What can you do on Windows 10 that you can't do on Windows XP or Windows 7?

In message , mechanic
writes
On Tue, 1 May 2018 06:09:20 +0000 (UTC), Bob J Jones wrote:

In , mechanic
wrote:

What can you do on Windows 10 that you can't do on Windows XP or Windows 7?

Talk to Cortana?

This is good as I had thought Cortana was on Windows 7, but it's not.

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/..._7-windows_pro
grams/cortana-for-windows-7/808500a6-3607-4913-a234-649ae4ce9ae0

So here's the current list of what you can do, by virtue of the OS alone,
on Windows 10 that you can't do on Windows 7 or Windows XP...

1. Windows Store apps
2. Cortana searches
3. DirectX 12 in the OS
4. Access 2TB of RAM (instead of 512GB, 192GB, & 128GB previously)
5. HiDPI scale text & GUI to 200% (not just 150% previously)
6. Full-screen console mode
7. ?
8. ?
9. ?
10. ?

Is there anything else?
What is the priority order?

Timeline?

Should the question not be "What do you feel you really NEED to do on
Windows 10 that you miss not being able to do on Windows XP or Windows
7?" ?
--
Ian

"Bob J Jones" wrote

|
| This seems to be the best we can collectively come up with that all will
| agree upon as functionality in Windows 10 that isn't in Win7 or WinXP.
|
| 1. Windows Store apps
| 2. Cortana searches
| 3. DirectX 12 in the OS
| 4. Access 2TB of RAM (instead of 512GB, 192GB, & 128GB previously)
| 5. HiDPI scale text & GUI to 200% (not just 150% previously)
| 6. Full-screen console mode

MS Office 2019. Was that mentioned?

https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/...g-and-support/

That's going to push a lot of suckers into
Win10. Interestingly, MSO 2019 will only be
available in Click-To-Run form, which is a
transitional format, essentially a "cloud app"
without the subscription.

It's becoming like one of those dreary sci-fi
movies, where a nasty, autocratic ruler crushes
life inside the gates of a protected city, while
life outside the walls of the city is free but
dangerous.
Microsoft are quickly moving toward total
control of a kiosk Windows computer, while
the rest of us will have to cobble together
Linux, older Windows versions, and whatever
hardware still works with the older Windows
versions.

So I guess that's Windows 10 killer app #8:
Protection under Microsoft's dictatorship.

"Ian Jackson" wrote

| Should the question not be "What do you feel you really NEED to do on
| Windows 10 that you miss not being able to do on Windows XP or Windows
| 7?" ?

Have you seen Cortana?

https://www.halopedia.org/File:CortanaH4_render.jpg

She wants you. She's wet for you. And she's
wearing only the skimpiest, sheer, skintight,
circuitboard nightie from Tron.

Can you *really* be happy with Bob the
Nervous Paperclip when you know that Cortana
lives in new Win10 computers?

Mayayana wrote:
"Paul" wrote

| Does Win10 have Flac support that Win7 & WinXP don't have?
|
| AFAIK, yes.
|
| I don't even think FLAC was available on Win10 on the first
| release. It came later.
|

Why would that matter? It's an open format. VLC
supports it. Free tools are available to work with it.
Saying only Win10 supports FLAC is like saying Windows
supports ZIP, or that Windows added PNG support when
it was added to Paint.

Technically that's true, up to a point, but ZIP programs
are freely available, as are image viewers. I've never
actually used Windows ZIP functionality. Presenting ZIP
files as folders is too confusing. (Nor have I ever used a
Microsoft audio player, for that matter, or a Microsoft
image viewer.)

DirectX versions matter because earlier Windows
versions can't get them. File formats, on the other hand,
are not directly connected with Windows functionality.
In general, the programs that handle them are not using
Windows API in any essential way. For instance,
before Windows had gdiplus.dll to handle JPG, people
just used any one of numerous 3rd-party libraries to
do it. It wasn't as though people using Win9x couldn't
edit or save JPG files.

FLAC itself is a "nothing-burger".

However, it's the willingness to entertain FLAC that matters.

Remember that we used to live in a ".bmp .wav .wmv" universe,
with very limited thought processes.

You still aren't going to get Microsoft to include
anything with patent/licensing fees. There's always
a charge for those (when going non-FOSS).

Paul

Ian,

Should the question not be "What do you feel you really NEED to do on
Windows 10 that you miss not being able to do on Windows XP or Windows 7?"
?

Nope. The correct question is:

"What does your current OS *not* do/give you that you want to leave it
behind". Full stop.

The problem is that the answer most always comes down to "but the newer one
has shiny stuff that I simply must have", which ofcourse fully ignores the
question ... (but don't try to tell them that :-) ).

Regards,
Rudy Wieser

In message , Mayayana
writes
"Ian Jackson" wrote

| Should the question not be "What do you feel you really NEED to do on
| Windows 10 that you miss not being able to do on Windows XP or Windows
| 7?" ?

Have you seen Cortana?

https://www.halopedia.org/File:CortanaH4_render.jpg

She looks distinctly unhealthy. My father drummed into me that I should
not associate with ladies like that.

She wants you. She's wet for you. And she's
wearing only the skimpiest, sheer, skintight,
circuitboard nightie from Tron.

Is she any relation of Ford Cortina?

Can you *really* be happy with Bob the
Nervous Paperclip when you know that Cortana
lives in new Win10 computers?

I haven't seem Bob for years. I think the last time I saw him was on
YouTube.



--
Ian

On Tue, 01 May 2018 09:44:57 -0400, Paul wrote:

FLAC itself is a "nothing-burger".

The FLAC file format is far from a nothing-burger. However, Windows
support for FLAC could certainly be called a nothing burger since there
are so many great tools already existing.

I presume you meant the latter and not the former.

On Mon, 30 Apr 2018 20:37:15 -0400, "Mayayana"
wrote:

"Doomsdrzej" wrote

| I wouldn't go that far. It's a swift browser with just enough
| functionality to be the primary one but I doubt anyone other than
| myself would use it over Chrome, Firefox or Vivaldi.

I actually block it on my own website. If I
detect Edge or IE11 I show a message explaining
that Microsoft have broken their browser, and
thus my website, and that people can use IE11
and set compatibility for my site, or they can use
*any* other browser except Edge.

Edge not only broke all of IE-specific functionality.
It also won't run on anything but Win10. In that
sense it's even less a mainstream browser than Safari.
If webmasters have to buy a new computer just to
test a browser then it's a niche browser.

Even if I could easily test with Edge, I already
have a whole set of webpages just to accommodate
IE. I'm not about to create a 3rd set, where 2 sets
cater to Microsoft and the 3rd renders fine in all
other browsers.

I don't blame you for doing so since I can't trust Edge to follow
standards (given Microsoft's history) or even provide as much
functionality as the competition. Still, I enjoy simplicity in
browsing and Edge allows me as much of that as I can ask for. I know
that Vivaldi, my previous choice, is better but I stopped caring.

On Tue, 1 May 2018 06:09:19 +0000 (UTC), Bob J Jones
wrote:

In , Char Jackson
wrote:

The parts of my music collection that I actually care about are all in
FLAC.

Does Win10 have Flac support that Win7 & WinXP don't have?

Yes. Windows Media Player even allows you rip to FLAC if you choose
to.

On Tue, 01 May 2018 11:33:25 -0400, Doomsdrzej wrote:

On Tue, 1 May 2018 06:09:19 +0000 (UTC), Bob J Jones
wrote:

In , Char Jackson
wrote:

The parts of my music collection that I actually care about are all in
FLAC.

Does Win10 have Flac support that Win7 & WinXP don't have?

Yes. Windows Media Player even allows you rip to FLAC if you choose
to.

I don't know anyone that uses a OS without third party
software. It's like booting the Linux Kernel with no apps at all
installed. (Linux is just the Kernel plus a few utils/scripts to boot
it.)
There are a myriad of FLAC manipulating utilities out there,
most of them free.
No, that's not a feature. It's extra space and memory used for
something you don't really need. And it probably encodes some UniqueID
in anything you produce, so you can be tracked. I'd call it a bug.
[]'s
--
Don't be evil - Google 2004
We have a new policy - Google 2012

On Tue, 1 May 2018 13:32:02 +0100, Ian Jackson wrote:

Should the question not be "What do you feel you really NEED to do on
Windows 10 that you miss not being able to do on Windows XP or Windows
7?" ?

Steve Jobs on user input on design questions:

´Some people say, "Give the customers what they want." But that's
not my approach. Our job is to figure out what they're going to want
before they do. I think Henry Ford once said, "If I'd asked
customers what they wanted, they would have told me, 'A faster
horse!'" People don't know what they want until you show it to them.
That's why I never rely on market research. Our task is to read
things that are not yet on the page.¡

also:

´Itÿs not the customerÿs job to know what they want¡

Char Jackson wrote:
On Tue, 01 May 2018 09:44:57 -0400, Paul wrote:

FLAC itself is a "nothing-burger".

The FLAC file format is far from a nothing-burger. However, Windows
support for FLAC could certainly be called a nothing burger since there
are so many great tools already existing.

I presume you meant the latter and not the former.

I thought it was clear that "Microsoft changing their minds"
and doing this, is the note worthy part. I couldn't
tell you how they go about deciding to add support
for something. The little people at Microsoft don't
"draw straws" to see who does stuff like this.
I don't think I've seen a "white paper" on the Microsoft site,
announcing they've come to their senses and will no longer be
insular on format support.

Something like FLAC, if there's no licensing fee,
that's probably the biggest barrier to entry for them.

But if a format means paying MPLA two bucks, that's
not going to happen. That was one incentive to get
rid of Media Center. That, and providing Guide Data.
Anything which has "costs" associated with it, I'm
sure some executives discuss that every time a
new OS comes along.

When NVidia put five DSP cores into the MCP-T Southbridge,
I and all the customers who bought one, thought the
concept was great. One of the DSP cores was dedicated
to AC3 encoding in hardware, done with 50 millisecond
latency (to be sent to a receiver with S'PDIF). Well,
what happened ? NVidia promptly discontinued the hardware
feature, and the only reason for doing that, is the licensing
fee associated with the AC3 encoding. That was a barrier
to ever doing that a second time. Presumably this
chopped too much profit off their bottom line, and
was just an experiment at the time.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolby_AC-3

"The last patent covering AC-3 expired March 20, 2017,
so it is now generally free to use."

Great, I'm so excited :-/ It's like discovering there
is no longer a patent on "buggy whips".

Paul

On Tue, 1 May 2018 18:39:24 +0100, mechanic
wrote:

On Tue, 1 May 2018 13:32:02 +0100, Ian Jackson wrote:

Should the question not be "What do you feel you really NEED to do on
Windows 10 that you miss not being able to do on Windows XP or Windows
7?" ?

Steve Jobs on user input on design questions:

“Some people say, "Give the customers what they want." But that's
not my approach. Our job is to figure out what they're going to want
before they do. I think Henry Ford once said, "If I'd asked
customers what they wanted, they would have told me, 'A faster
horse!'" People don't know what they want until you show it to them.
That's why I never rely on market research. Our task is to read
things that are not yet on the page.”

also:

“It´s not the customer´s job to know what they want”

Steve Jobs was right. Gnome 3 is actually a good demonstration of a
design team providing a user interface you didn't know you wanted. It
works beautifully and introduced a number of ideas that everyone else
seemed to copy.

On Tue, 01 May 2018 14:25:03 -0400, Doomsdrzej wrote:

On Tue, 1 May 2018 18:39:24 +0100, mechanic
wrote:

On Tue, 1 May 2018 13:32:02 +0100, Ian Jackson wrote:

Should the question not be "What do you feel you really NEED to do on
Windows 10 that you miss not being able to do on Windows XP or Windows
7?" ?

Steve Jobs on user input on design questions:

“Some people say, "Give the customers what they want." But that's
not my approach. Our job is to figure out what they're going to want
before they do. I think Henry Ford once said, "If I'd asked
customers what they wanted, they would have told me, 'A faster
horse!'" People don't know what they want until you show it to them.
That's why I never rely on market research. Our task is to read
things that are not yet on the page.”

also:

“It´s not the customer´s job to know what they want”

Steve Jobs was right. Gnome 3 is actually a good demonstration of a
design team providing a user interface you didn't know you wanted. It
works beautifully and introduced a number of ideas that everyone else
seemed to copy.

And is the reason I still use a Gnome 2-based interface.
It just works.
[]'s
--
Don't be evil - Google 2004
We have a new policy - Google 2012

On 5/1/2018 10:39 AM, mechanic wrote:
On Tue, 1 May 2018 13:32:02 +0100, Ian Jackson wrote:

Should the question not be "What do you feel you really NEED to do on
Windows 10 that you miss not being able to do on Windows XP or Windows
7?" ?

Steve Jobs on user input on design questions:

´Some people say, "Give the customers what they want." But that's
not my approach. Our job is to figure out what they're going to want
before they do. I think Henry Ford once said, "If I'd asked
customers what they wanted, they would have told me, 'A faster
horse!'" People don't know what they want until you show it to them.
That's why I never rely on market research. Our task is to read
things that are not yet on the page.¡

also:

´Itÿs not the customerÿs job to know what they want¡

Yep.
Second best is empathizing with the customer.
Asking a newsgroup doesn't even show up on the list.

Windows 10 should strike fear into anybody trying to support something,
anything, based on it.
I have a friend who loses all his games every time win10 updates.
I just installed the latest update..."8Gadget is not supported and has
been removed."
I had to go get it again.
It ****es me off.
But, for a customer who only wants the 'capability' you sold him,
and was promised a99-year license, it's a nightmare...for YOU.

"Sorry mam, I understand your house is on fire...we'll dispatch the fire
truck
as soon as we untangle the latest windows 10 update...sorry for any
inconvenience...
Sears is having a great sale on water hoses, hold while I transfer you
to them?"