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Quote from SeaWry»

An still nobody reads EULA or ToS.

Did you? Because I read it and I'm not even sure what you are talking about. The only annoyance therein was the bit about Updates not being optional. Sounds like you didn't read the EULA/Microsoft License Terms and you are getting your information from Articles by authors claiming to have read it? Stuff like Cortana and such definitely gather information, but they can be disabled (FOR GREAT JUSTICE)

I've posted my thoughts on Windows 10 a lot. I've been using it since early on, though on a separate PC.

the TL;DR is basically that I have no intention of upgrading any of my main systems.

I actually feel incredibly disillusioned- like I can't even safely express my opinion. As a Microsoft MVP (.NET/C#, though) they kind of hold me to a standard, and while it's hardly spelled out I do wonder if "Never say anything bad about us publicly" is one of their unspoken rules. I was actually partly hoping I wouldn't get re-awarded (as great as it is!) this last July so I wouldn't feel bad about ripping into Windows 10, but I did... I guess feedback is a good thing. Most of this I've written Insiders feedback about too, though perhaps in a less aggressive tone.

looking at it running on my other system, I cannot think of a single positive thing to say about it, actually. And bear in mind, I'm usually quite pro-Microsoft. I went into it wanting to like it. I really, really tried to like it. But doing so was an uphill battle, so I gave up.

-Start Menu crashes. That is, the start button stops displaying the Start Menu, and I cannot get the Start Menu to appear. I have to reboot or shut down by using Control+Shift+Esc to get to Task Manager. This was a problem in earlier builds. They claimed to fix it. it's still not fixed. It seems to happen less frequently- maybe once a week, but considering I only boot the system twice a week, that doesn't bode well. I'm not going to upgrade to an Operating System where basic Shell features stop working.

-Start menu is awful. I can't believe people actually like it, though I'd say the same about the Win7 Start Menu. There is no full-screen option that makes it similar to the Start Screen- the Full screen option is basically just expanding the crappy(IMO) Start Menu to the full size of the screen, and it works nothing like Windows 8 or 8.1. Again, this probably makes sense- weirdos who think Windows 7's Start Menu isn't crap will feel right at home.

-Start Search is broken. It's unbelievable that they could make the Start->Search feature, which has been one of the absolute, hands-down, most powerful, intuitive, and semantically accessible features of Windows since Windows Vista, so idiotic and awful. Extra steps to disable it's idiotic and completely stupid web search feature, and apparently it still does web searches in the background. Hey, here's a thought- when I type notepad, how about your first result be starting notepad? No, I didn't want to go to the notepad wikipedia entry, thanks. No I didn't want notepad recipes, whatever those are. It's slightly better now but I don't know if that is because of my registry hacking in completely undocumented settings or because of changes in the builds.

-Cortana. What an absolutely useless piece of garbage, just like Siri. It's a brilliant way for Microsoft to gather marketing information about you, I guess. And what better way to appeal to socially inept nerds than to name it after a fictional, overly sexualized character that they probably got off thinking about. So many idiots saying stupid crap like "Hey Cortana want to marry me" and then going "haha she said something silly in response, it's just like a real relationship.... I'M SO ALONE"

The saving grace is that you can kill it with a Group Policy. Die forever. I thought Cortana saying "I'm disabled by your system administrator :(" was pretty interesting. The sad face should be a smiley face though.

I am also not a fan of applications not having their own processes. I can only imagine what excitement we'll get when malware figures out how to exploit that. Edge isn't an executable, for example. Realistically, this is an issue for Windows 8 forward, too, but now that Modern UI applications can run on the desktop we're going to have a lot more fun. Go ahead guys- start the Edge browser. Now tell me- what process is it? Where is the executable file? I'll tell you- It's explorer. Yep, that's right- all Modern UI programs are launched in an explorer process. You know, it's interesting in a way, remember how much malware infected systems through Explorer add-ons and things that ran within the explorer process? Good thing Microsoft learned from that, huh? Oh, they didn't, they did the exact same thing and this time they made it even more untrackable. This time, though- they "compartmentalized" it so it's more secure. Like the Titanic.

Multiple desktops is interesting, but it's such a weird feature to add. Something almost nobody needs which has very powerful tools (like Desktops) that work very well, being integrated into the OS is incredibly strange, particularly given how so much else has effectively been stripped out. Windows key +Tab shows the Task View, but you can only select from windows you have on that desktop; to switch to another desktop you need to click on the other desktop. You can switch desktops using Windows key+Control+Left/Right, though. And it looks like they fixed their former silliness where the taskbar didn't actually change when you switched desktops. It's still an incredibly odd feature to add- something for advanced users- while completely stripping customization options, which leads me to...

Customization options are limited. I'm not even kidding. It's as if, over the years, Microsoft has slowly reduced the customization options of Windows. Windows 10 provides even fewer options than Windows 8.1. In Windows 8.1 I can choose my Window titlebar colour. In Windows 10 they have decided that allowing users to select what colour their title bar and taskbar is was giving them too much power. Now it's white. Always. Always white. You want a title bar that is green? No. Go away. White for everybody. white power. You can get third-party programs that allow you to change that, but really? This is basic functionality. The Settings/Personalization window is a joke. You select a background image/Color, and a "accent colour" which get's used arbitrarily for certain undocumented elements. That's literally the extent of the customization. Wow Amazing. I'm blown away that a 2015 operating system has customization options that look like completely garbage compared to Windows 3.1.

Anybody remember when we could actually customize Windows? You know, change the size of the caption buttons, Change title bar fonts and colours, that sort of thing? Those were some good times. Interesting how all these abilities have slowly been pared down, with the "Advanced Display Settings" dialog being first made hidden in Windows 7, and in Windows 8/8.1 it's not even accessible, but some options are moved to the scaling customization options, with more limited settings. Annoying. Windows 10 removes it entirely. Microsoft now dictates which font will be used in your title bar and at what font size. How dare you presume to change that which has been so benevolently provided to you.

Honestly I think it all comes down to the idiotic, phone-based interface that is Modern UI. in Windows 8 and 8.1 it was mostly optional, nonetheless, everybody hated it. I doubt anybody actually uses the Modern UI versions of programs like "Settings"; I know I use Control Panel in 8.1. And now, WIndows 10 effectively forces Modern UI applications, but because they sort of kind of look like Desktop applications since they are in a Window, everybody is cool with it.

VPN connections use this too. on Windows 8.1 I click the network icon, a slideout comes in from the right, I click my work VPN, then I press connect, and I'm done. All done within the little fold out. (similar with Win7- all takes place inside the menu pop-up)

In Windows 10, I click the network icon, click my VPN- and it takes me to Control Panel. A few weeks ago it hilariously just dumped me right into the main control panel, nowhere network related. That has been fixed, Now it instead takes me to the network settings control panel, where VPN connections are listed. This is an idiotic design. Why list my VPN connections, but make the connection step separate? It may as well not list VPNs at all and just have it show a "VPN Connection..." option that takes you to that control panel, since there is nothing you can actually do in the menu pop-up from the network icon that does anything different for each different VPN connection. I'll ignore that setting up a VPN is a pain in the ass to begin with.

My big problem is that the development methodology of Modern UI (or rather, "Universal") applications are based on websites. You create "pages" and you switch between "pages" in the application. Buttons "Link" to other pages, you have hrefs, and you have to write HTML and javascript even for local programs. Thing is, UI design on webpages is years behind the design of desktop applications. Desktop applications use "dialogs" not pages. You go to open a file and you open a dialog, you don't open a new "page"- that might be the case for a website, but websites have their own limitations. forcing these limitations on software that is running locally is ridiculous because the only reason those limitations ever existed was because websites had no choice. We'll ignore that "Universal Apps" is a stupid name for programs that will ONLY run on certain Windows Operating Systems. They are only "Universal" if we think of the "universe" as "Windows RT and Windows Desktop".

Speaking of the desktop, Windows 10's desktop capabilities add zero new features. This is mostly in line with their push to make everybody effectively develop mobile applications- Windows Forms and WPF desktop applications are no longer cool. Unlike previous Windows versions, I cannot find any new Windows 10 capabilities that are available through the standard Win32API.

I'm not opposed to replacing the WIn32 API, but how about we not replace it with something that is garbage? is that perhaps an option? No? Universal App framework? What makes the entire thing very annoying is that Microsoft has said that the Universal App Framework is not a replacement for Win32. And yet absolutely everything they are doing makes it clear that Win32 is being slowly replaced with a framework that is simply worse when it comes to actually developing applications. (as opposed to developing "apps")