Windows 10 Cloud edition may be a thing... Windows RT 2.0?

[Drak3]

14 minutes ago, gabrielcarvfer said:

The UWP thing, even with Centennial, it is not doing what it was supposed to do: deliver most Windows programs to as many users as possible. 

Where are Microsoft programs (real Office, Microsoft MPI, Mathematics, Microsoft Garage stuff...), other browsers (Firefox, Spark, Opera, Chrome, Chromium, ...), developer tools (msys2, CodeBlocks, Visual Studio, Jetbrains IDE's, Netbeans, Sublime, Notepad++, Git, Mercurial, SVN, ...), music programs (Spotify, iTunes, ...), office tools (LibreOffice, OpenOffice, WPS, Open365, ...), file sync stuff (Resilio Sync, Dropbox, Google Drive, OwnCloud, Mega, ...)? None of them are in Store.

UWP is supposed to deliver unified apps that should (not always) operate on multiple types of devices and form factors. It has variations of what people need from UWP, outside of Windows Phone, and what isn't needed from UWP (browsers, power developer tools, traditional desktop office tools) or relies on third party development isn't there.

As far as services such as Spotify or Dropbox, the need for UWP isn't there, as it would only serve as a shell for a web app. That's what the bog standard version does anyways, and they're already as touch friendly as the UWP version could be or they don't require interaction through the program itself for most functionality.

 

UWP isn't a replacement to traditional Win32 based programs, just a supplement for circumstances when the tradition isn't exactly ideal.

[AlTech]

1 minute ago, gabrielcarvfer said:

That's why Microsoft built Centennial, and even then, a lot of developers don't want their stuff to be delivered through store. '

Then what do we do about it?

 

[AlTech]

3 minutes ago, gabrielcarvfer said:

No idea, but it would be awesome to install and update everything with a single button. No more "hey, restart steam, we have an update to install", "restart chrome to install the latest update", download a new libreoffice build to update it, and so on.

 

Informing developers so that they know UWP exists would be a start.

 

I'm gonna try and push Discord and OBS to come to UWP somehow.

[LAwLz]

3 hours ago, AluminiumTech said:

Informing developers so that they know UWP exists would be a start.

 

I'm gonna try and push Discord and OBS to come to UWP somehow.

I am pretty sure OBS simply can't be an UWP program. The APIs don't allow for it. 

[AlTech]

2 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

I am pretty sure OBS simply can't be an UWP program. The APIs don't allow for it. 

Nope. It would work.

 

Direct X can interface with UWP. UWP has the capabilities to view and record video. 

[LAwLz]

3 minutes ago, AluminiumTech said:

Nope. It would work.

 

Direct X can interface with UWP. UWP has the capabilities to view and record video. 

Why does it matter that UWP can use DirectX? 

OBS does not use standard libraries to record the video. It also hooks into games in a way UWP doesn't allow for. 

[AlTech]

1 minute ago, LAwLz said:

Why does it matter that UWP can use DirectX? 

Because OBS uses either Direct X or OpenGL as part of the process of recording videos.

 

 

1 minute ago, LAwLz said:

It also hooks into games in a way UWP doesn't allow for. 

That might be difficult to work around......

[suicidalfranco]

5 hours ago, GoodBytes said:

I guess he forgot that ChromeOS is also locked to use Google Store

[LAwLz]

43 minutes ago, AluminiumTech said:

Because OBS uses either Direct X or OpenGL as part of the process of recording videos.

 

 

That might be difficult to work around......

Yes, as part of the process. That is just one out of many stages (of which I am not very that knowledgeable).

I am not sure how it works, but that seems to be a separate DirectX process because you can select OpenGL and still capture video from a DirectX process. Couldn't find any good documentation of what the renderer setting does either.

 

 

Why would you want OBS as an UWP anyway? I don't see the point.

[AlTech]

2 hours ago, LAwLz said:

Yes, as part of the process. That is just one out of many stages (of which I am not very that knowledgeable).

I am not sure how it works, but that seems to be a separate DirectX process because you can select OpenGL and still capture video from a DirectX process. Couldn't find any good documentation of what the renderer setting does either.

 

 

Why would you want OBS as an UWP anyway? I don't see the point.

Hella easier to maintain, update and just a lot less Win32 nastiness I have to keep around on my PC.

[LAwLz]

6 minutes ago, AluminiumTech said:

Hella easier to maintain, update and just a lot less Win32 nastiness I have to keep around on my PC.

It would be more difficult to maintain, because they would need to create two separate versions. One for Win32 (because of backwards compatibility) and one for UWP.

It would require twice as much maintenance for the developers.

 

How is it easier to update? Right now it has a little message that appears which asks if you want to update. You just click yes or no.

 

What "Win32 nastiness"? Win32 is fantastic.

[AlTech]

15 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

It would be more difficult to maintain, because they would need to create two separate versions. One for Win32 (because of backwards compatibility) and one for UWP.

Surprise Surpise! Making another version of an app requires more work!

 

Who would have figured that?

 

/sarcasm

15 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

It would require twice as much maintenance for the developers.

No. They could simply use Microsoft Project Centennial to turn their existing program into a UWP app.

 

After that it's just a matter of maintaining it.

15 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

How is it easier to update? Right now it has a little message that appears which asks if you want to update. You just click yes or no.

I have to manually install each update. This is rather obnoxious for a program environment which allows auto updates.

 

With a UWP app, I can go straight to the Store and click download. I don't need to do anything else.

 

It's also easy for developers

15 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

What "Win32 nastiness"? Win32 is fantastic.

I quite dislike Win32.

 

I find WIn32 apps to be resource hogs which create a big pile of mess in AppData folders and in the registry.

[LAwLz]

10 minutes ago, AluminiumTech said:

No. They could simply use Microsoft Project Centennial to turn their existing program into a UWP app.

 

After that it's just a matter of maintaining it.

It's not that easy...

Actually, if you think it's that simple then you do it. OBS is open source after all, but you will quickly run into a brick wall when you realize that it's not as simple as you think (and I am fairly sure it isn't even possible because of the UWP limitations).

 

And yes, maintaining two different branches requires a lot more work. They now have yet another version which needs to be tested and which will have its own share of unique bugs.

 

16 minutes ago, AluminiumTech said:

It's also easy for developers

How is it easy for developers?

 

16 minutes ago, AluminiumTech said:

I find WIn32 apps to be resource hogs which create a big pile of mess in AppData folders and in the registry.

Not a problem if you don't use poorly written programs. Also, Win32 programs, when written properly, will have higher performance and/or use less resources than UWP programs.

UWP has inherently more overhead because of how it was designed (runs in protected environments, don't have the same priority architecture, can't be split up into multiple processes, has to pass all the output though DMW, and so on).

 

Win32 programs are as good as the developers made them.

UWP programs are as good as Microsoft allows them to be, and right now, they aren't allowed to be better than "Oh God why would anyone want to use this".

[Misanthrope]

Well why not use the "mobile" version if it needs to be so lightweight win32 apps are out?

[LAwLz]

Neowin has a video of the Insider version of Windows 10 Cloud.

The TL:DR is this: It really is Windows RT 2.0. As in, it's cancer and I hope it dies. The only good thing seems to be that it doesn't have OneDrive permanently installed.

It seems like you can NOT side-load apps in this build. That might come in later builds though.

 

 

On 2/1/2017 at 11:18 AM, AluminiumTech said:

No. They could simply use Microsoft Project Centennial to turn their existing program into a UWP app.

So, how did it go for you?

It's been a few days now so I assume you have your UWP version of OBS up and running now, right?

[LAwLz]

42 minutes ago, gabrielcarvfer said:

Yeah, but discovered two big flaws, one in centennial and other in OBS.

 

The centennial launcher reports that the executable from appx reports being run from system32 folder, so you can't really find and launch secondary executables from the appx package from the main executable. You have to register secondary executables one by one in the appx manifest, and launch them directly from start menu, or search the binary path registered for the process, and then use the path.

 

With OBS the problem is that it was made totally based on relative paths, so it can't really start if you don't navigate the caller path to it's location (that's why you can't do .\obs-studio\bin\64bit\obs64.exe, but only .\obs64.exe). 

 

As they did this, things get really messed. Would have to change some stuff, but don't really want to do it. 

 

But it's not impossible neither that hard.

 

Other stuff, like Chromium, Firefox, Opera, Libre office and a bunch more were just like: makeappx, sign package, done.

I haven't read up on how makeappx works. It sounds to me like it's just a UWP wrapper around Win32 applications, not an actual UWP app (like AluminumTech wants, with no Win32 code in it).

Is that the case? Because if so, I am not impressed. If that's all it does then (which it seems, since you don't need the source code for the program) then it is a really pointless thing which adds nothing.

[GoodBytes]

Just a note on the video about the program he tried to side-load. He was not following the instructions to install the certificate needed. You need to install it under Local Machine, not current user, and under Trusted Installer (which he did not do/could not do, as he picked Current user). I am saying this more if you guys want to try it.

[MoonSpot]

Windows 10 Cloud edition may be a thing... Windows RT 2.0?

I am completely over these half-baked POS OS' and devices.  Give me $#!7 that works, with enough balls to actually do more than open a document.  If these crappy OS's didn't consume every single thread and resource calling home and reporting on the user, they might actually work worth a damn.

[LAwLz]

13 hours ago, gabrielcarvfer said:

And it is wrapper.

 

It's an UWP app in the sense it is packaged as one, delivered as one, uninstalled as one, updated as one, signed as one, doesn't mess with the OS, registry, and so on, even though it's based on a different API.

 

It adds maintainability, the updates can be made into delta (so smaller updates instead of downloading the entire thing), and so on.

 

The objective with it it's just that people keeps delivering their current applications while they work on the real port.

 

Their path to upgrade from centennial to full UWP is that first you add background UWP services, notifications, Cortana, and so on, then you can work on interface (porting to xaml), and finally the back end.

Depending on how much "Windows RT"-like this version of Windows is, programs that are just UWP wrapped might not run. At least with the old RT version, you could only run programs that were 100% metro apps.

 

I don't really get why anyone would use this wrapper though unless they were planning on moving over to "pure UWP", but since UWP is a cancer tumor I really don't think we should encourage the spread of it more.

The benefits at install/uninstall are kind of neat, but it only really helps make shitty programs less shitty, since all the benefits you listed can be implemented without UWP. Considering that not all programs can be converted without rewriting parts of it, troubleshooting, and in the end you still need the regular installer for backwards compatibility, it just seems like a waste of time.

[LAwLz]

11 minutes ago, gabrielcarvfer said:

This wrapper, even for people that are not switching to UWP API is valid. Instead of everyone implementing it's own update system, just use the store one. Instead of caring about installer/uninstaller, just throw everything into a write protected folder, then package it and sign. 

That doesn't work though, because UWP only works on Windows 10. You still need your own update system for all other users, and why bother having two systems when one of them works on all platforms but the other doesn't? Just use the one that works for everyone.

 

15 minutes ago, gabrielcarvfer said:

For the perspective of someone that don't want to bother, just continue with Win32 installers and stuff like that. But for users, I think it's valid. Ninine, for example, is famous exactly because help you install a bunch of basic stuff with a single installer. Some people use FileHippo, others Allmyapps, and others, just because software is not on the store.

Or maybe people don't use the store because it is horrible?

I don't really understand why you bring up Ninite though, because that offers functionality that the store doesn't have. The store doesn't let you install a bunch of things in the same easy way Ninite does.

 

48 minutes ago, gabrielcarvfer said:

And as I said, it's not that hard to package and deliver through store. If they fix the installer and the main program, so that it can be started from whatever folder, then a simple script would do the trick, just like a Jenkins one.

Yes, they just have to rewrite a bunch of stuff in the installer and core program, and then keep in mind that they have now more restrictions on how they can write the code, and they also have to keep track of two update systems. Sounds great...

I don't think the benefits outweigh the drawbacks.