of you have probably used the Feedback app of Windows 10 Technical Preview, which has enabled us to submit feature requests and bug reports directly to Microsoft in order to improve the operating system as the company approaches the final release. While Microsoft tries to make some of the requests available, it also depends on the number of votes that each submission gets. Softpedia takes a look at the top 5 requests right now: make Feedback app available in final Windows, too; improve network connections management; allow task view drag windows between desktops; give Cortana the ability to open programs; and bring back resize options for Start Menu.
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The Most Highly Voted Requests In Windows 10 Feedback Pool More

The Most Highly Voted Requests In Windows 10 Feedback Pool

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  • Surprising (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward

    I thought #1 would be: No subscription payment model. Ever.

    • Re:Surprising (Score:5, Insightful)

      by graphius ( 907855 ) on Friday April 03, 2015 @07:04PM (#49401253) Homepage

      I don't mind a subscription model if it is cheap enough and I get upgrades forever.
      However given Microsoft's history of upgrades, maybe it is not a good idea.

      • Re:Surprising (Score:5, Insightful)

        by msauve ( 701917 ) on Friday April 03, 2015 @07:34PM (#49401415)
        "I don't mind a subscription model if it is cheap enough and I get upgrades forever."

        And it doesn't cruft up and slow down over time, and a reinstall doesn't require 2 days of reconfiguring everything, and the upgrades don't break things by requiring new apps and drivers, and they don't move all the configuration settings again, and, and, and.

    • Re:Surprising (Score:5, Insightful)

      by fuzzyfuzzyfungus ( 1223518 ) on Friday April 03, 2015 @07:39PM (#49401447) Journal
      It wouldn't stop people from asking; but this one seems like one of those "either inevitable, or nothing to worry about" requests.

      If MS is in a situation where they think that they can(as with Adobe and their 'Creative Cloud' licensing move for CS versions 6+), the money will just be too good to pass up and they'll force the issue. Maybe keep around a few overpriced non-subscription SKUs that mysteriously turn out to cost about as much as the subscription price over their supported lifetime just to silence the whiners; but structure the incentives such that almost nobody will buy that. In a lot of enterprise contexts, this is already substantially the case, and some flavor of 'Software Assurance' is already being paid.

      If MS is in a situation where they think they'll sacrifice platform dominance if they push it, they'll fold. Observe the existence of "Windows 8.1 with Bing", which is basically "Free anywhere you would have installed ChromeOS or Android if we charged you $50", and the general low to zero price of OEM Windows on the various tablety things that are knife fighting with Android or ChromeOS on the low end.

    • Kill Balmer. Or record more stuff that he does and upload it to youtube.

    • At least in UK accounting a subscription model has benefits for anyone who can claim a Windows licence as a business expense. A subscription would be classed as an operating expense and can be wholly offset against tax as part of the cost of sales. A licence on the other hand is an asset, which can only be depreciated over at best, three years (50% the first year then 25% for the following two)

      This has a number of effects: By reducing my costs in the current year and at the same time being able to offset t

  • posix compliance. fork. (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward

    posix compliance. fork.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      This project claims to have implemented a copy-on-write fork for Windows: http://midipix.org/ The release data is approaching. There's a thread somewhere where the author goes into more detail about how he accomplished it, but I can't find it now.

      Along with musl (a glibc replacement), midipix will provide a light-weight, mostly-native POSIX[1] implementation for Windows.

      [1] Modern POSIX, not POSIX circa 1990.

    • Re:posix compliance. fork. (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Celarent Darii ( 1561999 ) on Saturday April 04, 2015 @05:14AM (#49403377)

      Ironic, seeing how systemd is not posix compliant....

      • Ironic, seeing how systemd is not posix compliant....

        What does systemd have to do with fork API?

  • How about supporting more than 16 colors? (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Windows supported 256 colors in Windows 3.1 (and possibly earlier), but Windows 8 dropped it. Now it only supports 16.

  • Bring Back Aero Glass (Score:5, Insightful)

    by captjc ( 453680 ) on Friday April 03, 2015 @07:07PM (#49401265)

    I hate having an OS that looks like it was designed in 1992. Flat colors suck. Even XP's Playskool color scheme was (slightly) more stylish.

    • Luna.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Tablizer ( 95088 )

      Give the user a style choice: flat, rounded matte, brushed metal, polished chrome shiny, and jewels.

      • Re:Bring Back Aero Glass (Score:5, Funny)

        by lgw ( 121541 ) on Friday April 03, 2015 @08:01PM (#49401595) Journal

        You forgot "OMG Ponies"! And the Cowboy Neal option.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Yes, but then MOST people would choose something other than the shitty, lazy arse 'flat' look, and the poor little 'designer's' ego would be shattered.
        Flat colours look like shit, as you say, I hate 'flat' design, 'flat' icons, text that is actually a button, but is just text, surrounded by other text that IS only text. The 'designers' at Microsoft are assholes of the first order, who don't have a clue about user interface design.

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by Impy the Impiuos Imp ( 442658 )

          I remember setting that fir tree picture as the desktop patterin in Windows 95 and thinking, "Thank god that flat shit is over." Well here we are :(

          And why not list top 10 changes instead of top 5?

          6. Make Google default search engine.
          7. Make Chrome default browser.
          8. What's this Coppy animation? Nooooooooooo!
          9. Fix NSA backdoors.
          10. You may not name your virtual currency "Coin(r)"

    • So select the Fisher-Price theme when it comes out. Geez.

    • Re:Bring Back Aero Glass (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Dutch Gun ( 899105 ) on Friday April 03, 2015 @08:42PM (#49401775)

      I just took a look at the feedback lists, and suggestions related to the look and feel are in the top twenty or thirty popularity-wise (probably higher if you combine them). I counted at least two popular suggestions to bring back Aero Glass as an option, and one suggested perhaps even Luna. There was also another suggesting that simply indicated they weren't happy with the flat modern look, while another wanted to see transparency options.

      On the other hand, there was one high-ranking suggestion that while they liked the flat look, they wanted to see more icons re-stylized to match the new look.

    • I would prefer having an OS look like it was designed in 1992 as long as it *WORKS* like it was designed in 2015. You aren't supposed to *SEE* the operating system.... You're supposed to SEE your programs.

  • simple (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 03, 2015 @07:10PM (#49401289)

    How about, don't fucking spy on me Micorsoft

    • Re:simple (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Bozzio ( 183974 ) on Saturday April 04, 2015 @06:24AM (#49403559)

      Sounds like a reasonable request. Do you know of any examples where Microsoft has spied on its users through Windows?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) *

      Do you have any actual evidence that they spy on you? You can optionally send them crash reports and stuff like that, but do you have proof that they spy on your general activity, or send some personal data with Windows Update requests or anything like that?

      • From the Windows 10 Privacy Policy

        “If you open a file, we may collect information about the file, the application used to open the file, and how long it takes any use [of] it for purposes such as improving performance, or [if you] enter text, we may collect typed characters, we may collect typed characters and use them for purposes such as improving autocomplete and spell check features,”

        http://windows.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows/preview-privacy-statement [microsoft.com]

        • That's for the TECHNICAL PREVIEW version, dummy. The full release won't do that. (By the way, OF COURSE the technical preview version phones home with diagnostic information. That's the whole point.)

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by antdude ( 79039 )

      And no stupid DRM!

  • Dear Windows 10 . . . can you just go back to being Windows 7 . . . ?

    Thanks, your PolygamousRanchKid . . . and don't claim that you didn't know that I was your son!

  • Features (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 03, 2015 @07:28PM (#49401387)

    1) Allow an option to *DISABLE* wally-world entirely, or at least to have *all* the control panel options available in the control panel and TURN OFF the wally-world settings. Since they have to do this anyway for the server version of the OS, it should be no problem at all.
    2) Allow the selection of a "Classic" Start Menu (ala the XP Classic or Windows 2000).
    3) Allow the selection of a "Classic" explorer (aka Windows XP Classic or Windows 2000).
    4) Allow a binding selection to turn off all of the ill-conceived crappola (Libraries, Homegroups, all the crap littering Windows Explorer, Network Discovery and responder crap, UPnP, having the firewall re-enable all the insecure settings every time you apply an update).
    5) Make the OS secure and who cares if this locks out the silly antivirus vendors. Let them sure, who cares about them?

    • Nice to see that an AC gets voted up with a quality post like this. Sad to see that it takes an AC to make a post like this.

  • What Microsoft Wants: The Next Windows XP (Score:4, Interesting)

    by wjcofkc ( 964165 ) on Friday April 03, 2015 @07:29PM (#49401393)
    When business first encountered Windows 8\8.1 the resistance has been high with people falling back to Windows 7... Understandably. I've been using Windows 10 from the earliest builds. It was clear from early on: they wanted to appeal to business and consumers with a single, and long term, solution like they had with XP. When it was Windows XP, it was Windows XP for all. This is what Microsoft wants to return to. I am sure there are domain policies you can issue to configure what "start" does and does not do. I think Microsoft might hit their stride with Windows 10. This is signed a long time MS\Windows hater.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by cjb658 ( 1235986 )

      Yeah but do they want lots of people not upgrading for 10 years?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by wjcofkc ( 964165 )
        Who knows. Maybe.

      • With a subscription model, they already have a revenue stream. Upgrades won't matter as much.

    • Re:What Microsoft Wants: The Next Windows XP (Score:5, Insightful)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) * on Saturday April 04, 2015 @07:06AM (#49403649) Homepage Journal

      I know it was over 13 years ago, but people forget what the initial reaction to XP was like. People mocked the Fisher-Price interface and the new start menu. They complained that it wasn't as good or as clean as Windows 2000, or that dropping DOS in favour of a "broken" compatibility layer was forcing them to stick with Windows 98. Of course their favourite games didn't work properly and security enhancements like driver signing and making the default account a normal user were just fascism.

      Remember that Windows XP didn't even have the firewall enabled by default until SP2. It took years to get good and become widely adopted, and was helped by the fact that 98 and ME were so terrible.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by wjcofkc ( 964165 )
        Right now we have the multitudes running a conglomerate combination of Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8.1 - I imagine all of these operating system, and remember when we had a single MS OS shared among all people business and personal alike. Part of the appeal of XP was that you could depend on finding it anywhere and everywhere and nearly exclusively. Microsoft has too much out there - and this includes their server offerings - and I strongly suspect MS is working toward that lost, uniform u

    • The biggest problem with Windows 8 and 8.1 was the fact you HAD to deal with the "Modern" tiled UI, even if your system booted directly to the Desktop UI (you needed Modern UI access for some functions). I've played with Windows 8.1 and frankly, the "Modern" user interface is too radically different than the Desktop UI used in Windows 7 (it was like having to learn everything from scratch all over again).

      With Windows 10, at least on desktop and "conventional" laptops, you default to the Desktop UI, and that

  • Not a one OS fits all (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 03, 2015 @07:38PM (#49401437)
    Just stop with the one OS fits all themes. It was already annoying that you had to install a 'dekstop' os on Windows servers, even when they did nothing but file server. But the same OS on a desktop with 2x27" 5000x1440 monitor set-up as on an 4" phone is just weird, annoying, frustrating, cumbersome, adding to my stress levels whenever I've to work with this windows 8 fiasco.

    Having the same kernel is not a problem, but trying to force developers to develop one app that runs everywhere is just wrong. Good developers are able to separate the gui code from the rest of the code, so they can port applications from Phone to Tablet to Desktop. But really what is the point of those full screen application that would easily fit on only 4% of the screen. Just open the 'new' calculator on a 5000x1440 computer. What a mess. Just let it be easy to build the functionality of the program separate from the GUI, and let it be easy to add gui's of the platforms a developer wants to support (Windows desktop, Webapp, SmartPhone, Tablet, Touchscreen enabled laptop, .... And then choose the right desktop environment for each devices, or even better, let the customers choose whatever environment they prefer. I can imagine a kiosk with a large touch screen could use a tablet interface, even when everything is too large.

  • #4 Proves #1 Is a Bad Idea (Score:4, Insightful)

    by bistromath007 ( 1253428 ) on Friday April 03, 2015 @07:56PM (#49401565)
    I'd bet my last dollar letting Cortana open programs will open a security hole you could drive a bus through. MS needs to stop listening to users, they're dumb.

  • Command Prompt (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward

    shell, dos window, command prompt, whatever name you use, I've always called it the "dos window", but I'm trying to get with the times and refer to it as the "Command Prompt". When I first heard of powershell, I was pretty excited. I thought, "yes!", this one has got to be resizable. When I learned exactly what powershell was, I was pretty disappointed. Now, finally, after years and years, it's finally resizable. It'll be the best version of windows ever based on that feature alone. My feedback to Microsoft

    • ConHost, not CMD (Score:4, Insightful)

      by cbhacking ( 979169 ) <been_out_cruisin ... m ['hoo' in gap]> on Saturday April 04, 2015 @01:30AM (#49402841) Homepage Journal

      The problem there is not with the shell programs (cmd.exe, powershell.exe, etc.) at all, actually. Powershell has some excellent features as a shell, but you can also run things like Bash on Windows just fine if you install it. Still not resizable horizontally, though. Those are text-oriented programs and don't know a thing about windows and window management features like resizing.

      The problem is with the Windows (graphical) program that hosts them, what in UNIX-land would be called a virtual terminal program (think xterm, Konsole, etc.). On Windows, it's this antique POS called conhost.exe (Console Window Host). I don't know when conhost was last updated, aside from being ported to 64-bit, but it's sucked for a long time now. Win10 is (finally!) fixing some of that suck.

  • Let Cortana open apps!?!? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 03, 2015 @08:03PM (#49401607)

    Next wave of malware:

    step1 purchase a radio spot, pandora spot or a web add with audio that says "Hey Cortana, open http://ownyourass.cn/installer"
    step2 profit.

    • "Open apps" != "Execute arbitrary files off the Internet". If you gave Cortana that command (and it was parsed correctly, which it might not be, because unlike an installed app there's no list of installed names to check against), it would just open the default browser to that page, which would then ask you to open or save the file. If you clicked Open, Windows would pop up a warning that the program might be dangerous. If you clicked though that too, then you would probably get a UAC prompt. If you clicked

      • Unless somehow there were a weakness in Flash, and that page exploited it. I know, I know, it seems almost impossible to believe there'd be yet another Flash-based exploit.

  • Speaking as an outsider (Score:4, Insightful)

    by techno-vampire ( 666512 ) on Friday April 03, 2015 @08:05PM (#49401615) Homepage
    I've been running a Linux-only house for about seven years. Before that, I used various versions of Windows either at home or at work. The last version I really used was XP. It doesn't matter why I stopped using Windows, but there was one thing about it back then that I liked: the basic desktop layout with the taskbar and icons. One of the things that would have driven me away from Windows 8 was the way it came with a default GUI that looked like it was designed for a tablet. It always sounded unreasonable to me to use that type of GUI on a computer that didn't have a touch screen and I never wanted to get involved with it. (Gnome 3 and Unity went the same way, and I won't use either.) Currently, I use one of the many Linux Desktop Environments that lets me configure the look and feel of the desktop the way I want, not the way somebody else wants.

    If I were using Windows and considering using Windows 10 it would be a big point in its favor if it either had a more traditional UI by default, or an easy way to switch to that look. I gather that Windows 7 had that, and I don't think that I'm the only one who would want it in Windows 10. After all, there are a lot of people out there who are being forced off of XP, and making the UI work the way their accustomed to would probably help overcome any reluctance they might have to switching.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by ljw1004 ( 764174 )

      Currently, I use one of the many Linux Desktop Environments that lets me configure the look and feel of the desktop the way I want, not the way somebody else wants.

      Yeah, you were able to configure Windows8.1 to look and feel pretty much like XP. I'm not sure what point you're trying to make. Did you require the configuration to be in-the-box with no manual tweaking? or something else?

      • The point is Win 8/.1 is the least customizable Windows iteration since Win 3.1. And you can't make it look like Windows 7 without hacking core files, which also breaks explorer and various other systems in odd ways.
      • Did you require the configuration to be in-the-box with no manual tweaking? or something else?

        That's a good question, and it deserves an answer. I'd think that an option in whatever control panel is used to control the desktop's appearance to use the traditional UI, along with instructions in Windows Help should be enough. And, if there's a walk-through or tutorial included, having it mentioned in there would be nice. The important thing to me isn't how it looks out-of-the-box, it's how easy it is to

  • There are a couple things I'd like in the final version, but I don't have a copy of the technical preview installed. Anyplace I can vote on the same list from Microsoft's own website?

    • Re: (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward

      You want to give feedback on something you arn't running?

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by SeaFox ( 739806 )

        You want to give feedback on something you aren't running?

        So they shouldn't add the Start Menu back -- because all those people who continued to buy Windows 7 aren't using Windows 8, so they have no room to give feedback on the Windows 8 interface.

        Do you see how stupid your reasoning looks now?

        If Microsoft listens to feedback from people as to what they want in a product, more people would use the product. At least that's my line of thinking.

        • nevertheless you have to run it to give feedback - so run it, in a VM. Then you can legitimately say what you think of it, not what you'd like some imaginary OS to be.

  • It would be really nice if they took a leaf out of the *nix book and made it possible to keep programs on top. It's constantly annoying having things like notepad etc disappearing when you make the program behind it active, and you have to keep clicking on the taskbar to bring it back.

  • STILL the thing I'm missing. Sure, bring the Metro thingy up some place, but also have the Programs that cascade, so I can install stuff, right click and sort (or move things around as I like, and easily assign Ctrl-Alt-letter shortcuts. It's worked from Windows 286 (that I remember), all the way upto this Metro UI rubbish that slows down power users. Why even start menu/start to type when you can just hotkey a dosprompt, and if you don't have it setup, then at least navigate to where you think it might b

    • The shortcut key thing still works. It's a little harder to get to in Win8.x (right-click the item in the Start screen, select "Open file location", it'll open Explorer to the relevant Start Menu folder and you can then edit the properties of the shortcut files to your heart's content) but it's still there and you only need to do it once per program anyhow. I haven't checked in Win10 previews yet, but I'm sure it's not that hard.

      Or you can do it the way everybody else does, and use the instant search instea

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by MrDoh! ( 71235 )
        Aye, think after all this time, it's muscle memory to CTRL-ALT-D or a dosprompt, ctrl-alt-N notepad, 'v' for visual basic->visual studio, Still faster to setup once and how I've done it since very first version of windows I used. Can simulate it a bit making a folder on the desktop, drag it down to the taskbar, but... it feels messy. They brought Desktop back and shrunk the metro thingy, would be great to not have to install Classic Start Menu, but if I have to, so be it! So far, Win10 seems pretty

  • Removal of features! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 04, 2015 @06:38AM (#49403591)

    Is the most needed feature! Gimme windows 2000 with DX12, drivers and bug fixes! :-)

    • And wireless support built in.

      and TRIM support built in.

      And the much improved power saving features that actually allow computers to resume from hibernation / sleep successfully most times.

      and shadow copies.

      and printer support with driver versioning

      and driver rollback.

      and all the new multi monitor features 2k didnt have.

      and windows deployment services (remember ghost?).

      and 64 bit support.

      and the firewall, for those people connected directly to the internet.

      and multi user logon.

      and improved task manager.

      2k i

  • I am a very heavy daily user of Win 10 TP, for both professional and recreational purposes. Note: I am also a daily Linux user since 1996, and have no shortage of experience with OS X. I find the Win 10 UI more than acceptable, just to get that out of the way. Here are my serious requests, both of which have been submitted.

    1. Fix local searching for files. The instant search works for (most) applications and (some) registered document types, but searching for unregistered files by filename is utterly broken

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