03-27-2019, 09:11 PM
(This post was last modified: 03-27-2019, 09:11 PM by Mattias Westlund.)
OK, an update.
I feel a little silly for being so wary of upgrading to W10, but then again I've had bad luck with it on other systems. I haven't run into a single major issue so far, but a number of minor niggles. The classic Windows calculator is gone, and you need to get a Windows Store (or Microsoft Store, or Microsoft Apps or whatever the hell it's called) app to replace it. And in order to use the Store you need get an online MS account, which I refuse to do. Thankfully you can download the old version of calc from third-party sites and get the same functionality as in previous versions of Windows. Also, the W10 Windows Defender is kind of annoying as it sticks its nose into everything you do causing little delays here and there. I can understand why you'd want to scan a program that's just been downloaded, but something that's been installed forever and you use regularly -- how could that possibly be a threat? I had to add my trusty old Metapad text editor that I use as a Notepad replacement to Defender's exclusion list in order to make it launch in milliseconds (like it did in earlier Windows versions) instead of in 10 seconds. This happens with other programs as well, and it's annoying. I know what I'm doing Windows, get off my back!
Then there's the visual aspects. The plain white windows thing mentioned in a previous post can be fixed by just toggling a setting, which will get you the colored titlebars back. But there's no easy way to make W10 look nicer. Patching the uxtheme.dll to allow for the loading of third-party visual styles -- which I've been doing since XP days -- will not work anymore as every new major upgrade to Windows breaks that functionality. So I guess I'm stuck with a GUI that makes Windows 3.11 look all fancy and advanced. And speaking of GUIs, what the hell is up with this?
![[Image: explorer.png]](http://mattiaswestlund.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/explorer.png)
One would think Microsoft would know a thing or two about GUI design, having been in that business since the eighties, but apparently not. Let's just throw a whole bunch of tabs and icons and text on the menu bar with no regard as to how they are grouped and aligned, shall we? Jeez. Admittedly I don't use Explorer much (I've been a happy Total Commander user for like 20 years) but still, things like that make my brain hurt. So inelegant and confusing and a step back from previous versions.
I feel a little silly for being so wary of upgrading to W10, but then again I've had bad luck with it on other systems. I haven't run into a single major issue so far, but a number of minor niggles. The classic Windows calculator is gone, and you need to get a Windows Store (or Microsoft Store, or Microsoft Apps or whatever the hell it's called) app to replace it. And in order to use the Store you need get an online MS account, which I refuse to do. Thankfully you can download the old version of calc from third-party sites and get the same functionality as in previous versions of Windows. Also, the W10 Windows Defender is kind of annoying as it sticks its nose into everything you do causing little delays here and there. I can understand why you'd want to scan a program that's just been downloaded, but something that's been installed forever and you use regularly -- how could that possibly be a threat? I had to add my trusty old Metapad text editor that I use as a Notepad replacement to Defender's exclusion list in order to make it launch in milliseconds (like it did in earlier Windows versions) instead of in 10 seconds. This happens with other programs as well, and it's annoying. I know what I'm doing Windows, get off my back!
Then there's the visual aspects. The plain white windows thing mentioned in a previous post can be fixed by just toggling a setting, which will get you the colored titlebars back. But there's no easy way to make W10 look nicer. Patching the uxtheme.dll to allow for the loading of third-party visual styles -- which I've been doing since XP days -- will not work anymore as every new major upgrade to Windows breaks that functionality. So I guess I'm stuck with a GUI that makes Windows 3.11 look all fancy and advanced. And speaking of GUIs, what the hell is up with this?
One would think Microsoft would know a thing or two about GUI design, having been in that business since the eighties, but apparently not. Let's just throw a whole bunch of tabs and icons and text on the menu bar with no regard as to how they are grouped and aligned, shall we? Jeez. Admittedly I don't use Explorer much (I've been a happy Total Commander user for like 20 years) but still, things like that make my brain hurt. So inelegant and confusing and a step back from previous versions.
