TOPIC: MICROSOFT
Initial impressions of Windows 10
31st October 2014Being ever curious on the technology front, the release of the first build of a Technical Preview of Windows 10 was enough to get me having a look at what was on offer. The furore regarding Windows 8.x added to the interest, so I went to the download page to get a 64-bit installation ISO image.
That got installed into a fresh VirtualBox virtual machine and the process worked smoothly to give something not so far removed from Windows 8.1. However, it took until release 4.3.18 of VirtualBox before the Guest additions had caught up with the Windows prototype, so I signed up for the Windows Insider program and got a 64-bit ISO image to install the Enterprise preview of Windows 10 into a VMware virtual machine since and that supported full screen display of the preview while VirtualBox caught up with it.
Of course, the most obvious development was the return of the Start Menu, and it works exactly as expected too. Initially, the apparent lack of an easy way to disable App panels had me going to Classic Shell for an acceptable Start Menu. It was only later that it dawned on me that unpinning these panels would deliver to me the undistracting result that I wanted.
Another feature that attracted my interest is the new virtual desktop functionality. Here I was expecting something like what I have used on Linux and UNIX. There, each workspace is a distinct desktop, with only the applications open in a given workspace showing on a panel in there. Windows does not work that way with all applications visible on the taskbar regardless of what workspace they occupy, which causes clutter. Another deficiency is not having a desktop indicator on the taskbar instead of the Task View button. On Windows 7 and 8.x, I have been a user of VirtuaWin and this still works largely in the way that I expect of it too, except for any application windows that have some persistence associated with them; the Task Manager is an example and I include some security software in the same category too.
Even so, here are some keyboard shortcuts for anyone who wants to take advantage of the Windows 10 virtual desktop feature:
- Create a new desktop: Windows key + Ctrl + D
- Switch to previous desktop: Windows key + Ctrl + Left arrow
- Switch to next desktop: Windows key + Ctrl + Right arrow
Otherwise, stability is excellent for a preview of a version of Windows that is early on its road to final release. An upgrade to a whole new build went smoothly when initiated following a prompt from the operating system itself. All installed applications were retained, and a new taskbar button for notifications made its appearance alongside the existing Action Centre icon. So far, I am unsure what this does and whether the Action Centre button will be replaced in the fullness of time, yet I am happy to await where things go with this.
All is polished up to now, and there is nothing to suggest that Windows 10 will not be to 8.x what 7 was to Vista. The Start Screen has been dispatched after what has proved to be a misadventure for Microsoft. Regardless of what was hyped a few years ago, the PC still is with us; touchscreen devices like tablets are augmenting it instead of replacing it for any tasks involving some sort of creation. If anything, we have seen the PC evolve with laptops perhaps becoming more like the Surface Pro, at least when it comes to hybrid devices. However, we are not as happy to smudge our PC screens quite like those on phones and tablets, so a return to a more keyboard and mouse centred approach for some devices is welcome.
What I have here are just a few observations; there are more elsewhere, including a useful article by Ed Bott on ZDNet. All in all, we are early in the process for Windows 10 and, though it looks favourable so far, I will continue to keep an eye on how it progresses. The need to be less experimental than Windows 8.x is being fulfilled: so far, it certainly is less schizophrenic and should not be a major jump for users of Windows 7.
Changing file timestamps using Windows PowerShell
29th October 2014Recently, a timestamp got changed on an otherwise unaltered file on me and I needed to change it back. Luckily, I found an answer on the web that used PowerShell to do what I needed, and I am recording it here for future reference. The possible commands are below:
$(Get-Item temp.txt).creationtime=$(Get-Date "27/10/2014 04:20 pm")
$(Get-Item temp.txt).lastwritetime=$(Get-Date "27/10/2014 04:20 pm")
$(Get-Item temp.txt).lastaccesstime=$(Get-Date "27/10/2014 04:20 pm")
The first of these did not interest me, since I wanted to leave the file creation date as it was. The last write and access times were another matter because these needed altering. The Get-Item commandlet brings up the file, so its properties can be set. Here, these include creationtime, lastwritetime and lastaccesstime. The Get-Date commandlet reads in the provided date and time for use in the timestamp assignment. While PowerShell itself is case-insensitive, I have opted to show the camel case that is produced when you are tabbing through command options for the sake of clarity.
The Get-Item and Get-Date have aliases of gi and gd, respectively, and the Get-Alias commandlet will show you a full list while Get-Command (gcm) gives you a list of commandlets. Issuing the following gets you a formatted list that is sent to a text file:
gcm | Format-List > temp2.txt
There is some online help, but it is not quite as helpful as it ought to be, so I have popped over to Microsoft Learn whenever I needed extra enlightenment. Here is a command that pops the full thing into a text file:
Get-Help Format-List -full > temp3.txt
In fact, getting a book might be the best way to find your way around PowerShell because of all its commandlets and available objects.
For now, other commands that I have found useful include the following:
Get-Service | Format-List
New-Item -Name test.txt -ItemType "file"
The first of these gets you a list of services, while the second creates a new blank text file for you, and it can create new folders for you too. Other useful commandlets are below:
Get-Location (gl)
Set-Location (sl)
Copy-Item
Remove-Item
Move-Item
Rename-Item
The first of the above is like the cwd or pwd commands that you may have seen elsewhere, in that the current directory location is given. Then, the second will change your directory location for you. After that, there are commandlets for copying, deleting, moving and renaming files. These also have aliases, so users of the legacy Windows command line or a UNIX or Linux shell can use something that is familiar to them.
Little fixes like the one with which I started this piece are all good to know, but it is in scripting that PowerShell really is said to show its uses. Having seen the usefulness of such things in the world on Linux and UNIX, I cannot disagree with that, and PowerShell has its own IDE too. That may be just as well, given how much there is to learn. That especially is the case when you might need to issue the following command in a PowerShell session opened using the Run as Administrator option just to get the execution as you need it:
Set-ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned
Issuing Get-ExecutionPolicy will show you if this is needed when the response is: Restricted. A response of RemoteSigned shows you that all is in order, though you need to check that any script you then run has no nasty payload in there, which is why execution is restrictive in the first place. This sort of thing is yet another lesson to be learnt with PowerShell.
A reappraisal of Windows 8 and 8.1 licensing
15th November 2013With the release of Windows 8 around this time last year, I thought that the full retail version that some of us got for fresh installations on PC's, real or virtual, had become a thing of the past. In fact, it did seem that every respecting technology news website and magazine was saying just that. The release that you would buy from Microsoft or from mainstream computer stores was labelled as an upgrade. That made it look as if you needed the OEM or System Builder edition for those PC's that needed a new Windows installation, and that the licence that you bought was then attached to the machine from when it got installed on there.
As is usual with Microsoft, the situation is less clear-cut than that. For instance, there was some back-pedalling to allow OEM editions of Windows to be licensed for personal use on real or virtual PC's. With Windows 7 and its predecessors, it even was possible to be able to install afresh on a PC without Windows by first installing on inactivated copy on there and then upgrading that as if it were a previous version of Windows. Of course, an actual licence was of the previous version of Windows was needed for full compliance, if not the actual installation. At times, Microsoft muddies waters to keep its support costs down.
Even with Microsoft's track record in mind, it still surprised me when I noticed that Amazon was selling what appeared to be full versions of both Windows 8.1 and Windows 8.1 Pro. Having set up a 64-bit VirtualBox virtual machine for Windows 8.1, I got to discover the same for software purchased from the Microsoft website. However, unlike the DVD versions, you do need an active Windows installation if you fancy a same day installation of the downloaded software. For those without Windows on a machine, this can be as simple as downloading either the 32-bit or the 64-bit 90-day evaluation editions of Windows 8.1 Enterprise and using that as a springboard for the next steps. Though this not only be an actual in-situ installation, there are options to create an ISO or USB image of the installation disk for later installation.
In my case, I created a 64-bit ISO image and used that to reboot the virtual machine that had Windows 8.1 Enterprise on there before continuing with the installation. By all appearances, there seemed to be little need for a pre-existing Windows instance for it to work, so it looks as if upgrades have fallen by the wayside and only full editions of Windows 8.1 are available now. The OEM version saves money so long as you are happy to stick with just one machine, and most users probably will do that. As for the portability of the full retail version, that is not something that I have tested, so I am unsure that I will go beyond what I have done already.
My main machine has seen a change of motherboard, CPU and memory, so it could have deactivated a pre-existing Windows licence. However, I run Linux as my main operating system and, apart possibly from one surmountable hiccup, this proves surprisingly resilient in the face of such major system changes. For running Windows, I turn to virtual machines and there were no messages about licence activation during the changeover either. Microsoft is anything but confiding when it comes to declaring what hardware changes inactivate a licence. Changing a virtual machine from VirtualBox to VMware or vice versa definitely does it, so I tend to avoid doing that. One item that is fundamental to either a virtual or a real PC is the motherboard, and I have seen suggestions that this is the critical component for Windows licence activation, which would make sense if that was the case.
However, this rule is not hard and fast either, since there appears to be room for manoeuvre should your PC break. It might be worth calling Microsoft after a motherboard replacement to see if they can help you, and I have noticed that it is. All in all, Microsoft often makes what appear to be simple rules only to override them when faced with what happens in the real world. Is that why they can be unclear about some matters at times? Do they still hanker after how they want things to be, even when they are impossible to keep like that?
A look at Windows 8.1
4th July 2013Last week, Microsoft released a preview of Windows 8.1 and some hailed the return of the Start button, yet the reality is not as simple as that. Being a Linux user, I am left wondering if ideas have been borrowed from GNOME Shell instead of putting back the Start Menu like it was in Windows 7. What we have got is a smoothing of the interface that is there for those who like to tweak settings and not available by default. GNOME Shell has been controversial too, so borrowing from it is not an uncontentious move, even if there are people like me who are at home with that kind of interface.
What you get now is more configuration options to go with the new Start button. While right-clicking on the latter does get you a menu, this is no Start Menu like we had before. Instead, we get a settings menu with a "Shut down" entry. That's better than before, which might be saying something about what was done in Windows 8, and it produces a sub-menu with options of shutting down or restarting your PC as well as putting it to sleep. Otherwise, it is a place for accessing system configuration items and not your more usual software, not a bad thing, but it's best to be clear about these things. Holding down the Windows key and pressing X will pop up the same menu if you prefer keyboard shortcuts, and I have a soft spot for them too.
The real power is to be discovered when you right-click on the task bar and select Properties from the pop-up menu. Within the dialogue box that appears, there is the Navigation tab that contains a whole plethora of interesting options. Corner navigation can be scaled back to remove the options of switching between applications in the upper-left corner or getting what is called the Charms menu from the upper-right corner. Things get interesting in the Start Screen section. This where you tell Windows to boot to the desktop instead of the Start Screen and adjust what the Start button gives you. For instance, you can make it use your desktop background and display the Start Screen Apps View. Both of these make the new Start interface less intrusive and make the Apps View feel not unlike the way GNOME Shell overlays your screen when you hit the Activities button or hover over the upper-left corner of the desktop.
It all seems rather more like a series of little concessions, and not the restoration that some (many?) would prefer. Classic Shell still works for all those seeking an actual Start Menu and even replaces the restored Microsoft Start button too. So, if the new improvements aren't enough for you, you still can take matters into your own hands until you start to take advantage of what's new in 8.1.
Apart from the refusal to give us back a Windows 7 style desktop experience, we now have a touchscreen keyboard button added to the taskbar. So far, it always appears there even when I try turning it off. For me, that's a bug, so it's something that I'd like to see fixed before the final release.
All in all, Windows 8.1 feels more polished than Windows 8 was and will be a free update when the production version is released. My explorations have taken place within a separate VMware virtual machine because updating a Windows 8 installation to the 8.1 preview is forcing a complete re-installation on yourself later on. Though there are talks about Windows 9 now, I am left wondering if going for point releases like 8.2, 8.3, etc. might be a better strategy for Microsoft. It still looks as if Windows 8 could do with continual polishing before it gets more acceptable to users. 8.1 is a step forward, and more like it may be needed yet.
Saving Windows Command Prompt & Powershell command history to a file for later useage
15th May 2013It's remarkable what ideas Linux gives that you wouldn't encounter that clearly in the world of Windows. One of these is output and command line history, so a script can be created. In the Windows world, this would be called a batch file. Linux usefully has the history command, and it does the needful for taking a snapshot like so:
history > ~/commands.sh
All the commands stored in a terminal's command history get stored in the commands.sh in the user's home area. The command for doing the same thing from the Windows command line is not as obvious because it uses the doskey command that is intended for command line macro writing and execution. Usefully, it has a history option that tells it to output all the commands issued in a command line session. Unless, you create a file with them in there, there appears to be no way to store all those commands across sessions, unlike UNIX and Linux. Therefore, a command like the following is a partial solution that is more permanent than using the F7 key on your keyboard:
doskey /history > c:\commands.bat
Windows PowerShell has something similar too, and it even has aliases of history and even h. All PowerShell scripts have file extensions of ps1 and the example below follows that scheme:
get-history > c:\commands.ps1
However, I believe that even PowerShell doesn't carry over command history between sessions, though Microsoft is working on adding this useful functionality. While they could co-opt Cygwin of course, that doesn't seem to be their way of going about things.
Upgrading from Windows 7 to Windows 8 within a VMWare Virtual Machine
1st November 2012Though my main home PC runs Linux Mint, I do like to have the facility to use Windows software occasionally, and virtualisation has allowed me to continue doing that. For a good while, it was a Windows 7 guest within a VirtualBox virtual machine and, before that, one running Windows XP fulfilled the same role. However, it did feel as if things were running slower in VirtualBox than once might have been the case, so I jumped ship to VMware Player. While it may be proprietary and closed source, it is free of charge and has been doing what was needed. A subsequent recent upgrade of a video driver on the host operating system allowed the enabling of a better graphical environment in the Windows 7 guest.
Instability
However, there were issues with stability and I lost the ability to flit from the VM window to the Linux desktop at will, with the system freezing on me and needing a reboot. Working in Windows 7 using full-screen mode avoided this, yet it did feel as I was constrained to working on a Windows-only machine whenever I did so. The graphics performance was imperfect too, with screening refreshing being very blocky with some momentary scrambling whenever I opened the Start menu. Others would not have been as patient with that as I was, though there was the matter of an expensive Photoshop licence to be guarded too.
In hindsight, a bit of pruning could have helped. An example would have been driver housekeeping in the form of removing VirtualBox Guest Additions because they could have been conflicting with their VMware counterparts. For some reason, those thoughts entered my mind to make me consider another, more expensive option instead.
Considering NAS & Windows/Linux Networking
That would have taken the form of setting aside a PC for running Windows 7 and having a NAS for sharing files between it and my Linux system. In fact, I did get to exploring what a four bay QNAP TS-412 would offer me and realised that you cannot put normal desktop hard drives into devices like that. For a while, it looked as if it would be a matter of getting drives bundled with the device or acquiring enterprise grade disks to main the required continuity of operation. The final edition of PC Plus highlighted another one, though: the Western Digital Red Pro range. These are part way been desktop and enterprise classifications and have been developed in association with NAS makers too.
While looking at the NAS option certainly became an education, it has exited any sort of wish list that I have. After all, it is the cost of such a setup that gets me asking if I really need such a thing. While the purchase of a Netgear FS 605 Ethernet switch would have helped incorporate it, there has been no trouble sorting alternative uses for that device since it bumps up the number of networked devices that I can have, never a bad capability to have. As I was to find, there was a less expensive alternative that would become sufficient for my needs.
In-situ Windows 8 Upgrade
Microsoft has been making available evaluation copies of Windows 8 Enterprise that last for 90 days before expiring. One is in my hands has been running faultlessly in a VMware virtual machine for the past few weeks. That made me wonder if upgrading from Windows 7 to Windows 8 help with my main Windows VM problems. Being a curious risk-taking type I decided to answer the question for myself using the £24.99 Windows Pro upgrade offer that Microsoft have been running for those not needing a disk up front; they need to pay £49.99 while you can get one afterwards for an extra £12.99 and £3.49 postage if you wish, a slightly cheaper option. Though there also was a time cost in that it occupied a lot of a weekend for me, it seems to have done what was needed, so it was worth the outlay.
Given the element of risk, Photoshop was deactivated to be on the safe side. That wasn't the only pre-upgrade action that was needed because the Windows 8 Pro 32-bit upgrade needs at least 16 GB before it will proceed. Of course, there was the matter of downloading the installer from the Microsoft website too. This took care of system evaluation and paying for the software, as well as the actual upgrade itself.
The installation took a few hours, with virtual machine reboots along the way. Naturally, the licence key was needed too, as well as the selection of a few options, though there weren't many of these. Being able to carry over settings from the pre-existing Windows 7 instance certainly helped with this and with making the process smoother too. No software needed reinstatement, and it doesn't feel as if the system has forgotten very much at all, a successful outcome.
Post-upgrade Actions
Just because I had a working Windows 8 instance didn't mean that there wasn't more to be done. In fact, it was the post-upgrade sorting that took up more time than the actual installation. For one thing, my digital mapping software wouldn't work without .Net Framework 3.5 and turning on the operating system feature from the Control Panel fell over at the point where it was being downloaded from the Microsoft Update website. Even removing Avira Internet Security after updating it to the latest version had no effect, and that was a finding during the Windows 8 system evaluation process. The solution was to mount the Windows 8 Enterprise ISO installation image that I had and issue the following command from a command prompt running with administrative privileges:
dism.exe /online /enable-feature /featurename:NetFX3 /Source:d:\sources\sxs /LimitAccess
For sake of assurance regarding compatibility, Avira has been replaced with Trend Micro Titanium Internet Security. The Avira licence won't go to waste, since I have another home in mind for it. Removing Avira without crashing Windows 8 proved impossible, though, and necessitating booting Windows 8 into Safe Mode. Because of much faster startup times, that cannot be achieved with a key press at the appropriate moment because the time window is too short now. One solution is to set the Safe Boot tick box in the Boot tab of MSCONFIG (or System Configuration, as it otherwise calls itself) before the machine is restarted. While there may be others, this was the one that I used. With Avira removed, clearing the same setting and rebooting restored normal service.
Dealing with a Dual Personality
One observer has stated that Windows 8 gives you two operating systems for the price of one: the one on the Start screen and the one on the desktop. Having got to wanting to work with one at a time, I decided to make some adjustments. Adding Classic Shell got me back a Start menu, and I omitted the Windows Explorer (or File Explorer as it is known in Windows 8) and Internet Explorer components. Though Classic Shell will present a desktop like what we have been getting from Windows 7 by sweeping the Start screen out of the way for you, I found that this wasn't quick enough for my liking, so I added Skip Metro Suite to speed up things. Though the tool does more than sweeping the Start screen out of the way, I have switched off these functions. Classic Shell has been configured too, so the Start screen can be accessed with a press of the Windows key. It has updated too so that boot into the desktop should be faster now. As for me, I'll leave things as they are for now. Even the possibility of using Windows' own functionality to go directly to the traditional desktop will be left untested while things are left to settle. Tinkering can need a break.
Outcome
After all that effort, I now have a seemingly more stable Windows virtual machine running Windows 8. Flitting between it and other Linux desktop applications has not caused a system freeze so far, and that was the result that I wanted. There now is no need to consider having separate Windows and Linux PC's with a NAS for sharing files between them, so that option is well off my wish-list. There are better uses for my money.
Not everyone has had my experience, though, because I saw a report that one user failed to update a physical machine to Windows 8 and installed Ubuntu instead; they were a Linux user anyway, even if they used Fedora more than Ubuntu. It is possible to roll back from Windows 8 to the previous version of Windows because there is a windows.old directory left primarily for that purpose. However, that may not help you if you have a partially operating system that doesn't allow you to do just that. In time, I'll remove it using the Disk Clean-up utility by asking it to remove previous Windows installations or running File Explorer with administrator privileges. Somehow, the former approach sounds the safer.
What About Installing Afresh?
While there was a time when I went solely for upgrades when moving from one version of Windows to the next, the annoyance of the process got to me. If I had known that installing the upgrade twice onto a computer with a clean disk would suffice, it would have saved me a lot. Staring from Windows 95 (from the days when you got a full installation disk with a PC and not the rescue media that we get now) and moving through a sequence of successors not only was time-consuming, but it also revealed the limitations of the first in the series when it came to supporting more recent hardware. It was enough to have me buying the full retailed editions of Windows XP and Windows 7 when they were released; the latter got downloaded directly from Microsoft. While these were retail versions that you could move from one computer to another, Windows 8 will not be like that. In fact, you will need to get its System Builder edition from a reseller and that can only be used on one machine. It is the merging of the former retail and OEM product offerings.
What I have been reading is that the market for full retail versions of Windows was not a big one anyway. However, it was how I used to work as you have read above, and it does give you a fresh system. Most probably get Windows with a new PC and don't go building them from scratch like I have done for more than a decade. Maybe the System Builder version would apply to me anyway, and it appears to be intended for virtual machine use as well as on physical ones. More care will be needed with those licences by the looks of things, and I wonder what needs not to be changed so as not to invalidate a licence. After all, making a mistake might cost between £75 and £120 depending on the edition.
Final Thoughts
So far, Windows 8 is treating me well, and I have managed to bend it to my will too, always a good thing to be able to say. In time, it might be that a System Builder copy could need buying yet, but I'll leave well alone for now. Though I needed new security software, the upgrade still saved me money over a hardware solution to my home computing needs and I have a backup disk on order from Microsoft too. That I have had to spend some time settling things was a means of learning new things for me but others may not be so patient and, with Windows 7 working well enough for most, you have to ask if it's only curious folk like me who are taking the plunge. Still, the dramatic change has re-energised the PC world in an era when smartphones and tablets have made so much of the running recently. That too is no bad thing because an unchanging technology is one that dies and there are times when significant changes are needed, as much as they upset some folk. For Microsoft, this looks like one of them, and it'll be interesting to see where things go from here for PC technology.
Adding a Start Menu to Windows 8
16th October 2012For all the world, it looks like Microsoft has mined a concept from a not often recalled series of Windows: 3.x. Then, we had a Program Manager for starting all our applications, with no sign of a Start Menu. That came with Windows 95 and I cannot see anyone mourning the burying of the Program Manager interface either. It was there in Windows 95 if you knew where to look, and I do remember starting an instance, possibly out of curiosity.
Every Windows user seems to have taken to the Start Menu, regardless of how big it can grow when you install a lot of software on your machine. It didn't matter that Windows NT got it later than Windows 9x ones either; NT 3.51 has the Program Manager too, and it was NT 4 that got the then new interface that has been developed and progressed in no less than four subsequent versions of Windows (2000, XP, Vista & 7). Maybe it was because computing was the preserve of fewer folk that the interchange brought little if any sign of a backlash. The zeitgeist of the age reflected the newness of desktop computing, and its freshness probably brought an extra level of openness too.
Things are different now, though. You only have to hear of the complaints about changes to Linux desktop environments to realise how attached folk become to certain computer interfaces. Ironically, personal computing has just got exciting again after a fairly stale decade of stasis. Mobile computing devices are aplenty nowadays, and it no longer is a matter of using a stationary desktop PC or laptop, even if those brought their own excitement in the 1990's. In fact, reading a title like Computer Shopper reminds me of how things once were with it's still sticking with PC reviews while others are not concentrating on them as much. Of course, the other gadgets get reviewed too, so it is not stuck in any rut. Still, it is good to see the desktop PC getting a look in an age when there is so much competition, especially from phones and tablets.
In this maelstrom, Microsoft has decided to do something dramatic with Windows 8. It has resurrected the Program Manager paradigm in the form of the Start screen and excised the Start Menu from the desktop altogether. For touch screen computing interfaces such as tablets, you can see the sense of this, but it's going to come as a major surprise to many. Removing what lies behind how many people interact with a PC is risky, so you have to wonder how it will work out for all concerned.
What reminded me of this was a piece on CNET by Mary Jo Foley. Interestingly, software is turning up that returns the Start Menu to Windows 8. One of these is Classic Shell, and I decided to give it a go on a Windows 8 Enterprise evaluation instance that I have. Installation is like any Windows program, and I limited the options to the menu and updater. At the end of the operation, a button with a shell icon appeared on the desktop's taskbar. You can make the resultant menu appear like that of Windows XP or Windows 7 if you like. There are other settings like what the Windows key does and what happens when you click on the button with a mouse. By default, both open the new Start Menu, and holding down the Shift key when doing either brings up the Start screen. This is customisable, so you can have things the other way around if you so desire. Another setting is to switch from the Start screen to the desktop after you log into Windows 8 (you may also have it log in for you automatically, but it's something that I do not think anyone should be doing). While the Start screen does flash up, things move along quickly; maybe having not appear at all would be better for many.
Classic Shell is free of charge and worked well for me, apart from that small rough edge noted above. It is also open source and looks well maintained too. For that reason, it appeals to me more than Stardock's Start8 (currently in beta release at the time of writing) or Pokki for Windows 8, which really is an App Store that adds a Start Menu. If you encounter Windows 8 on a new computer, then they might be worth trying should you want a Start Menu back. Being an open-minded type, I could get along with the standard Windows 8 interface, yet it's always good to have choices too. Most of us want to own our computing experience, it seems, so these tools could have their uses for Windows 8 users.
How the Cinnamon desktop environment offers a conventional alternative to the experimental approaches of others
28th January 2012The computer on which I am writing these words is running Linux Mint with the Cinnamon desktop environment, a fork of GNOME Shell. This looks as if it will be the default face of GNOME 3 in the next version of Linux Mint, with the MGSE dressing up of GNOME Shell looking more and more like an interim measure until something more consistent was available. While some complained that what was delivered in version 12 of the distribution was a sort of greatest hits selection, I reckon that bets were being hedged by the project team.
Impressions of what's coming
By default, you get a single panel at the bottom of your screen with everything you need in there. However, it is possible to change the layout so that the panel is at the top or there are two panels, one at the top and the other at the bottom. So far, there is no means of configuring which panel applet goes where, as was the case in Linux Mint 11 and its predecessors. However, the default placements are very sensible, so I have no cause for complaint at this point.
Just because you cannot place applets doesn't mean that there is no configurability, though. Since Cinnamon is extensible, you can change the way that time is displayed in the clock, as well as enabling additional applets. It is also possible to control visual effects, such as the way new application windows pop up on a screen.
GNOME 3 is there underneath all of this, though there's no sign of the application dashboard of GNOME Shell. The continually expanding number of slots in the workspace launcher is one sign, as is the enabling of a hotspot at the top right hand corner by default. This brings up an overview screen showing what application windows are open in a workspace. The new Mint menu even gets the ability to search through installed applications, together with the ability to browse through what's available.
In summary, Cinnamon already looks good, though a little polish and extra configuration options wouldn't go amiss. An example of the former is the placement of desktop numbers in the workspace switcher, and I already have discussed the latter. It does appear that the Linux Mint approach to desktop environments is taking shape with a far more conventional feel than the likes of Unity or GNOME Shell. Just as Cinnamon has become available in openSUSE, I can see it gracing LMDE too whenever Debian gets to moving over to GNOME 3 as must be inevitable now unless they take another approach such as MATE.
In comparison with a revolution
While Linux Mint are choosing convention and streamlining GNOME to their own designs, it appears that Ubuntu's Unity is getting ever more experimental as the time when Ubuntu simply evolved from one release to the next becomes an increasingly more distant memory. The latest development is the announcement that application menus could get replaced by a heads-up display (HUD) instead. That would be yet another change made by what increasingly looks like a top-down leadership, reminiscent of what exists at Apple. While it is good to have innovation, you have to ask where users fit in all of this when Linux Mint already has gained from what has been done so far and may gain more again. Still, seeing what happens to Ubuntu sounds like an interesting pastime, though I'm not sure that I'd be depending on the default spin of this distro as my sole operating system right now. Also, changing the interface every few months wouldn't work in a corporate environment at all, so you have to wonder where Mark Shuttleworth is driving all this, though Microsoft is engaging in a bit of experimentation of its own. We are living in interesting times for the computer desktop, so it's just as well that there are safe havens like Linux Mint, too. Watching from afar sounds safer.
A little look at Windows 8
6th November 2011Even if it has been a little while, I have managed to set up a VirtualBox virtual machine to have a look at the Developer Preview of the next version of Windows, something that I and others continue to call Windows 8 though Microsoft has yet to confirm the name. When I tried the installation before, it failed on me, though that may have been due to having an earlier release of VirtualBox on my machine at that time. 4.1.14 has a preset for Windows 8 and I also happened to notice that it can create virtual hard disks that can be used with competitors like VMWare, Parallels and Virtual PC too. It's an interesting development, even if I am left wondering why you'd need to do that when VirtualBox runs on most platforms anyway.
To get back to Windows 8, the installation ran near enough without any intervention apart from stating the language you wanted to use, U.K. English in my case. On startup, the operating system presents you with a lock screen that you need to get out of the way so you can log in. It can be dragged out of your way, or you can double-click on it or use the carriage return key to get rid of it. Quite why someone thinks it's a good extra is a little beyond me, when a log in screen would suffice. Logging in gets you the new start menu or, as I prefer to think of it, screen. By default, there are a good few Metro apps installed, though I decided to rid myself of most of them.
Regarding those apps, one irritation could be that there isn't that obvious a way to switch away from them to something else. Thankfully, ALT+TAB does seem to work and it has the most instantaneous effect. Otherwise, using the Windows key or hovering over the bottom-left corner of the screen to get the menu that brings up the start screen. From the PC user's point of view, I could see this needing a little more thought because it took a little while for me to figure out what to do. Closing Metro apps isn't an option either unless you resort to the Task Manager to do so. Microsoft appears to want to leave them open from the point at which you start them until the PC is shut down. It's a design decision that leaves me unconvinced, though; thoughts of rogue apps running riot on a system come to mind. Then, a stop button could be handy.
There is no start menu as we have come to know it any more with the start screen replacing it. However, it is possible to limit what's on there to the software that you use most often and rearrange panels as you'd like them to be. Apart from hosting shortcuts for starting applications, it also acts as a task switcher like the task bar in Windows 7 and there is one of those in Windows 8 too when you jump to the desktop; handily, there's a panel for that too. Installing Firefox added a panel to the start screen, so a little thought has gone into such a common situation, and that's just as well. Still, there's more work to be done because, currently, there's no way of changing the background colour of the start screen without resorting to a hex editor or third party tools. Still, since you can pick your own picture for the lock screen, things are not all locked down on you.
A preview of IE 10 is included and, apart from the occasional artifact when displaying one of my websites, it seems to work well enough, as does Windows Explorer. However, aside from these and a smattering of Metro apps, the Developer Preview does feel barer than previous versions of Windows. However, it does appear that applications like Notepad, PowerShell and the Command Prompt are on there, yet you need to search for these. That also means that you need to know about them too, so I'd suggest a better way of browsing the applications that are available too. This is one of the weaknesses of Ubuntu's Unity interface, and you need to search in the Dash to find them. Just starting to type in the Metro start screen (and other screens too, it seems) in Windows does trigger the completion of a search box, much like what happens in the GNOME Shell Activities screen on systems with GNOME 3. While it's good to see good ideas being reused from elsewhere, Microsoft might do well to note that you still can browse lists of applications in GNOME 3 too.
Shutting down Windows 8 also is seemingly more convoluted than is the case with Windows 7. Logging off and then powering off from the log in screen is one approach, and that was my early impression of GNOME 3 too. With the latter, I later discovered a status menu plugin that added in the option where it was accessible or that using the ALT key when clicking the status menu when the plugin wouldn't work would do what I needed. Without logging off from Windows 8, you can do a shutdown using the sidebar that appears on selecting Settings from the menu that pops up on hovering near the bottom-left corner of the start screen or the Start button of the task bar of the desktop. Then, look for the power icon and select what you need from the menu that clicking on this icon produces. Of course, you may find that the ALT+F4 key combination when issued while on a clean desktop is the cleanest of all.
All in all, the Developer Preview of the next release of Windows looks fairly usable. That is not to imply that there aren't things that need changing. Aside from this being an early sight of what may be coming to us Windows users, it isn't unknown for Microsoft to roll back on a radical move to make it more palatable to the user community. After all, it has to watch how it treats the corporate market too. The strong possibility of there being alterations is one thought that needs to be shared with those who are inclined to lose their tempers at the moment and I have seen comments with unpleasant language out there on the web (none of that here, please, by the way). As for me, I like to look ahead to be forewarned about what's coming my way in the world of computing. What I have seen so far of the next Windows release is reassuring, though there are rough edges such as PC shutdown and Metro app switching, yet Microsoft cannot commit commercial suicide either, so these have to be fixed. It appears that the world of Microsoft operating systems is in flux, with the company's keeping a firm eye on the world of mobile computing, with tablets being a major concern. While others may disagree, I can see Windows 8 working well on conventional PC's and that's no bad thing.
How mobile device interfaces are Influencing desktop computing environment designs
19th September 2011Could 2011 be remembered as the year when the desktop computing interface got a major overhaul? One part of this, Windows 8, won't be with us until next year, but there has been enough happening so far this year that has resulted in a lot of comment. With many if not all the changes, it is possible to detect the influence of interfaces used on smartphones. After all, the carry-over from Windows Phone 7 to the new Metro interface is unmistakeable.
Two developments in the Linux world have spawned a hell of an amount of comment: Canonical's decision to develop Unity for Ubuntu and the arrival of GNOME 3. While there have been many complaints about the changes made in both, there must be a fair few folk who are just getting on with using them without complaint. Maybe there are many who even quietly like the new interfaces. While I am not so sure about Unity, I surprised myself by taking to GNOME Shell so much that I installed it on Linux Mint. It remains a work in progress, as does Unity, but it'll be very interesting to see it mature. Perhaps a good number of the growing collection of GNOME Shell plugins could make it into the main codebase. If that were to happen, I could see it being welcomed by a good few folk.
There was little doubt that the changes in GNOME 3 looked daunting, so Ubuntu's taking a different approach is understandable until you come to realise how change that involves anyway. With GNOME 3 working so well for me, I feel disinclined to dally very much with Unity at all. In fact, I am writing these words on a Toshiba laptop running UGR, effectively Ubuntu running GNOME 3, and that could become my main home computing operating system in time.
For those who find these changes not to their taste, there are alternatives. Some Linux distributions are sticking with GNOME 2 as long as they can, and there apparently has been some mention of a fork to keep a GNOME 2 interface available indefinitely. However, there are other possibilities such as LXDE and XFCE out there too. In fact, until GNOME 3 won me over, LXDE was coming to mind as a place of safety until I learned that Linux Mint was retaining its desktop identity. As always, there's KDE too, but I have never warmed to that for some reason.
The latest version of OS X, Lion, also included some changes inspired by iOS, the operating system that powers both the iPhone and iPad. However, while the current edition of PC Pro highlights some disgruntlement in professional circles regarding Apple's direction, this does not seem to have aroused the kind of ire that has been abroad in the world of Linux. Is it because Linux users want to feel that they are in charge and that iMac and MacBook users are content to have decisions made for them so long as everything just works? Speaking for myself, the former description seems to fit me, though having choices means that I can reject decisions that I do not like so much.
At the time of writing, the release of a developer preview of the next version of Windows has been generating a lot of attention. It also appears that changes are headed for Windows users too. However, I get the sense that a more conservative interface option will be retained and that could be essential for avoiding the alienation of corporate users. After all, I cannot see the Metro interface gaining much favour in the working environment when so many of us have so much to do. Nevertheless, I plan to get my hands on the developer preview to have a look (the weekend proved too short for this). It will be very interesting to see how the next version of Windows develops, and I plan to keep an eye on it as it does so.
It now looks as if many will have their work cut out if they are to avoid where desktop computing interfaces are going. Established paradigms are being questioned, particularly as a result of touch interfaces on smartphones and tablets. Wii and Kinect have involved other ways of interacting with computers, too, so there's a lot of mileage in rethinking how we work with computers. So far, I have been able to deal with the changes in the world of Linux, but I am left wondering about the changes that Microsoft is making. After Vista, they need to be careful and they know that. Maybe, they'll be better at getting users through changes in computing interfaces than others, but it'll be very interesting to see what happens. Unlike open-source community projects, they have the survival of a massive multinational at stake.