3 ms·

Windows 10 one year later: The Anniversary Update

10 points by nikbackm 10y ago

Someone1234 10y ago
Windows 10 has a few issues I hope Anniversary fixes: A lot of core OS functionality aren't searchable (sleep, shutdown, random settings tabs (e.g. privacy), MMC, etc). The entire Start Menu locking up when DNS times out. I start Cisco AnyConnect VPN client, and connect onto a network with no internet DNS (intranet only), and when I click the Start Menu it hangs and then the entire TaskBar hangs. Only way to fix it is to restart Explorer. Even connecting back to the internet doesn't resolve it. Also have a lot of phantom ringing from Skype. Someone Skype calls me, it rings in Outlook.com (in Chrome), Skype client, and on the OS(?). Once I answer the ringing doesn't stop, it just keeps ringing and ringing. I also have a Windows Phone (don't ask) and it causes the desktop PC to ring, with no obvious way of answering it or stopping it (even answering the call on the phone doesn't stop the incessant ringing). The article touches on how jumbled the Settings are between Windows 95 style applets, Windows XP applets, and Windows 10 settings tabs. But it doesn't directly say if they're fixing it. MacOS has definitely had a much better designed settings system than Windows since I can remember, and the Settings "app" isn't really helping. The biggest thing I want Windows to fix... So TweakUI (remember that?) had a mode where no window could ever steal focus. TweakUI has been retired, and this remains my most hated thing about Windows. No window should be able to jump in front of another without direct user interaction, instead they should just "bob" on the Taskbar, but yet even in Windows 10 I still have windows (e.g. updaters) jumping in front of me when I'm trying to work (e.g. typing in Word, iTunes updater steals focus). Why does nobody ever discuss how window-focus works in Windows? Why should a window be allowed to steal focus from another application? Why does the OS even allow that? Why did TweakUI's fix for focus never become mainstream?
- Johnythree 10y ago
  I totally agree about the focus stealing problem. Drives me crazy. I have a long list of similar blindingly frustrating bugs. I wish there was somewhere where they could be highlighted and discussed. I did try to bring them up in the developer forum, but got nowhere. Anybody?
  - Someone1234 10y ago
    Have you seen Windows 10's feedback hub? That seems like a place to point out stuff. If you post it, post the link here and I'll +1 it.
- avtar 10y ago
  A launcher like Wox can work around some of the Start menu issues you listed: https://github.com/Wox-launcher/Wox https://github.com/Wox-launcher/Wox It also provides access to common actions such as shutdown and restart. I wouldn't be able to use Windows without :P
- jug 10y ago
  Focus stealing can be terrible. I always seem to get my focus stolen as I am typing 'Enter' of all keys, and suddenly accept something in an installer! Sometimes I have not even seen what it was that I accepted.
  - jug 10y ago
    Oh, just remembered one more thing. The reboot reminder of Windows Update. You sit there coding at work with 20 windows open, suddenly "Reboot now or wait a little bit?!" and bam "Yup, shut down everything right now!" It happens especially at work where I can't control how updates are installed...
anonbanker 10y ago
Perhaps I haven't read an Ars OS review in a while, but this just comes off as an extended advertisement. Where are the valid criticisms that we come to expect from an Ars OS review? Ars was once the king of opinionated and influential OS journalism, to the point of making the GNOME project drop everything to embrace Spacial Navigation off the basis of an Ars article comparing OS X to OS 9. What happened?
Esau 10y ago
I think when it comes to Windows 10, Microsoft has been its own worse enemy.
Sylos 10y ago
So, not to be all "Herp, derp, Linux is better", but I started using Linux quite recently, and I never realized just how retarded a lot of these things probably have looked like to Linux users since the beginning of time. I mean, man, while reading this article, the sentence "Just use a different desktop environment." has shot through my head multiple times. Or also when the guy wrote that they had to have good touch functionality and good mouse functionality in the same DE, I immediately asked myself why, since obviously they could just create two different DEs, one for touch, one for mouse. And I think, Microsoft could actually have two DEs now, as they've recently separated GUI from core for Windows Server, but obviously, they don't want to maintain two DEs. They wouldn't have done their UWP-stuff, if they wanted to.

10 points by nikbackm 10y ago

Windows 10 has a few issues I hope Anniversary fixes: A lot of core OS functionality aren't searchable (sleep, shutdown, random settings tabs (e.g. privacy), MMC, etc). The entire Start Menu locking up when DNS times out. I start Cisco AnyConnect VPN client, and connect onto a network with no internet DNS (intranet only), and when I click the Start Menu it hangs and then the entire TaskBar hangs. Only way to fix it is to restart Explorer. Even connecting back to the internet doesn't resolve it. Also have a lot of phantom ringing from Skype. Someone Skype calls me, it rings in Outlook.com (in Chrome), Skype client, and on the OS(?). Once I answer the ringing doesn't stop, it just keeps ringing and ringing. I also have a Windows Phone (don't ask) and it causes the desktop PC to ring, with no obvious way of answering it or stopping it (even answering the call on the phone doesn't stop the incessant ringing). The article touches on how jumbled the Settings are between Windows 95 style applets, Windows XP applets, and Windows 10 settings tabs. But it doesn't directly say if they're fixing it. MacOS has definitely had a much better designed settings system than Windows since I can remember, and the Settings "app" isn't really helping. The biggest thing I want Windows to fix... So TweakUI (remember that?) had a mode where no window could ever steal focus. TweakUI has been retired, and this remains my most hated thing about Windows. No window should be able to jump in front of another without direct user interaction, instead they should just "bob" on the Taskbar, but yet even in Windows 10 I still have windows (e.g. updaters) jumping in front of me when I'm trying to work (e.g. typing in Word, iTunes updater steals focus). Why does nobody ever discuss how window-focus works in Windows? Why should a window be allowed to steal focus from another application? Why does the OS even allow that? Why did TweakUI's fix for focus never become mainstream?

Johnythree 10y ago
I totally agree about the focus stealing problem. Drives me crazy. I have a long list of similar blindingly frustrating bugs. I wish there was somewhere where they could be highlighted and discussed. I did try to bring them up in the developer forum, but got nowhere. Anybody?
- Someone1234 10y ago
  Have you seen Windows 10's feedback hub? That seems like a place to point out stuff. If you post it, post the link here and I'll +1 it.
avtar 10y ago
A launcher like Wox can work around some of the Start menu issues you listed: https://github.com/Wox-launcher/Wox https://github.com/Wox-launcher/Wox It also provides access to common actions such as shutdown and restart. I wouldn't be able to use Windows without :P
jug 10y ago
Focus stealing can be terrible. I always seem to get my focus stolen as I am typing 'Enter' of all keys, and suddenly accept something in an installer! Sometimes I have not even seen what it was that I accepted.
- jug 10y ago
  Oh, just remembered one more thing. The reboot reminder of Windows Update. You sit there coding at work with 20 windows open, suddenly "Reboot now or wait a little bit?!" and bam "Yup, shut down everything right now!" It happens especially at work where I can't control how updates are installed...

anonbanker 10y ago

Perhaps I haven't read an Ars OS review in a while, but this just comes off as an extended advertisement. Where are the valid criticisms that we come to expect from an Ars OS review? Ars was once the king of opinionated and influential OS journalism, to the point of making the GNOME project drop everything to embrace Spacial Navigation off the basis of an Ars article comparing OS X to OS 9. What happened?

Esau 10y ago

I think when it comes to Windows 10, Microsoft has been its own worse enemy.

Sylos 10y ago

So, not to be all "Herp, derp, Linux is better", but I started using Linux quite recently, and I never realized just how retarded a lot of these things probably have looked like to Linux users since the beginning of time. I mean, man, while reading this article, the sentence "Just use a different desktop environment." has shot through my head multiple times. Or also when the guy wrote that they had to have good touch functionality and good mouse functionality in the same DE, I immediately asked myself why, since obviously they could just create two different DEs, one for touch, one for mouse. And I think, Microsoft could actually have two DEs now, as they've recently separated GUI from core for Windows Server, but obviously, they don't want to maintain two DEs. They wouldn't have done their UWP-stuff, if they wanted to.