Windows 10 Technical Preview First Impressions: The Return Of The Desktop

[anuseems]

Anandtech takes a look at Windows 10 Technical Preview

Ive said this before, and I will reiterate it now. Windows 8, in general, is not perceived in a positive light. Not necessarily because of the lack of features, or even due to the touch first interface, but because from the start people did not buy into the paradigm. We can argue over why that was, and the specifics are likely different for every individual. But a big part of that was that Windows, which has had a familiar interface since Windows 95, had changed dramatically in look, feel, and general use. The traditional mouse and keyboard PC and notebook is a big part of the Windows user base, and especially at the beginning, Windows 8 did not cater to that crowd. While there were certainly improvements to the desktop, it was not enough to overcome the negative feelings of many users in regards to being productive on their PC. I say this as a fan of Windows 8.1, and I say this despite the positive review from this site. Windows 8 was an OS that worked, but had a steep learning curve that many people did not want to bother learning.

One of the biggest issues facing Windows 8 was just how much people liked Windows 7. Windows 7 was seen as the savior to Vista, and fixed many of its issues. But a lot of the initial problems with Vista were due to a major change in the driver model as well as the security model, which caused a lot of compatibility issues with older programs which expected administrator rights, as well as many hardware devices needed driver updates. With Windows 7, all of those changes were in the rear view mirror, allowing 7 to be a tweak of the overall UI and functionality rather than a rebuild of the OS from the ground up. With Windows 8, the move to touch first caused another dramatic upheaval. This time, rather than incompatible programs and hardware, we got a new Start Screen, a new runtime in WinRT, and a new app model with the Windows Store. For reasons that will never be made clear, the familiar start button was even removed, with the designers relying on hidden functions such as the hot corners to navigate around the OS with a mouse and keyboard. Luckily this change was reversed for Windows 8.1, with the start button returning, even if it still opened the Start Screen. With the Windows 8.1 Update, the system was made much more usable for a mouse and keyboard with the return of the menu bar to close apps, rather than dragging them down off the screen, and several other changes as well which brought the balance back somewhat to cover both touch interfaces as well as the mouse and keyboard.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/8705/windows-10-technical-preview-first-impressions-the-return-of-the-desktop

[banned]

What is so hard about a checkbox option in Windows 10 (desktop version) for "Classic Start Menu". A start menu option that functions like XP or 7, problem solved right?

The toolbar functionality has much improved since Windows 7, rivaling that of XP. But I find the Start menu is STILL going to be too uncomfortable (and unproductive) for the average PC/Laptop user doing an upgrade from Windows XP/7. Microsoft might even be better off making classic Start Menu the default setting and giving more advanced users the option to switch.

[Ryrynz]

Why do you even need a classic start menu? You can configure the start screen to just show all apps and desktop ones first and It's just as good... Why do you need an expanding tree structure?

[dcs18]

For the uninitiated . . . . . . . . the top 3 Start Menu alternatives have already made their programs compatible with Windows 10 Preview - there is no need to degrade to the ugly and inferior Start Menus that we were used to seeing on the XP (or, even - Windows 7, for that matter):--

[MidnightDistortions]

What is so hard about a checkbox option in Windows 10 (desktop version) for "Classic Start Menu". A start menu option that functions like XP or 7, problem solved right?

The toolbar functionality has much improved since Windows 7, rivaling that of XP. But I find the Start menu is STILL going to be too uncomfortable (and unproductive) for the average PC/Laptop user doing an upgrade from Windows XP/7. Microsoft might even be better off making classic Start Menu the default setting and giving more advanced users the option to switch.

I'll be one to admit that W10's start menu isn't bad but is lacking some features that makes W7's start menu better but at least there is a start menu with some basic features. It'll get me to where i need to go. Windows 8 was a major turn off with the start screen had MS not butchered the OS so much it would have been good, it definitely had some good features but overall W8 was basically fumbled up, since when did i have to reinstall Windows to update it? For the longest time too i thought that it was bad updates until some people pointed out that you need to do a clean install. I am only on my 2nd installation of W7 on my media desktop (though i had to reinstall W7 a ton of times on that system due to me having a bad copy and had to get a new W7 installation disk) everything else is 1st installations, had to restore my laptop's though for some reason it just stopped working couldn't even repair it. It's too much time and effort to do reinstalls, i've got other things to do and the only time i ever do clean installs is when i get a new OS or a new motherboard/PC.

Otherwise though i hope W10 works out well, Linux may be a good solution for me but there's always going to be that one pain in the rear program that will only work with Windows.