Bill in Co wrote:
Steve Hayes wrote:
On Wed, 9 Jan 2019 12:45:05 -0700, "Bill in Co"
surly_curmudgeon@earthlink wrote:

Was just curious how many had taken the plunge and were happy about it.
I don't have any experience with Windows 10, but from what I can gather,
you "just" have to get used to its new interface, the use of "apps"
(which I assume are nearly the same thing as what we used to call
programs), the forced MS updates, and that many of the older programs
can't be successfully imported. Oh, and that you can get a classic start
menu without tiles. (I'm not sure what the distinction is between apps
and programs on Windows 10). Is all that about correct?

"Apps" is short for "Applications Programs", as opposed to systems
programs and utilities.

Apps are what you use your computer FOR, as opposed to programs that
enable the keyboard to communicate with CPU, the screen to display
stuff, things to be written to the disk drives etc.

OK, so basically what we used to call our useful software programs in the
pre-Windows 10 era is now called "apps", and it's just a change in
terminology. And those "apps" are still just exe files.

I'm used to the term apps only for Android devices, where that terminology
is standard.

It's pretty hard to tell what the software is made of.

For example, I "dump" an EXE file in Program Files\WindowsApps
and the header portion has a "PE32+" signature, while the
tail end is... text. It's a manifest of stuff to launch or a
set of dependencies or something.

A utility that would normally identify it, calls it "PE32+",
which is disingenuous. As that's not what it is.

Paul