Winstep

Software Technologies


 Winstep Forums


Print view
Board index : Winstep Forums : General Discussion  [ 5 posts ]
Author Message
 Post subject: Win10 Preview Build 17083 Causes Winstep to Mangle Computer
PostPosted: Sun Jan 28, 2018 12:46 pm 
Offline

Joined: Wed Oct 20, 2010 10:47 pm
Posts: 4
Jorge,

D/Led MS's latest preview build and things went south from there. First, my computer began crawling when it first initialized (instead of setting to desktop in 45 seconds, it began taking, on average, 415 seconds). Then, secondly, my network connections began to go bonkers. I was unable to connect to websites either with Opera or Chrome. Thirdly, installed programs began a snail's pace in initializing. I was befuddled.

I began uninstalling several (3) recent programs to no avail. Then, in somewhat desperation and regret, I uninstalled Winstep. I then rebooted and everything returned to the way it had been prior to the 17083 installation.

I'm pretty sure MS did something that caused Winstep to barf and cause me all those troubles. I believe you've had other problems with these various MS preview builds. Here's another one.

Regards,
Alan....


Back to top
 Profile  
 
 Post subject: Re: Win10 Preview Build 17083 Causes Winstep to Mangle Compu
PostPosted: Sun Jan 28, 2018 4:24 pm 
Offline
Site Admin
Site Admin
User avatar

Joined: Thu Feb 26, 2004 8:30 pm
Posts: 11930
First of all, thanks for the heads up.

This is the good part, here comes the bad part (this is going to turn into a long rant, so be forewarned lol!):

When you sent me that other email to Winstep support regarding Windows Insider build 17074, just days before the v18.1 release (and almost gave me a heart attack), remember how a couple of days later everything was magically working fine? Now the same seems to be happening with build 17083.

Has it occurred to you that rebooting might be the thing that is actually 'fixing' those issues, and that they have nothing to do with the Winstep application?

Insider builds are the 'betas' from Microsoft. Microsoft layed off many of their Quality Assurance people (the whole programmatic testing group, in fact) and is now using customers (and their own developers) to take on that role.

The problem is that customers are NOT professional testers, and there is a very good reason why developers aren't the best testers of their own code either, i.e.; for the same reason you don't let writers be their own editor; you need fresh eyes to see what the other person might not.

Anyway, Microsoft's adoption of RAD (Rapid Application Development) for an OS is, in my opinion, a huge mistake that is alienating both users and developers alike. Users because stuff like what you describe keeps happening, even in so called 'stable' builds, and developers because they get tired of their code constantly breaking through no fault of their own.

And if you doubt that last part, look no further than Classic Shell: the author of this hugely popular Windows Start Menu replacement threw in the towel in December citing lack of time, difficulty keeping up with Windows 10 changes (every new build broke something in Classic Shell) and Microsoft's moving away from the Win32 programming model.

The lack of time motive is the final fate of most - if not all - freeware applications: the application eventually becomes too popular for the developer to be able to support it 'pro bono' with his free time. Faced with a choice of turning it into a paid application or simply giving up on it, most will choose the latter as they have a family to feed and trading a good solid job for the uncertainties of running your own company is not a responsibility many will be willing to take. Furthermore, the most rabid supporters of the application in its free form will also become the most rabid haters when it goes commercial - some people are just too selfish and entitled.

Keeping up with Windows 10 changes: long gone are the times of Steve Ballmer shouting 'Developers! Developers! Developers!' on a stage. Microsoft wants to make Windows the star of the show, and seems to have forgotten that the role of an OS is to let other applications shine while it sits there quietly doing its job on the background. Applications ARE the star of the show, not the OS. People don't buy Windows to run Windows, they buy Windows to be able to run other applications.

Constantly changing the OS and therefore constantly breaking other applications instead of providing a reasonable period of stability is a huge mistake. Users get tired, developers get tired. The developer of Classic Shell quit. I know I'm pissed off beyond measure by this, and I'm pretty sure Stardock Fences and WindowsBlinds developer, Neil Banfield, is sick of this too. Like us there will be many others. It feels like we're always rowing against the stream, like the sword of Damocles is constantly hanging over our heads because Microsoft might overnight decide to break some critical feature in our applications which we will not be able to recover from. It is our very lives on the line, and Microsoft couldn't care less.

Finally, Windows is built on Win32, but Microsoft wants to move everything else to managed code. Managed code might have its advantages, but the drawback is that it is simply too bloated and too slow to make the kind of applications Winstep and Stardock do. I mean, it's ridiculous: open the UWP calculator in Windows 10 and marvel at how long it takes for such a simple bare bones applet to become ready to receive user input!

Like Steve Ballmer's 'developers!' line, the days of Moore's law where CPU power would double every 2 years are also long gone. We have reached a physical limit, and, unless some revolutionary alternative to silicon comes along, we will only be seeing mild improvements in CPU speed for years to come.

When Microsoft was building Longhorn - which eventually became Windows Vista - it made a bet on Moore's law going on forever. It lost, and the result was a disaster, with Windows Vista taking nearly 5 years to be finally released and core technologies like WinFS (a file system based on a relational database) being dropped because they were simply too slow even for modern processors.

It was also about that time that Microsoft killed the most popular programming language ever built - classic Visual Basic - screwing thousands of developers and companies that depended on it in a single sweep without giving it a second thought. It replaced classic VB with that bloated .NET managed code mess.

But did Microsoft learn its lesson? No, it did not. Every new technology that Microsoft adds to Windows 10 exposes an interface to managed code, but neglects - deliberately, I might add - to do the same for Win32 applications. This is the last thing the Classic Shell developer was complaining about.

It makes it very difficult, if not impossible, for developers of Win32 applications to take advantage of new Windows 10 features. It becomes ridiculous at times, e.g.; to get a simple value to something, which in Win32 would be accomplished through a single and very fast API call, you must first implement an interface, initialize an object, blah blah blah. No wonder it's slow as molasses, the whole thing is just insane!

Anyway, bottom line is: you're running a beta of Windows, and Microsoft keeps changing stuff at a rapid pace. There is no point in us developers testing out our applications in Insider builds, because what is broken today will be working again tomorrow and vice-versa. It is up to you users, who chose to be Microsoft's guinea pigs... errr... testers, to warn Microsoft that their latest and greatest beta just broke a bunch of applications.

The rapid pace of development in Windows thus leaves us no choice but to be reactive instead of pro-active, that is, we are forced to wait for an official, non Insider preview, release to figure out if something is (still) broken, and THEN fix it.

_________________
Jorge Coelho
Winstep Xtreme - Xtreme Power!
http://www.winstep.net - Winstep Software Technologies


Back to top
 Profile WWW 
 
 Post subject: Re: Win10 Preview Build 17083 Causes Winstep to Mangle Compu
PostPosted: Sun Jan 28, 2018 5:06 pm 
Offline

Joined: Tue Mar 01, 2016 11:46 am
Posts: 568
winstep wrote:
I mean, it's ridiculous: open the UWP calculator in Windows 10 and marvel at how long it takes for such a simple bare bones applet to become ready to receive user input!


Finally, glad someone else noticed that. it drove me insane that none of my friends that use win 10 (all of them computer savvy on different levels) notice the difference between response time of UWP and win32, and to me it was one of the dealbreakers that made me switch back to win 7. i began to think i was imagining things


Back to top
 Profile  
 
 Post subject: Re: Win10 Preview Build 17083 Causes Winstep to Mangle Compu
PostPosted: Mon Jan 29, 2018 2:48 am 
Offline

Joined: Wed Oct 20, 2010 10:47 pm
Posts: 4
Jorge,

Thank you for your detailed reply. A quick response is in order. Sometimes a reboot does not fix what MS has wrought. Such was the case with 17083. No matter how many times I rebooted, the OS just got slower than the previous reboot. Whatever MS did to 17083 it really screwed up its relationship with Winstep. I shall wait for the next iteration from MS and see if things have returned to "normal" and Winstep operates as well as it did before 17083.

Thank you for your explanations as to MS motives and ability to hurry things to a point that irritates as many folks as are humanly possible to irritate.

Regards,
Alan....


Back to top
 Profile  
 
 Post subject: Re: Win10 Preview Build 17083 Causes Winstep to Mangle Compu
PostPosted: Mon Jan 29, 2018 3:19 am 
Offline
Site Admin
Site Admin
User avatar

Joined: Thu Feb 26, 2004 8:30 pm
Posts: 11930
Did you already try re-installing the Winstep application to see if the 'slowness' comes back? If it does, have you tried disabling the 'Fast Boot' option?

If connecting to other websites goes bonkers again after re-installing, what happens if you simply Exit the Winstep application?

If things go back to normal after exiting, what happens if you run the Winstep application again? If it goes bonkers one more time, what happens if you delete the Net Meter module from all the locations you can find it at (Desktop, Shelf and docks)?

Come on, you signed up to be a beta tester for Microsoft, start acting like one! :wink: lol

If nothing works, you should submit a bug report to Microsoft. A *Windows* bug report, not a Winstep bug report. :)

_________________
Jorge Coelho
Winstep Xtreme - Xtreme Power!
http://www.winstep.net - Winstep Software Technologies


Back to top
 Profile WWW 
 
Post new topic Reply to topic Board index : Winstep Forums : General Discussion  [ 5 posts ]
Display posts from previous:  Sort by  

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: Google [Bot] and 69 guests


You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot post attachments in this forum

Search for:
Jump to:  
cron