Windows 10

OK that's good. I thought I might've done it and then my brain hiccuped and I forgot that I did :crazyeye:
 
That.....lawsuit makes no sense. I doubt the average person is going to confuse a cloud storage service with a television broadcaster. Of course, I could be overestimating the average person.

They also sell broadband in the UK and have previously offered a cloud based storage system. The colouring is quite similar as well so its not that ridiculous.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-23530337
 
The best news so far? They're actually making some improvements to the command line.

The naming does seem odd, but the if (os.name.startsWith("Windows 9")) explanation may be the reason. Not too different from why Windows 8.1 is actually Windows 6.3 internally (and Windows 10 will probably be Windows 6.4).

I did have to check to see whether I would've fallen victim to a "Windows 9", though. Fortunately not - my only special case code deals with Vista, and that's handled by evaluating the response to the function I call and taking the necessary extra steps if it's Vista+'s response, not by version string checking. I can certainly see how it would be an issue, though.
 
The best news so far? They're actually making some improvements to the command line.

They should just get rid of cmd in favour of PowerShell

The naming does seem odd, but the if (os.name.startsWith("Windows 9")) explanation may be the reason. Not too different from why Windows 8.1 is actually Windows 6.3 internally (and Windows 10 will probably be Windows 6.4).

I did have to check to see whether I would've fallen victim to a "Windows 9", though. Fortunately not - my only special case code deals with Vista, and that's handled by evaluating the response to the function I call and taking the necessary extra steps if it's Vista+'s response, not by version string checking. I can certainly see how it would be an issue, though.

After my previous post, realized that version checking probably isn't the actual reason, there's no reasonable ability for programs to check os.name.startsWith("Windows 9").
 
Hopefully there is a way to disable Metro with one click in the settings. Also the cloud stuff should stay optional. I have little interest in it. I would rather just use my hard drive and my external drive. I only use online back up to back my most key files and Dropbox works fine for that. Requiring the use of cloud storage would be basically always online DRM which would be a deal breaker.
 
Windows 10 doesn’t fix the desktop—it fixes Windows 8’s reputation

The Windows 10 desktop isn't all that different from Windows 8.1's, but it's more important for the OS to replace Windows 8's damaged brand.

Microsoft highlighted the problem in a circa-2008 series of ads called the "Mojave Experiment." Microsoft's point in these ads was that when people actually used Vista instead of just hearing about it, their opinion of the operating system improved. The point that the company inadvertently made was that Vista's negative first impression had stuck, regardless of how much the operating system had improved since launch.
 
The best thing about Windows 10 is the return of the start menu and I see what looks like an Aero glass taskbar, that is awesome.
 
They should just get rid of cmd in favour of PowerShell

After my previous post, realized that version checking probably isn't the actual reason, there's no reasonable ability for programs to check os.name.startsWith("Windows 9").

Quite possibly they should get rid of cmd in favor of PowerShell, at least as a default. I've heard PowerShell is much more... err... powerful.

I'm not sure if it's feasible for programs written in .NET or native C code on Windows to check the Windows version that way, but I know that some languages such as Java do expose the OS version that way. So, Java or Groovy or Scala code can check if the OS name starts with Windows 9 to detect Windows 95 or Windows 98, and some code search tools do show examples out there (which excludes any closed-source cases). You could also check the OS version in a Java program with something like if (os.name.contains("4.")) to detect Windows 4.x (95, 98, ME... and probably NT 4), but my guess is there's more "9"s than "4."s out there. So it seems like a more plausible reason to me than I thought when I first heard it.

The marketing decision behind not going with 8.2 makes a lot of sense. 8.x does have a brand problem, although the tablet/desktop split continues to make it enemies. Another non-technical person I know recently got a Windows 8.1 laptop, and was struggling with both the keyboard-and-gesture centric tablet UI (on a non-touch device), as well as lots of things like how to connect to WiFi not being in the same place as they were on her old Windows Vista laptop. By both being more palatable to those who are using non-touch devices and shedding the 8.x brand name, it'll probably do a lot better than if it just improved the desktop experience while being called 8.x. I can absolutely see why people who disliked 8.0 when it was first new wouldn't touch anything called 8.x - I had no desire to try Vista with service packs after the mess that Vista RTM was myself.

The article is also right that Windows 10, at least if it winds up being similar to the preview, really is Windows 8++, in the same way 7 was Vista++ (and 98 was 95++, etc.). And really, the internal versioning tells that story too. Other than the Metro changes and greater (optional) online integration, Windows 8 was practically Windows 7 plus a few changes. The desktop foundation hasn't changed a whole lot, at least at once, since the move to Vista, aside from WOA (Windows on ARM) support.

Which is kind of disappointing in a way. Windows 3.x was the top version for about 5 years, Windows 4.x was for about 5 years, Windows 5.x for about 6.5 years (and the additional time was largely due to Longhorn's restart), but 6.x has already been here for close to 8 years. Touchscreen support is bounds different than in late 2006 when Vista Enterprise came out, but for non-touch devices it's been pretty evolutionary and gradual change. And even 5.x to 6.x, despite the compatibility issues, wasn't as big of a jump as 3.x to 4.x or the really big one - 4.x to 5.x.
 
I was just about to buy Windows 7 but I never got round to upgrading before due to the cost. Stuck on Vista, which is fine apart from the odd quirk here and there.

Do you think I should hold off until Windows 10?

If I didn't play games, I would be using Linux.
 
If you're happy with Vista then I'd stick with Vista. I'd only upgrade if there was a real necessity to upgrade, e.g. when your PC gets so old and slow that you really just need a new PC, upgrade your PC and upgrade to the latest Windows at the same time. New OSes tend to be specified/optimised for contemporaneous computing power, so the two should be upgraded in tandem really. If your current PC is powerful enough and the OS is still fairly responsive and does the job, then stick with what you've got.

EDIT: x-post - what leif said!
 
Thanks for your opinions. I can use Vista for the next 6 months. It does run stable when it is fully updated.

The only problem that is pissing me off is that my folder view settings randomly change sometimes. That is a common quirk that affects many Vista users.

I most likely will upgrade my operating system sometime next year, but I don't really see the point in upgrading any hardware for a while. My computer is decent and I don't buy games on release day, hence why my hardware is intentionally around 12 to 18 months out of date. Games and hardware is a lot cheaper that way and game developers usually patch out many bugs in their games before I get around to playing them.
 
I understand completely as I do much the same thing. Still running several athlon II processors in our house with win7.

The only reason I posted that is that Vista came out in 2006, replaced by win7 in 2009. Your Vista system must be pushing 6 or 7 years old by now and the technology of components has significantly improved along with lower prices. So, as Mise said above, would really consider upgrading your PC with the addition of a new operating system.

I build all my own systems and try to stay about a generation or so behind the tech curve as I find the best price/performance in this area. Generally try to build a new system every 3 or 4 years. :)
 
I was just about to buy Windows 7 but I never got round to upgrading before due to the cost. Stuck on Vista, which is fine apart from the odd quirk here and there.

Do you think I should hold off until Windows 10?

If I didn't play games, I would be using Linux.

I use Vista myself - if you feel no need to upgrade, then you might as well save your money.

For the folder view settings, I'm pretty sure there's a registry tweak somewhere that fixes that. I forgot it off-hand but you might be able to find it.

Windows Vista was released in 2007, not 2006.
 
Release version of Vista was in 2006, it just didn't arrive on retail computers until 2007.

At this point, Vista has about 2.5 years of support remaining. I'd upgrade if you're planning on keeping your hardware longer than that - otherwise I'd plan on getting new hardware in 2.5 years.

New OSes tend to be specified/optimised for contemporaneous computing power, so the two should be upgraded in tandem really.

Not really the case since MS has been pushing requirements down for phones/tablets.

Requirements

Vista Capable/Premium:
Processor: 800 MHz/1GHz
Memory: 512 MB/ 1GB
HDD free space: 15 GB

7 32-bit/64-bit:
Processor: 1 GHz
Memory: 1 GB / 2 GB
HDD free space: 16 GB / 20 GB

8/8.1 32-bit-64-bit:
Processor: 1 GHz
Memory: 1 GB / 2 GB
HDD free space: 16 GB / 20 GB

Requirements haven't gone up (other than some CPU instruction support and resolution support and such, IIRC) in the past couple releases. (And they're technically actually down for HDD space - you can install Win8.1 on devices with 16GB of total storage, with space left over... any of Vista/7 will be miserable if you get them to work at all on 16GB devices.) (And running Vista on an 800 MHz single-core system with 512MB RAM will also be pretty miserable, probably no worse than either of Win 7/8.)
 
If you have a laptop from when Vista was available (2007 - 2009), I would not upgrade it because remaining support is 2.5 years. The reason being, even if you do think you may keep it longer than that, it's an open question whether the computer will still work in 2.5 years (or whether you will still want to keep it then). 5 years - which comes in at the tail end of Vista's availability - is fairly old for a computer, and 7.5 years is considerably older indeed.

If you have Vista on a newer desktop and just used Vista because you already had it, things might be different, since there's a higher chance you'll still be using that computer, and a lower chance it will fail or break down, in a few years.
 
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