Current Status of Windows 10 October 2018 Update version 1809

ddelo said:

What Is “Developer Mode” in Windows 10?

Hmm... That sure looks like an awful dangerous 'feature' to allow it freely to the masses.

A good morning and afternoon from this side of the pond!

When I first posted about developer mode, 'freely' didn't look like the proper adjective to use I had thought of 'openly' but I stuck with freely.

Jimbo touched on what I was trying to convey,

In any case I'd imagine even the most half baked developer would naturally back up system properly before tinkering with it. Most developers I know would do this as a matter of course -- who wants to spend hours re-installing Windows or trying to remember what code etc one changed 3 days ago !!!!.

But with the way win 10 is and continues to be rolled out this wasn't developers that I was pointing to. How many times have we heard the expression 'the vast majority of users only want to check their emails and play games', what if, anyone with limited skills wanted to experiment with developer mode (DM) and didn't realize enough to make that all important backup?

I mean no gender bias here 'gentlemen' but; In my days of 3.11 to win7, If Bill Gates and Redmond wanted you to have developer mode you had to make an effort to find it and maybe pay for it to use it, now, it's tossed freely about like it's an afterthought, with the only caveat being at the top of the window 'These settings are intended for development use only' to the uninformed that's like telling your child before Christmas; 'No, don't you dare look in there!' SMH

I did see the 'For developers' area when I bought my laptop 2years ago and only entered for the first time when Danield posted yesterday to see what it was about hence my post about being dangerous and I agree with all three of you about the need, the dangers, and the precautions to take before venturing into the 'Looking Glass'.

I don't know what my OEM settings for DM were so I don't know if they've ever changed but right now the only ones picked are:

• Sideload apps at the top
• In the File Explorer section. Change settings to show full path in title bar, Change policy to show Run as different user in Start.
• In the Power Shell section. Change execution policy...

Hi there
I think initially at the time of Windows 8.1 Ms wanted apps only to be loadable from the store - wasn't possible for a lot of currently running programs so the concept of "side loading" came in --i.e loading / installing stuff from other sources than the ms store and restrict that type of privilege to "Developer Mode".

With a product like Windows with millions of applications the concept of a single store is just too complex to bring in at this stage -- that could have been done right at the start of the Windows journey (way back even before Windows 3.11 which was probably the first serious windows release used beyond home computing) but wasn't.

Amazon devices e.g firestick TV requires you to get into developer mode before being able to side load applications so the Android OS is built with that type of feature in it.

I can't actually see what Windows Developer mode now actually does other than perhaps allow people to insert break-points into code for debugging purposes. Perhaps people reading these threads can enlighten us folks as to what it actually does.

Cheers
jimbo

I am an 'ol dog but willing to learn new tricks and realize the times they are a changing...Maybe I'm just too tired to get up off the porch anymore.