Win10 Build 10130 Impressions

Notification Center aka Action Center not working?
I think MS need to pick one of these names and stick with it. Considering notifications are stuck here, I vote for Notification Center. Action Center doesn't even make any sense. If not, they're going to end-up with another Live Tile/Metro/Modern/Windows8/Windows Store App naming confusion.

Anyway, the Notification Center doesn't fly-out when I use touch controls swiping-in from right. And doens't pop-up when I press on the taskbar icon with pen or finger. Sometimes I can get it to start working again if I restart Windows Explorer, but usually a full shutdown and boot up is required. This is very annoying to be honest, and is one of a few things which seemed bugged-out now which worked in earlier Windows 10 Tech Preview Builds.

Start Menu / Full Screen Start Menu
The Windows 10 solution for the Start Menu/Large Start Menu is just getting more and more visually unappealing, the more they faff around with it. I'm pretty sure that it used to work in a group of four, so you could have two Large sized tiles next to each other in one table column, and four Medium sized tiles underneath (two under each). Now you can only fit one Large title, and one Medium tile next to it, so now it works on a group of three instead. The arranging of tiles is awkward as they can be dragged to 'half a row' height, and left there, messing-up the placement of all the other tiles, instead of just being placed on one row of titles, or the row above.

Right now, my list down the left side of the screen is missing Settings and File Explorer for some reason, only showing Power and All Apps, so it doesn't even keep things where they should be. I also still have issues every now and then with the menu not apearing when the Start Button is pressed. And issues coming in and out of Tablet Mode (Store Beta and Calculator apps keep getting re-opened).

The full screen Start Menu ("Start Screen?", or has that branding been discontinued?) has a gargantuan f---ing hole in the middle of it, as the 'table border' between the two columns of titles widens-out. This looks absolutely ridiculous. And when using the full screen start menu, despite having more room to use, it still hides the most recently used/installed programs list under a flipping hamburger menu, leaving dead space where it used to be. Where is the logic?

Explorer Active Title Bars, Taskbar Icons and Progress Meters Colors



When it was first removed, I thought it was a error for that particular build, but its stayed. The Active Titlebar in an active window is now white, with the smallest indicator in the left corner of it which is the color that your windows/start menu is set to. Mine is blue. Non active titlebars for inactive windows are a duller grey color. These look horrific. Active title bar should be fully colored. Non active window's title bar should be white.



The opened-software overlay for items on the taskbar is now very hard to see. I don't want Windows 7's frosted glas look back, but I need something better than what we have currently. Look at that! Notepad is closed, Firefox is open. There's barely any difference between the two!

Not sure what to call these, but they were introduced with Windows 7. It's the taskbar animations for the progress meter on things like file copy processes (File Explorer), or a media player's timeline of a file (Media Player Classic). They have been changed from green to an off-white shade, which mixes with the color of your start menu. It makes it very hard to see how far you have progressed in your file copy or video timeline.

The Start In setting moved to Folder Options, where it made more sense.

Quick Access is really nothing new, it's just a renamed "Favorites' that has been in Explorer since I think Vista. It just has a little more functionality now.

They have, by default, removed most of those folders from This PC. You have to choose "Show All Folders" to see them (they may also carry over from previous upgrades). The default display is actually much more tidy.

It's true that Libraries and Favorites/Quick Access are somewhat similar, but you can't have multiple folders assigned to a single folder in QuickAccess (unless you're pinning a library there). As such, they are really different functions. Most people really don't get libraries though, and they never modify them.

You can also pin virtually anything to Quick Access, but This PC is limited only to top level items. You can put subfolders in Quick Access, you can put "virtual" folder objects.. anything pretty much that can appear in Explorer. So Quick Access has more flexibility than This PC in some ways.

In WIndows 8, I can't set the target location on the default icon for File Explorer either, because it's a system created shortcut, which is different from a user shortcut. You can right click on the desktop and choose new->shortcut and then type in explorer and create a new icon, then you can update the target in this icon. You can then unpin the original icon and pin this new one to the taskbar if you want.

Mystere said:

The Start In setting moved to Folder Options, where it made more sense.

Interesting. Thanks for this. Very glad to know the option is still somewhere in the menus. Especially since the manual location tweak no longer works.

Mystere said:

They have, by default, removed most of those folders from This PC. You have to choose "Show All Folders" to see them (they may also carry over from previous upgrades). The default display is actually much more tidy.

You're talking about the navigation pane here?
Un-ticking 'Show all folders' now too see.

Hmm, this is interesting. They've changed something here, in the non-show-all-folders view, at some point. I used to always show all folders because it made drag-n-dropping files around the directories easier. The old version of non-show-all-folders used to not do this properly somehow (I can't remember fully).

No more unnecessary User folder, Desktop drop-down which has everything as sub folders, Libaries (which do show/hide when not showing all folders), Control Panel in the Navigation Pane. A shame it still shows unwanted Quick Access, Ondrive and Network icons, and removes the wanted Recycle Bin. But it might mean less overall registry edits I need to do in the future when editing the Navigation Pane items.

Mystere said:

You can also pin virtually anything to Quick Access, but This PC is limited only to top level items. You can put subfolders in Quick Access, you can put "virtual" folder objects.. anything pretty much that can appear in Explorer. So Quick Access has more flexibility than This PC in some ways.

Mystere said:

It's true that Libraries and Favorites/Quick Access are somewhat similar, but you can't have multiple folders assigned to a single folder in QuickAccess (unless you're pinning a library there). As such, they are really different functions. Most people really don't get libraries though, and they never modify them.

I'm note sure exactly what you mean with the Quick Access explanation?
I know there's a subtle difference, but I think there's enough overlap between Quick Access and This PC, or Quick Access and Favourites, or Libraries, to where they can all be combined into something more cohesive and tidy.

Out of curiosity what do you think of my UI improvement solution idea?

ksdixon said:

Interesting. Thanks for this. Very glad to know the option is still somewhere in the menus. Especially since the manual location tweak no longer works.

The manual location tweak does work, just as it does in Windows 8. The icons work the same way, but obviously over time you had somehow replaced your icon. I updated my post above to include information on how to do that.

ksdixon said:

I'm note sure exactly what you mean with the Quick Access explanation?
I know there's a subtle difference, but I think there's enough overlap between Quick Access and Favourites to where they can be combined. But that is the entire point I make, that they, along with Libraries, are all different iterations of the same kind of idea.

What I mean is that you can pin any subfolder in there as well. go 10 layers deep in any folder and then drag it out into Quick Access. Just like you could with Favorites in Windows 7 and 8. It's a quick access to any location you want in Explorer. You can't do that with This PC.

ksdixon said:

Out of curiosity what do you think of my UI improvement concept mockups?

I think things are fine the way they are.. but then i'm not really someone that has to have everything exactly so.

Mystere said:

What I mean is that you can pin any subfolder in there as well. go 10 layers deep in any folder and then drag it out into Quick Access. Just like you could with Favorites in Windows 7 and 8. It's a quick access to any location you want in Explorer. You can't do that with This PC.

Well... 'I' can. I just use ThisPCTweker from WinAero to add whichever folders I want to ThisPC. So I get to check my free space on hardrives, and get quick access to whichever folders I need. Which was fine, but now I kind of want to have the 'Recent Files' group from Quick Access too.

Mystere said:

I think things are fine the way they are.. but then i'm not really someone that has to have everything exactly so.

I don't really think I'm being awkward really.
To me it seems completely silly to have two separate locations which provide such closely related functions.
Quick access to recent files/pinned folders, and hardrives.

ksdixon said:

Well... 'I' can. I just use ThisPCTweker from WinAero to add whichever folders I want to ThisPC. So I get to check my free space on hardrives, and get quick access to whichever folders I need. Which was fine, but now I kind of want to have the 'Recent Files' group from Quick Access too.

I know of no way to pin, say C:\Users\MyUser\Documents\Taxes\2013\Receipts\Work to "This PC", but you can to Quick Access.

Quick Access is a generic "Favorites", "This PC" is only for "Top Level" objects. They're two very different things.

ksdixon said:

I don't really think I'm being awkward really.
To me it seems completely silly to have two separate locations which provide such closely related functions.
Quick access to recent files/pinned folders, and hardrives.

This PC has all items you need to gain access.. Quick Access only has items you want available all the time.

"Reset This PC" Confusion
Firstly it seems MS have gotten-rid of the 'Refresh This PC' terminology to describe the distinction between keeping files but keeping settings/apps intact, or removing both files and apps/settings (the old Reset This PC). After you make this first choice, there is then another similar-sounding choice between one if you plan to re-use the pc, and another about ]wiping everything if you intend to recycle the pc, which says it'll do a disk wipe, take hours etc. Then there's also a separate option to restore to factory settings. Talk about being overly confusing for no good reason.

Anyway... due to a OneDrive location error I selected to Reset the PC, and not to keep the files or settings/apps, as I just wanted a fresh copy of Win10 Build 10130. I did not choose the option to perform a drive wipe, nor did I select the other option to go back to factory settings.

And yet here I sit, after having 'reset this pc', on vanilla Windows 8. Highly annoying.

- Cortana's search box disppears if you have the start bar in any position other than the bottom.

- When viewing the pinned Recycle Bin in 'Content' view in Quick Access, the name disappears.



- I really fear for Windows 10's public reception (especially off the back of Win8), if they are having such stupid problems at this stage and the public release is so near.