I made a fresh install of the latest windows 10 pro this week end, and it is now very difficult to do simple things like changing the default program for an extension. I wanted to use Irfanview for jpg files but the primary menu for allocating an app to images will now only allow you to select a windows store app, not a local app (and you cannot change the default program from a contextual menu on the file anymore). Otherwise you have to go through a list of thousands of extensions to find manually the correct one (of course no search). Needless to say I didn't bother to change png, bmp, gif & others.
Windows is more unappealing by the minute. It will become the same locked down OS than iOS, unsuitable for developpers and power users.
> I want a sandboxed OS where random app X doesn't access my $HOME data just because it feels like it.
You should check out XFENCE[1], formerly known as Little Flocker, and made by Jonathan Zdziarski who sold it to F-Secure after he was hired by Apple as a security guy.
If only. Windows 10 has this annoying habbit of changing the defaults after updates. It's so frustrating that I would never choose Windows 10 for dev work unless I had to.
When I click the little quotes that pop up on my login screen after the creator's update it always pops up in Edge instead of Chrome even though Chrome is my default browser.
My money's on this happening due to an internal power struggle within Microsoft. The Windows division was historically the top dog within Microsoft (probably on par with Office).
They can't maintain that status: PC renewal cycles are long and the PC market is decreasing, both in terms of market share and in absolute values. I guess they're trying to get more money from this stable or even shrinking market share.
My guess is that at some point Microsoft bosses will really start butting heads and Azure/developer tools + Office/enterprise applications won't budge, especially since they're on the rise. Windows damaging Microsoft's reputation hurts all their businesses and I doubt they will let this happen for long.
I believe big parts of Windows will become more and more open and even Windows itself could open sourced within 10 years, at most.
Actually I believe that now with OS X on one side, and GNU/Windows on the other, the year of desktop Linux will definitely never happen.
And while ChromeOS and Android make use of the Linux kernel for the time being, for a browser, ART and the quite constrained NDK APIs, whatever talks to the underlying hardware is kind of irrelevant.
It's not just different. It is intentionally meant to make it more difficult to deviate from the defaults. Like making it impossible for a browser to change the default browser and forcing a user to go through the settings.
I'd say that's good. I wouldn't want some rogue software changing my settings on me, like how Chrome has been included in the installers of other software in the past. I wouldn't want to install Skype and then find that Chrome is now somehow my default browser.
Skype. It's funny that a microsoft app has become another example of an installer behaving like malware. It used to be that the java installer was the primary offender. Now it's also skype and the .net framework installers. The new Microsoft...
Nevertheless I don't buy the "it's for my own good" argument. "Use Edge, don't use chrome, it's for your own good". "Use store app where we collect a toll from developers, not an app you installed directly, it's for your own good". Sure...
First you argued that the setting system was too strict, but now you're arguing that it's not strict enough.
Anyway, Firefox protects itself from the Bing Bar. It warns you that an add-on has been installed and disables it by default. This is the type of settings protection behaviour I like.
> the primary menu for allocating an app to images will now only allow you to select a windows store app, not a local app
I don't know what you consider "the primary menu", but Settings | App | Defaults lets you choose any app that's registered for the purpose - e.g. for me it shows Chrome for web browser and mail, and Paint.NET for photo viewer.
> and you cannot change the default program from a contextual menu on the file anymore
Sure you can. If you click "Open With" in Explorer, you get the list of several most used apps registered for this file type, both Store and non-Store. If you then click "Choose another app", you get a dialog with the complete list of apps (again, both Store and non-Store), and at the bottom it has a checkbox to always open this type with the selected app
"Open with" in explorer will not change the file association and I believe the checkbox you are referring to has disappeared as of build 15063.
In the Default App panel, if I go into Photo Viewer and click choose a default, I will only see Paint, Pain 3D and "Look for an app in the Store". No choice for a dialog with a complete list of app. Again you are probably referring to an earlier version of Windows 10.
> I believe the checkbox you are referring to has disappeared as of build 15063.
I'm on build 15063, and it is there.
> In the Default App panel, if I go into Photo Viewer and click choose a default, I will only see Paint, Pain 3D and "Look for an app in the Store".
It shows the apps that are registered as photo viewers. The fact that IrfanView doesn't show up there means that it doesn't do that. For me, that dialog lists Paint.NET and other non-Store apps. Again, this is on build 15063.
Indeed, even per your description, it lists at least one non-Store app - that being Paint. So it's clearly not locked to the Store.
Now, I don't know exactly what it takes for the app to be considered a "photo viewer", but it seems that you need to have it registered (not as a default, but just generally as a handler) for .jpg and .png? I googled a little bit, and the discussion here indicates that after people did that association in IrfanView settings, it did show up in the app list for Photo Viewer for them:
Might the difference be different localities too? MS has had several large fines in Europe for swinging too hard with their monopoly, perhaps they've changed this option except in Europe? It sounds pretty anti-competitive.
I made a fresh install of the latest windows 10 pro this week end, and it is now very difficult to do simple things like changing the default program for an extension. I wanted to use Irfanview for jpg files but the primary menu for allocating an app to images will now only allow you to select a windows store app, not a local app (and you cannot change the default program from a contextual menu on the file anymore). Otherwise you have to go through a list of thousands of extensions to find manually the correct one (of course no search). Needless to say I didn't bother to change png, bmp, gif & others.
Windows is more unappealing by the minute. It will become the same locked down OS than iOS, unsuitable for developpers and power users.