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Microsoft To Unveil New Version of Windows On June 24 (cnbc.com) 106

Posted by BeauHD from the mark-your-calendar dept.
After teasing Windows 10's next UI refresh last week, Microsoft confirmed Wednesday that "the next generation of Windows" will be announced on June 24. CNBC reports: Windows, the dominant operating system for personal computers, is the source of 14% of total revenue for Microsoft, one of the most valuable companies in the world. The company has pushed two updates each year to its Windows 10 operating system since it first became available in 2015. Nadella made the Windows remarks last week shortly after the company announced that it won't ship Windows 10X. That operating system was initially designed for dual-screen devices such as the Surface Neo, which has been delayed.

The company is working on an update to Windows with the code name Sun Valley, that includes a more modern look, with rounded corners coming to components such as the Start menu. Microsoft could ship a revamp of its Windows app store, which would allow developers to use third-party commerce systems, alongside the Sun Valley update. The event will be held online at 11 a.m. ET, according to an invitation the company sent to reporters. Nadella will be there, along with Panos Panay, Microsoft's chief product officer, who has been the face of the company's Surface devices, the invitation said.
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Microsoft To Unveil New Version of Windows On June 24 More

Microsoft To Unveil New Version of Windows On June 24

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  • UI Ping Pong (Score:5, Informative)

    by darkain ( 749283 ) on Wednesday June 02, 2021 @06:16PM (#61448546) Homepage

    The greating UI Ping Pong in history is rounded vs square corners. Whenever we got board with one, we swap to the other, then back again.

    Vista and 7 had rounded corners... 8 and 10 have square corners... of COURSE we're going back to rounded!

    • Re:UI Ping Pong (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Thantik ( 1207112 ) on Wednesday June 02, 2021 @06:25PM (#61448578)
      Happens in the design world too. Look at the iPhone. Rounded edges, square edges, back to rounded edges again... It's actually a part of planned obsolescence. If they make everything the current fad, people want to upgrade instead. Same with special edition car colors, etc. If you just rotate through some predefined options and make some small subset of those options artificially valuable, the trenders jump on it because they always want to be seen with the latest and greatest thing. It's better than just putting shoddy capacitors in everything at least, so there's at least that.

    • Vista and 7 had rounded corners...

      No, 7 did not have rounded corners. The Start button was clearly squared. As was everything else on 7.

      Also, 7 is still far superior than the cum dump called Windows 10. You could find what you wanted in 7 without being harassed and get things done.

  • Now with rounded corners (Score:5, Insightful)

    by chuckugly ( 2030942 ) on Wednesday June 02, 2021 @06:17PM (#61448550)

    So ... rounded corners. Wow. Really.

  • What a great OS it will clearly be.

    Rounded Corners.

    Wow.

    I but they had to recode it in Rust to get that to work ? C++ can't do rounded, I heard.

  • The company is working on an update to Windows with the code name Sun Valley, that includes a more modern look, with rounded corners coming to components such as the Start menu ...

    ... stop ransomware!

    • You mean Microsoft is going to have a Start menu again? Did they buy ClassicShell or something?

      • You mean Microsoft is going to have a Start menu again? Did they buy ClassicShell or something?

        Hopefully they'll regain a focus on desktop usage.
        That Smartphone/PC hybrid thinking has hurt Windows quite badly.
        The desktop UI is different and has a different functional purpose. Connect the two, don't merge them.

        (that goes for modern website design as well)

        • I wish that too but I'm not too hopeful. If anything UIs seem to be going more in the touch-friendly direction. I'm afraid they might "mobilize" the UI of the Windows explorer or something like that.

  • No more versions wanted (Score:5, Insightful)

    by xack ( 5304745 ) on Wednesday June 02, 2021 @06:26PM (#61448584)
    As others have said, the UI has added nothing new only changing back and forth in response to fads. Microsoft should finally freeze the ui, add no more features and only just do security patches and driver updates.

    • Re:No more versions wanted (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Ostracus ( 1354233 ) on Wednesday June 02, 2021 @06:40PM (#61448614) Journal

      Or just do what open-source does and have a 1,000 and 1 different UIs. Think Different will translate into Be Different.

      • Well, with WSL now supporting GUI apps, maybe now you'll be able to install KDE or XFCE or whatever as your desktop environment.

    • Partly the UI is still a mess because it still has miscellaneous bits dating back to the Windows 95 era, where you still have to go back to obscure settings in Control Panel to do anything advanced.

      They've spent 6 years cleaning up Windows 10 from the abomination that was Windows 8 but arguably the task isn't complete yet.

      (i.e. Windows 7 isn't coming back but I don't think the transition away from that classic interface is finished)

      • How is the existence of shortcuts in the Control Panel the cause of the Windows UI being a mess? Why can't they just leave the control panel alone? What new functionality has been introduced by crippling the Control Panel from its Win95 version? Why can't the classic Control Panel most of us have mastered over 20-30 years co-exist with whatever skin they want to change it to this time?

        • If they keep the Windows 7 era Control Panel in the background for traditional users that's fine by me.

          But they've transformed only half the UI with a new start menu and a redesigned settings panel. But the settings panel doesn't cover many of the options.

          I'm just saying they should finish the job, so that its at least a consistent experience in one or the other.

          • Yeah, even though I dislike the current "mobile style" settings menu they should probably finish the migration to one single style. The thing is I think they were smart to do the changes in phases. There were a lot of UI elements that had to be changed and it'd have been very risky to do it all in one go.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Luthair ( 847766 )
            The new start menu is also incredibly buggy compared to the old one: phantom apps, missing apps, long delays before launching an app, etc.

        • Why can't they just leave the control panel alone?

          Because you seem to be lacking self awareness that the industry has been stealing software and games for 20 years, steam/uplay/drm as we understand it didn't used to exist before you all started buying client-server infected software 20+ years ago beginning with mmo's, which are just rpg's with the networking code stolen.

          The entire corporate world is aware the average pc user is stupid and has been stealing software on an industrial scale since the late 90's and early 2000's starting with PC RPG's.

          The inter

        • For starters, the Control Panel no longer has the Update applet. (Yes, I agree, it's crippled, so just put Update back into the Control Panel!)

          Another thing I've never understood about the Control Panel (or the Settings app) is why it's "Devices and Printers". The device I most commonly need to tweak is the Printer, and it always takes me time to remember to look for the printer under "Devices." Why not "Printers and other devices"? (Don't get me going on the UI for printers, which is barely improved ov

      • Re:No more versions wanted (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Voyager529 ( 1363959 ) <voyager529@ya[ ].com ['hoo' in gap]> on Wednesday June 02, 2021 @08:41PM (#61448900)

        Partly the UI is still a mess because it still has miscellaneous bits dating back to the Windows 95 era, where you still have to go back to obscure settings in Control Panel to do anything advanced.

        The balancing act is that the number of commands in the Control Panel is extensive, and a 1:1 command parity would involve either lots and lots of scrolling per screen, lots and lots of submenus, a "search for everything" UI where we're basically back to the CLI with autocomplete, or a set of first-class commands that get categorized and a "dump section" of everything else, leaving the only other option: keeping the more popular commands and depreciating the rest.

        What I think would be an even better solution is for MS to abstract the window manager from the actual command set. for nearly two decades, I have wanted to run KDE Plasma as my Windows UI. It'd be fantastic...but alas, that's not truly practical without it being the worst possible compromise.

        They've spent 6 years cleaning up Windows 10 from the abomination that was Windows 8 but arguably the task isn't complete yet.

        (i.e. Windows 7 isn't coming back but I don't think the transition away from that classic interface is finished)

        The thing is, that the Windows 10 UI doesn't seem to have anything that one could argue is a truly genuine improvement over the Win7 UI. Sure, it's more "modern", but aside from chasing the UI trend du jour, it's not truly an improvement from an accessibility or productivity standpoint. To your point about transitioning away, that task will be very, very difficult to truly finish, because lots of specialty hardware has its own control panel icons. Serial controllers, some specialty scanners, lots of audio interfaces, some niche video hardware...lots of things use the Control Panel to do their job, so they'd be depreciating lots and lots of (usually expensive) hardware if they prevent even those from running.

        • Re:No more versions wanted (Score:4, Interesting)

          by exomondo ( 1725132 ) on Thursday June 03, 2021 @01:05AM (#61449460)

          What I think would be an even better solution is for MS to abstract the window manager from the actual command set.

          There is some separation which is how alternative shells like cairo [cairoshell.com] do it, back in the XP days I used to use Litestep.

          To your point about transitioning away, that task will be very, very difficult to truly finish, because lots of specialty hardware has its own control panel icons. Serial controllers, some specialty scanners, lots of audio interfaces, some niche video hardware...lots of things use the Control Panel to do their job, so they'd be depreciating lots and lots of (usually expensive) hardware if they prevent even those from running.

          That's true but how often do you actually see any of that? I mean sure if you're in IT helpdesk supporting users then maybe but as a user I very rarely have any reason to go into settings like that. Even for applications, if it's not a common one that's pinned to my taskbar then I just hit the 'windows key' and start typing which is the same workflow on Ubuntu with Gnome (probably others too, where the windows key brings up the search) or Command+Space on macOS. I switch between OSes a fair bit and that workflow is consistent regardless of the OS or UI.

          • Thank you for the link to Cairo! I definitely want to give that a try.

            To your question, though...

            That's true but how often do you actually see any of that? I mean sure if you're in IT helpdesk supporting users then maybe but as a user I very rarely have any reason to go into settings like that.

            Two related things to unpack here. First, kinda the point of the Control Panel is to set-and-forget, but the 'set' part is still quite important. I've got clients at work who only need to access the advanced printer settings once during setup, but that's because the printer is a shelf tag printer for a retail store and requires custom paper sizing. Frequency of use of the control panel isn't in question, but the

            • Frequency of use is not the only metric of importance. To the obligatory car analogy, I've never once used the airbag in my Toyota, and the one car I did use its airbag in, I only used it once, ever. The infrequency of use doesn't mean it's not important to be there.

              I may have misinterpretted your point but it seems like we're on the same page. I don't think Control Panel needs to change at all, I don't think it needs to be deprecated or updated. Like in your airbag analogy: I wouldn't want it removed but I also don't care what color it is.

      • They need to unclean it and go back to the Win XP or Win 2000 Control Panel and get rid of all the new useless "acres of whitespace and scrolling" shite that they are pushing now.

    • Microsoft should finally freeze the ui

      Why? There's enough market research to show that users generally accept UI changes after an initial complaint, but over time become more frustrated as an unchanging UI is viewed as stale and old.

      There's a reason companies invest actually dollars in changing the UI, and it's not like the Slashdot fantasy goes, just to piss you off.

  • Rounded corners... for added safety (Score:4, Funny)

    by mark-t ( 151149 ) <markt.nerdflat@com> on Wednesday June 02, 2021 @06:44PM (#61448620) Journal
    Because you wouldn't want to hurt your finger on those sharp corners using a touch screen now, would you?

  • Planned Obsolescence (Score:3)

    by zenlessyank ( 748553 ) on Wednesday June 02, 2021 @07:14PM (#61448702)

    Again.

    Windows 10 was already supposed to be the last version. Lies. But we all knew that.

    I will wait for the square cornered version at some future time.

  • The only time I used Windows 10 (Score:5, Interesting)

    by bobstreo ( 1320787 ) on Wednesday June 02, 2021 @07:32PM (#61448748)

    I bought a new laptop, it came within Win 10.

    I lasted 3 days before I nuked it from orbit and installed Linux on it. Because I could.

    Not even as a separate partition. I used the whole drive and never looked back.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Sorry kid I'm all out of badges,

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by sconeu ( 64226 )

        Badges, to god-damned hell with badges! We have no badges. In fact, we don't need badges. I don't have to show you any stinking badges, you god-damned cabrÃn and chinga tu madre!

    • Re:The only time I used Windows 10 (Score:4, Insightful)

      by RazorSharp ( 1418697 ) on Wednesday June 02, 2021 @09:52PM (#61449042)

      And the OEM still paid Microsoft. . .

      • The OEM pays Microsoft? I would've assumed it's the other way around. Every Windows 10 user is an opportunity to generate recurring revenue through OneDrive and Office365 subscriptions.

    • Amen. I tried dual-boot with win10 for a while, but on the rare occasions that I needed to use Windows, it would force updates and shutdowns etc before I could get anything done. Not worth the hassle and HDD space, especially when you can just run windows in a VM and not have it break stuff. Yes, I suppose the laptop manufacturer still gave a few bucks to MS for the windows licence.... but then again, if anyone is looking at those stats, they'll see that of all their laptops (with built-in microsoft tax) an

      • I switched to Linux the Autumn before the support for Win7 ran out and had intended to reinstall the Windows in a VM, but I found that all the Windows programs I own do well enough in Wine.

      • Linux never updates?

        • Linux never updates?

          It sure does! It notifies the user that updates are ready, and displays info about each update so the user can decide which ones to apply, a bit like windows XP used to do, before the windows update model changed to "just ram EVERYTHING down the user's throat, and tough shit if they're on a metered connection or one part of this update is known to break some systems." Or "many of these updates only apply if you're using MS Office or an Intel CPU, but you have to download the whole bundle anyway"

          Some Linux u

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Rhipf ( 525263 )

      Why did you have to go into orbit to remove Windows and install Linux? Has Linux really gotten that hard to install? I know Windows isn't that hard to remove.

      8^)

    • Good for you. Although I am surprised that a hardware platform probably designed to be crippled by Win10 actually worked on any version of Linux. My experience has been first find a pack of platforms that claim to be OK with linux and then choose which one also (with tweaking) can get along with Win.
    • Honest question: did you select the laptop to be built with Linux compatible parts, or did you get lucky? And does everything perform as the hardware can, or does it have reduced sleep time and such?

      • Honest question: did you select the laptop to be built with Linux compatible parts, or did you get lucky? And does everything perform as the hardware can, or does it have reduced sleep time and such?

        Sorry for the delay in replying.

        I did check for "compatibility" before I bought. It's a Lenovo. I'd never buy a laptop like a MS Surface with no ability to install alternate Operating Systems.

        Everything works fine, but the battery is crap (like 2 hours on battery crap), I knew that going in. I pretty much leave it on and plugged in all the time.

        I have other laptops/tablets with longer battery lives if I want to go wandering into someplace with "free" WIFI.

        • Thank you. So as before, one has to be careful. For mobile computing I got a pine book Pro, delivered with Linux for 200 USD plus shipping and taxes/ vat. It's an SBC so quite underpowered, a mobile phone in a laptop form factor, but there too I knew what I was getting. Great battery life though...

  • Here's hoping... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by SlashbotAgent ( 6477336 ) on Wednesday June 02, 2021 @07:45PM (#61448772)

    They bring back the:

    Start menu and easy Start and task configurability. Fuck LayoutModification.xml
    3D widgets with enough contrast to make elements, especially clickable elements, visible.
    Colors and contrasts, rather than faded pastel everything.
    Control Panel applets with all the features, rather than the incomplete and ever changing Settings panels(Fuck "blades").
    Less telemetry.

    • Haha, good luck with that wish list. It's Microsoft we're talking about .. they are good at finding the worst way to do something. Count on them doubling down on the crap they are doing.

    • And I don't mean just tabbing to the element you want, if it even lets you. The Photos app is a terrible experience on the keyboard. Buttons don't have Alt+underline shortcuts. If this is the future, there will be a lot less productivity and power users will feel accomplishing previously quick tasks becomes frustratingly slow and monotonous.

      • power users will feel accomplishing previously quick tasks becomes frustratingly slow and monotonous.

        You just described IBM terminal screen application users and the Windows and Web based application replacements. From a few Fkeys and three letter commands to click -> click -> scroll -> click -> scroll -> click -> type.

        You're not wrong, but no one listened to those "Luddites" complaints about lost muscle memory.

    • Comment removed (Score:4, Funny)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Thursday June 03, 2021 @09:27AM (#61450328)
      Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • OMFG! I literally can't tell if you're a hilarious troll or if you're actually the Senior VP of Windows UI development.

        We're doomed!

  • When all they can do is change the GUI and move things around, it's pretty obvious they have stopped innovating and it's just annoying at this point I just wish we had more Android All-in-ones like HP used to make. They make awesome family internet appliances- My family all loves them even to this day. They boot up to desktop (no logins) and you can immediately launch Youtube or games or Browser. The GUI remains the same and no constant updates.

    • One of the few areas they really need to innovate in is the Settings/Control panel screens. Of course, they've fucked that up badly and will only make it worse. The other area to innovate in is file search with image recognition/OCR (locally) so that it is super easy to find things like screen shots (with text) or images.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by DrSkwid ( 118965 )

      Rob Pike

      UTAH2000

      http://doc.cat-v.org/bell_labs... [cat-v.org]

      Systems Software Research is Irrelevant (aka utah2000 or utah2k)

      By Rob Pike (Lucent Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill)

      âoeThis talk is a polemic that distills the pessimistic side of my feelings about systems research these days. I wonâ(TM)t talk much about the optimistic side, since lots of others can do that for me; everyoneâ(TM)s excited about the computer industry. I may therefore present a picture somewhat darker t

  • Once again, another world-shattering announcement from Microsoft. First, we were told that there would be a major, revolutionary re-do of Windows to move it into the modern world. After several of the expected schedule slips, they now announce that they have decided instead to round the corners of windows differently and change the color of some icons. Users will undoubtedly be pleased with these changes and will not complain about the price increase that will accompany them. And Windows will continue a

  • Will a new QA policy accompany this? (Score:3)

    by QuietLagoon ( 813062 ) on Wednesday June 02, 2021 @09:05PM (#61448968)
    I've not heard Windows users asking for a new modern look. But I have heard and read many Windows users asking for much better quality assurance for Windows Updates. Why doesn't Microsoft concentrate their efforts on what Windows users are actually asking for?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Bert64 ( 520050 )

      Because stability updates and bugfixes don't sell new versions. To an end consumer it looks exactly the same so they have no reason to update.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Jamlad ( 3436419 )
      Because UI/UX folks get bored and their associated middle-manager needs to keep himself relevant and visible within the hierarchy so they go around in circles reinventing the wheel. All the while only seeing the world through their very narrow usability view, i.e.: screw everybody that has poor eyesight, dial-up, cheap low-contrast monitors, etc. etc.
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Classic Shell (Score:3)

    by ddtmm ( 549094 ) on Wednesday June 02, 2021 @10:39PM (#61449128)
    As long as I can still load Classic Shell I'm fine. Just wish they would stop porting every settings window over to the new bullshit interface. By the time they finish porting it all over it will be time to reinvent it once again. On one hand it's a monotonous process of change for the sake of looks, on the other hand, what's the point? Cosmetics? How are the new windows any more productive? Change for the sake of change...

  • Ideally, an operating system should be themable. People should be able to create and distribute themes. It's sad that I need a third-party utility (WindowBlinds) to do what should come out of the box.

  • Or even just runs. And leaves my machine working. And doesn't fill the hard drive with half a terrabyte of crap and backups, And doesn't take 25 reboots.
    At least I have a separate Linux install to dual boot (unless they screw that up too).

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Kazymyr ( 190114 )

      Any windows update can nuke grub. Make sure you have a backup of your bootsector. And a bootable USB drive to restore it afterwards.

  • Just means more wasted time for me having to undo the horseshit they added, or the UI they made even more inscrutable and unusuable. It'll now be very light gray on top of super light translucent gray, I assume.

  • Windows is a bloated whale carcass and no amount of corner rounding is going to change that. Only a true rebirth can save its soul. It would be better if they created their own Linux distribution, designed a “Windows” shell for the UI, and developed a Windows subsystem to run x86 applications. A Microsoft-flavored Rosetta.

  • Every time I go into the control panel these days I have to use search to find things because I have no idea where anything is. One thing I'll give Apple is their Preferences window has barely changed, like.... ever. Good luck trying to navigate your way to where you go and add environment variables if you were used to Windows XP, Windows 7, etc.

  • Maybe they found a linux kernel that they can use and build a windows gui on top!

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