Microsoft Announces New Fall Creators Update With Fluent Design System

[Raevenlord]

After announcing its plan for a new, six-month update cycle for Windows 10, which Microsoft is treating as the last, monolithic release of Windows, the Redmond company has now announced its plans for the forthcoming Fall Creators Update (aherm) update.

Microsoft also announced the adoption of a new, Fluent design language, which strikes me as aesthetically pleasing, and a far cry from the Metro interface we've been saddled with since Windows 8. It carries on the bold color schemes, but marries it with a more subdued, less in-you-face style of user interface, and is supposed to encourage developers to design their apps in a way that makes sense on a variety of platforms - which, considering the advent of the Universal Windows Platform, makes all kinds of sense, doesn't it?





The Fluent Design System will focus on five hallmarks of design: light, depth, motion, material, and scale. Light will help users to know what they should focus on in an app (kinda like those lighting design cues we get in our own video games, right?); depth shows the relations between various interface elements; motion will work towards emphasizing events or actions; material invites users to touch the app probably with different texturing on interactive elements; and scale will help interfaces make the shift from 2D to 3D with Windows Mixed Reality (which Microsoft is positioning as one of the biggest new things for the future.)



Microsoft if also introducing the Microsoft Graph, which is a timeline of sorts (like a Continuum of your time, eh) which is supposed to more tightly integrate your work across devices with your Windows experience. This means that so long as you possess a Windows system, it will more easily integrate with your other devices. Some features in this Microsoft Graph are:

Timeline, where you can jump back in time to find what you were working on at a given time-frame;



Pick Up Where You Left Off, which empowers Cortana to know and transmit your last piece of work across devices should you so choose, kind of like updating a file on Dropbox, I'd wager;



Clipboard, which will duplicate information on your transfer area across your devices, in a cloud-powered way; and OneDrive Files on Demand, which seems a little like magic in that it "allows access to your files in the cloud without having to download them and use storage space on your device." Even online files can apparently be seen in File Explorer and accessed on-demand whenever they are needed.



Finally, Microsoft is introducing an entire new image and video editing app, dubbed the Windows Story Remix, which automatically stitches and animates your memories (read, your files), or even your friends' photos and videos, together, creating stories with a soundtrack, theme, and cinematic transitions. This is done automatically, though you can expect to have some user control over this. Microsoft is also integrating mixed reality by adding 3D objects to your photos and videos to tell stories in a whole new way, or turning your photos and videos into your own canvas, to be drawn on with Windows Ink.



View at TechPowerUp Main Site

 

[RejZoR]

So, basically they are re-inventing Aero Glass. Windows 7 says hi

 

[cryohellinc]

Sounds great, looking forward. I both loved Windows 7 back in the day, and love Windows 10, so a mix of two in terms of style - by all means.

 

[xkm1948]

I like Windows 10. It is very well polished system now.

 

[95Viper]

Looks nice. I'll wait until I can play with it to make a definite comment, one way or the other.

 

[Readlight]

is all updates is inluded in iso?

 

[DeathtoGnomes]

Finally, Microsoft is introducing an entire new image and video editing app, dubbed the Windows Story Remix, which automatically stitches and animates your memories (read, your files), or even your friends' photos and videos, together,

Read1:If you dont have them, we'll spy on them for you to get them.

Read2:If you dont have any friends, well good luck with that...

 

[lexluthermiester]

So, basically they are re-inventing Aero Glass. Windows 7 says hi

As much as I hate Windows 10, this does look like a step back in the right direction. Now if we can only make the damn OS run in a way that respects privacy and personal digital security. Effin' Microsoft.

Some of this looks like more ways for Microsoft to catalogue and file away private aspects of peoples lives. That aspect is just not ok..

 

[RejZoR]

I know that telemetry, automated bug and crash reports can significantly improve products, but you have to do it in transparent way and if users decide to opt out from that, you should respect that entirely. You just need to package it in such a way that users are aware of its benefits and not just seeing it as a potential privacy risk. Something Microsoft is just not doing a good job about at all.

 

[lexluthermiester]

I know that telemetry, automated bug and crash reports can significantly improve products, but you have to do it in transparent way and if users decide to opt out from that, you should respect that entirely. You just need to package it in such a way that users are aware of its benefits and not just seeing it as a potential privacy risk. Something Microsoft is just not doing a good job about at all.

While that might be a better way than is currently being used, an entirely better way would be to keep ALL telemetry collection limited to people who opt-in to a beta testing program, such as the insider program.

 

[RejZoR]

I don't quite agree on that. Rigorous telemetry yes, but Insiders represent only tiny fraction of systems. Microsoft needs to know when larger portion of their normal builds is experiencing problems. They can be proactive about it unlike in the past where things had to become so bad they heard about it from the news or from overflowing anger on forums. That's why I think telemetry and reporting systems can be beneficial to them and to users. But you also have to be STRICTLY transparent about what exactly you're collecting, where is all that going and if you're sharing it with 3rd parties and in what form (all of it or aggregated and anonymized).

For example, avast! Antivirus does this as well (like all these days). Partially for the needs of the cloud and partially to proactively spot problems with installations. They are very transparent about it and they also give you control over data collection. CommunityIQ system is required to obtain max protection and also make everyone else benefit from it because every computer acts as a sensor. You can of course uncheck it and disable functionality, but you then also sacrifice some protection. And they also have a second checkbox which dictates whether you allow sharing of data with 3rd parties. For example, I have CommunityIQ enabled, but I always disable 3rd party data sharing. I know they strip the data of any recognizable things, but still, I feel comfy sharing potentially private data with them, but I'm not willing to allow it to be shared with anyone else.

This is where Microsoft is lacking transparency. When you look at their telemetry connections, they go all over the place of which it ends up god knows where. And I don't recall them every explicitly stating where and how data is sent and processed EXACTLY. They probably mention some in EULA which no one ever reads anyway coz it's a stupid block of text, but they don't go into specifics and people want to know those specifics in an understandable form, not that lawyer cryptic form of EULA.

 

[Prima.Vera]

Installed, screw up my sound driver (Creative X-Fi titanium Pci-E). Had to re-installed them and lost all customization. Also some other settings reverted to default.
Windows Defender also re-activated itself, even if I have another Antivirus installed.

WTF Microsoft?!? Only idiots on that company??

 

[lexluthermiester]

Installed, screw up my sound driver (Creative X-Fi titanium Pci-E). Had to re-installed them and lost all customization. Also some other settings reverted to default.
Windows Defender also re-activated itself, even if I have another Antivirus installed.

WTF Microsoft?!? Only idiots on that company??

To stop Windows Defender from messing with your configurations, you have to remove it completely. The best way to currently do this is to boot from a Live USB drive[it can be a Linux Live drive or a WinPE type, either will work so long as it can read/write NTFS] and delete all of the folders it runs from in "Program Files", "Program Files (x86)" and "ProgramData", followed by deleting "SecurityHealthService.exe" in System32 folder. Make sure you have a trustworthy antivirus/antimalware to replace it. Avira and Comodo are my current favs. This same method can be used to remove Apps that you don't want, including Edge.

 

[Prima.Vera]

Yeah.....but why use the complicated path for a feature that should have been available...by default??
Thanks for the tip.

 

[Scrizz]

Installed, screw up my sound driver (Creative X-Fi titanium Pci-E). Had to re-installed them and lost all customization. Also some other settings reverted to default.
Windows Defender also re-activated itself, even if I have another Antivirus installed.

WTF Microsoft?!? Only idiots on that company??

Well.... you installed something that wasn't ready.... The Fall Creators Update.....

 

[Prima.Vera]

Well.... you installed something that wasn't ready.... The Fall Creators Update.....

No no. It was/is the official update. The popup just came and told me to restart and update the PC at my convenience.