I did clean install of the W10 x64 Pro with Creators update this week and I must say that the game mode is a complete garbage (at least in my case). All my games were stuttering horribly at well over 100FPS, so I checked frame times and there were huge spikes from 6ms-8ms when it was running smooth to suddenly crazy 100ms-600ms spike about every 5s. After I disabled Game Mode, Game Bar and Game DVR then everything went nice and smooth. i7 4770k 4.5GHz, GTX 1060 6G, 2x8GB DDR3, 1440p.
Exactly. I'm pretty sure this really has to do with the Game Bar/DVR rendering in some games.
Running an i5-6200u- with Game Bar/Game Mode enabled my fps in games like Counter-Strike GO and War Thunder was on average a good 4-5 fps lower and frame drops were much more noticeable.
Nothing insane but I need all the fps I can get on such a weak setup.
I think there have been a few reports of random issues like this, as well as it hampering ratehr than improving performance. I get the impression that game mode was designed for low-spec machines that have a lot of bloatware etc installed, not for fresh install high-end gaming machines that are configured specifically for gaming. Not that it's an excuse for it affecting your pristine install, just commenting on what I've read elsewhere.
I just "updated" windows 10 and Minecraft had gone from 25 to 30 fps with shaders, resource packs etc ore update, to 5 or 6 fps, even with all the Game Mode stuff turned off.
It turns out the nvidia control panel settings had been reset so Minecraft was using integrated intel gpu instead of my nvidia card. I've still had to turn a few setting science, however, to run as it did before.
Even in the article it claims the purpose wasn't so much to increase the top end of framerates. This will help older PCs more than anything that are running lower on resources as time goes on. What it is really doing is limiting background processes to increase albeit a minimal increase in performance. The article states you may get a few frames saved off the minimum frame rate. Nobody expected this to turn an unplayable game to acceptable performance. Perhaps they should have called this feature something else.
""Consumers want more features, and sooner, but business needs to test everything before rolling it out.""
interesting most people don't give a damn what new version of windows 10 offers, all they are interested in is that what ever browser works so they can do email and other stuff
for most a feature upgrade, this list is a follows 1 application PC settings are reset (browser and associations like PDF and pictures) 2 it uninstalls software without permission that was perfectly working fine (and still works perfectly fine when you reinstall it) 3 can't use there PC for about 2-8 hours when it does the upgrade (slow CPU/RAM/HDD vs SSD) 4 or better a non booting PC (or black screen as some may encounter as they broke the Video WDDM for some old video drivers and it sets the output to 0x0 resolution)
the Fix is use LTSB version if MS wount offer a legitimate LTSB single user licence then how are people supposed to buy it
Just be aware that if you have a mix of Office products say 2010 and 13/16 it will still delete off the latest versions if you do an upgrade. Well done MS, still not fixed that one.
The disappointment for me is that MS is concentrating on adding fluff, bling and bloat I have zero use for but not concentrating on making it more secure, robust and faster. I'd also like a return of the custom install option so I can choose to install that fluff or not.
Agreed. I also wish they'd focus on fixing bugs they've introduced as a result of updates. For example, Anniversary Update broke centre-alignment of folder/filenames in certain folder views and caused Libraries to start ignoring custom folder views. Both issues still exist in the Creators Update!
I still can't install this thing - Windows Update seems busted and standalone installer stays stuck on 99% for days.
Although Win10 is a nice OS, some things in it seem broken - things that worked flawlessly for years. For example, virus definitions on my system can't update themselves anymore - I have to download and install them manually.
Are you by any chance running an install of 10 that was upgraded from an earlier version? Several test machines at work, and alll my home machines struggled after an upgrade, I hated it the first few weeks. The I did a fresh install on them and it fixed 99% of all issues I had on every device. Just a thought :)
An issue I've ran into is that the update files that got downloaded were in some corrupted state. So instead of checking for updates, Windows Update would try to use them and fail. The solution I've found is to delete C:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution. This is where update files get downloaded to (including new updates like the Creators Update, culmulative updates and security updates) before being applied. Normally you can't just rename/delete it as there is typically some update process running in it. You have to kill any process running in it by opening Task Manager > Performance > Open Resource Monitor > CPU > Associated Handles and enter the folder path into the Search box. It'll pull up a list of processes open in that folder, end each of them. Next go to the folder and either rename (if you're wary) or delete it. Then check for updates. Hope this helps!
Don't know if this will help, but you might want to try the Windows Update Troubleshooter. I had a problem on my laptop where a couple of files had been corrupted and I was unable to update Windows. The troubleshooter fixed it. Also, consider using Windows Update MiniTool: it's so much nicer than the default updater.
This update was surprisingly the smoothest update process for me. Too much stuff configured currently for me to do a clean install, the update itself went about without any consequence. No programs have been affected that I could see. The upgrade process has been getting better and better. Though there is still some issue with my wifi adapter when using the latest drivers provided by the mfg. wifi only works well with a particular version of the driver.
I like the Edge enhancements, don't use game mode so don't care about it. paint 3D is fun and I'd never thought I'd actually prefer the previous iteration of the start menu with all apps tagged along with the pinned tiles. Really warming up to it now.
One issue still prevails that's been there from the start, explorer.exe crashes randomly and restarts, still cannot for the life of me figure that one out.
The security center needs an update. I guess maybe in minority but my PC is on a UPS and i have its status connected via USB port. So i have two yellow warnings about LCD being set to max brightness and sleep being turned off, both impacting battery life.
The problem is there is no way to turn off/confirm those alerts, so i always see a yellow triangle. So i just ignore it now as i have no way to know if there is a new and valid issue.
The Creators Update broke the DateTime Picker on all legacy applications. Microsoft are aware of this problem since early March and still haven't done anything to fix this. I've told all my customers who were unfortunate enough to update to revert back to the old version and wait for Microsoft to fix their bugs.
When it comes to hardware of any kind coming out of Microsoft, count on Microsoft to stop producing and supporting (or in other words "giving up") on it within a couple of years. This Surface Studio is a fantastic idea. The Microsoft Band was a great idea/product. Now no longer supported/produced. The Surface RT was a great idea that wasn't supported after its 3rd year. Mainstream phone apps are still not there. Zune music player (sort of competing with iPod) was gone soon after it was started.
The universal windows platform or whatever it won't be called because the hardware just won't be their to support the idea in a few years. Nothing portable device outside of the Surface Pro (all 10 of you Surface Pro users know what I'm talking about!) will be around using the Windows OS in a few years. Why is Microsoft focusing at all on a universal platform that isn't Android- or iOS-based when you know no Microsoft hardware is supported for more than a couple of years? So they can quit it in a couple of years like everything else?
Intel also pulled the plug on the line of Atom chips the Surface 3 used, leaving Microsoft high and dry. It's possible they'll come up with a new non-pro Surface that uses ARM chips, but that didn't sell all the great the first time.
They seem to have a foothold with the Surface Pro, so I wouldn't expect them to kill that any time soon. The problem with Microsoft's hardware ventures is that many of them simply haven't sold very well. They kind of had to give up on the Zune when they had warehouses full of unsold units and it was clear that nobody wanted an alternative to the iPod. Same for Surface RT and the Windows phones.
I think any Microsoft device that kind of overlaps with traditional desktops will be well supported in the future. It's their attempts to branch out into mobile that have routinely failed and been abandoned.
The Surface Studio is currently available so I have no idea what you're talking about there. The Surface Pro and Xbox lines have sold in the millions, have plenty of active users and are currently supported. The Zune was supported for quite a long time as well. I think you need to go do some research. The main failed products were Windows Mobile, Surface RT and Microsoft Band.
"Hopefully we’ll have a chance to dig into this a bit more in the future."
Some things in game mode I'd be interested in seeing tested (and might try myself in a few weeks or month when I install the update) are if it helps distributed computing play any nicer with not just games but foreground apps in general. I run several BOINC projects with my spare CPU/GPU cycles. For the most part it just works on the desktop and with simpler games. Games that are GPU heavy or use multiple heavy threads are a problem though because the OS doesn't give enough GPU to keep frame rates up and effectively only lets the game have a single CPU core. Boinc's mitigation options are rather limited; basically I can set it so that when certain apps are running (by executable path) Boinc entirely stops CPU and/or GPU apps. It's all or nothing though (meaning I can't let it leave 4 cores free for my game and continue to do science on the other 4).
More recently I've ran into occasional problems with HTML5 video playback while a GPU apps are running. Years ago I had similar problems with the general desktop and some GPU apps, but that was a much more consistent case. This is far more intermittent and I haven't been able to nail down any sort of pattern yet. May try gaming my browser to see what happens.
While Windows 10 Mobile looks dead-ish, I wouldn't say for the reasons you guys have selected. The list of phones there consolidates the list of different cores Microsoft is supporting down to A7 (why this made the cut I don't know), A53, and Kryo. The former will probably be dropped soon, and Microsoft will go to exclusively ARMv8 powered devices. I wouldn't be surprised if support for ARMv8 devices lasts far longer than projected here. Microsoft is still investing hard in new ARM-based platforms, and devices within the same scope as those platforms will likely keep evolving.
In a nutshell Win 10 is one big mess. Just about everything Microsoft is doing is fixing a problem or iterating on a solution to an unknown problem. The cost and time that needs to be put into installing and running and keeping a watch on what is happening to the computer that is running Win 10 is too prohibitive.
The thing that bugs me in Creator's Update is the removal of the links to "Control Panel" and "Programs and Features" when you right click the start button. They've replaced them with links to the modern "Settings" and "Apps and Features", respectively. There are still to many settings that can't be adjusted in the modern apps, they're not ready to replace the legacy versions yet.
On the other hand, they replaced "Command prompt" with "Power Shell" and Power Shell is absolutely ready to take over.
What I find interesting are the browser power consumption benchmarks.
I don't agree with Microsoft.
Edge is undoubtedly more power efficient on my laptop for light browsing sessions, but Netflix is more efficient in Chrome. Also, for light browsing, I'd say Chrome is the least efficient. It's like a Honda Civic, no matter how hard you beat on it, it gets the same fuel economy; Chrome consistently uses about the same amount of power. It is occasionally bested by Firefox and almost always bested by Edge, except in Netflix where Edge seems to use more power.
These are my observations over the years I've been running Windows 10, and honestly the anniversary update didn't improve the Netflix performance for Chrome. My laptop is a Haswell Elitebook 810 G2.
Why don't you use the Netflix app? It is pretty nice actually. I don't have my tablet in front of me but I am sure the memory footprint for the app is at least half compare to running in the browser.
I am sure running Netflix in chrome has some hardware excelleration not found in other browsers. It would behoove Netflix to do that given the large user base of chrome.
I don't get why people don't jump on the app bandwagon in windows. I use the slack app over the browser as it uses much less resources. That seems to microsofts problem, they can't get people to break their old ways.
For some of us, The update fails to install, even when using an ISO. To date, Microsoft tech support is stumped. The install gets to 75%, reboots...then fails.
The new Windows Defender UI overhaul now nags at me that I've got a driver issue. Following the prompts it turns out that it doesn't like disabled devices. Well, that's how the Cisco VPN system works, the VPN adapter is disabled while not connected. Stop nagging me already!
UWP is still needed for Windows tablets for instant resume and long battery life. There are a bunch of small tablets that run full Windows for less than $200 but they all use old Cherry Trail Z38xx chips, as no Apollo Lake parts go below 4W TDP.
Anyway, I'm totally stoked about Windows Subsystem for Linux. It's been a pain running Ubuntu VMs on an Atom-based tablet because of VM integration issues and a big hit on battery life. Hopefully I can do dev work on a Windows tablet without the horror of Cygwin...
And then I found out 32-bit Windows doesn't get WSL. Why, Microsoft, why? Ubuntu has 32-bit images of the latest releases.
So it's back to Cygwin and VMs for me. Looks like a whole bunch of Atom machines are due to get EOL'd because they're stuck with 32-bit UEFI even though they have 64-bit CPUs, all because Microsoft couldn't get Connected Standby working properly on 64 bit Windows way back when.
Are you sure about that? There are an awful lot of consumers who are going out of their way to avoid any of the new features in Creator's... and Anniversary... and Threshold 2... and RTM... and Windows 8.1... and Windows 8. MS had to force the new "features" on these consumers using every dirty trick they could think of even though Windows 10 was a free upgrade!
I don't want new features. I want the old ones back! Things like user control over updates and telemetry, a desktop-centric UI featuring a complete lack of "app" garbage, no nags when I install or use non-MS software, no ads, no changing my settings, no uninstalling my stuff, changing my drivers, or downloading stuff I never asked for... those are all must-haves. Any product lacking any one of these isn't even worthy of consideration.
The bug as feature philosophy is gaining new ground in Microsoft strategy. And this is one of the richest companies in the world with practically unlimited resources. The future is bleak. I can already picture robots that shit their pants as a natural feature.
A bunch of unneeded stuff and no fixes for older laptops - mostly driver And then it looks like new laptops have probs too. I am talking from personal experience.
I have had a number of software compatibility issues with this upgrade. On my desktop the MS Windows Media Player is no longer usable for files not purchased via MS, legacy programs of several types are no longer supported and there are a number of problems that were addressed in new updates that were posted after MS found out they had Screwed Up! I have been on Win 10 for over two years! I just formatted my SSD and am now running Win 7 Pro. It would appear that MS is returning back to their unfriendly stance that has dominated their history! Beware!
That many/some legacy apps don't work with high DPI displays cannot be blamed on Microsoft alone. The WM_DISPLAYCHANGE windows message, which supplies both screen resolution and color depth, has been available in the win32 API since Windows 2000, so it certainly isn't their fault that these legacy apps don't bother to scale their windows to fit the screen size.
Being that I self-identify as a marketing genius, my recommendation to Microsoft would be that they start naming their OS releases after burrowing mammals. e.g. Mole, Pocket Gopher, Great Gerbil, Groundhog, Vole, Prairie Dog, etc.
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tvdang7 - Tuesday, April 25, 2017 - link
How are you going to report on game mode with no benchmarks :-)TheWereCat - Tuesday, April 25, 2017 - link
I did clean install of the W10 x64 Pro with Creators update this week and I must say that the game mode is a complete garbage (at least in my case).All my games were stuttering horribly at well over 100FPS, so I checked frame times and there were huge spikes from 6ms-8ms when it was running smooth to suddenly crazy 100ms-600ms spike about every 5s.
After I disabled Game Mode, Game Bar and Game DVR then everything went nice and smooth.
i7 4770k 4.5GHz, GTX 1060 6G, 2x8GB DDR3, 1440p.
negusp - Tuesday, April 25, 2017 - link
Exactly. I'm pretty sure this really has to do with the Game Bar/DVR rendering in some games.Running an i5-6200u- with Game Bar/Game Mode enabled my fps in games like Counter-Strike GO and War Thunder was on average a good 4-5 fps lower and frame drops were much more noticeable.
Nothing insane but I need all the fps I can get on such a weak setup.
MattMe - Tuesday, April 25, 2017 - link
I think there have been a few reports of random issues like this, as well as it hampering ratehr than improving performance.I get the impression that game mode was designed for low-spec machines that have a lot of bloatware etc installed, not for fresh install high-end gaming machines that are configured specifically for gaming.
Not that it's an excuse for it affecting your pristine install, just commenting on what I've read elsewhere.
ddriver - Tuesday, April 25, 2017 - link
Waiting on the "almighty creator of all" update. Seriously, regardless of what adjectives you decorate it with, it is still spyware adware garbage.MattMe - Wednesday, April 26, 2017 - link
I wrote a response, then noticed the username. Nearly got me!Aloonatic - Tuesday, April 25, 2017 - link
I just "updated" windows 10 and Minecraft had gone from 25 to 30 fps with shaders, resource packs etc ore update, to 5 or 6 fps, even with all the Game Mode stuff turned off.Aloonatic - Wednesday, April 26, 2017 - link
Well, is my face red...ish.It turns out the nvidia control panel settings had been reset so Minecraft was using integrated intel gpu instead of my nvidia card. I've still had to turn a few setting science, however, to run as it did before.
Thretosix - Wednesday, April 26, 2017 - link
Even in the article it claims the purpose wasn't so much to increase the top end of framerates. This will help older PCs more than anything that are running lower on resources as time goes on. What it is really doing is limiting background processes to increase albeit a minimal increase in performance. The article states you may get a few frames saved off the minimum frame rate. Nobody expected this to turn an unplayable game to acceptable performance. Perhaps they should have called this feature something else.TheWereCat - Wednesday, April 26, 2017 - link
Well, I don't really need it to increase my performance but I sure as hell don't want it to cause issues, which in my case it does.leexgx - Wednesday, April 26, 2017 - link
""Consumers want more features, and sooner, but business needs to test everything before rolling it out.""interesting most people don't give a damn what new version of windows 10 offers, all they are interested in is that what ever browser works so they can do email and other stuff
for most a feature upgrade, this list is a follows
1 application PC settings are reset (browser and associations like PDF and pictures)
2 it uninstalls software without permission that was perfectly working fine (and still works perfectly fine when you reinstall it)
3 can't use there PC for about 2-8 hours when it does the upgrade (slow CPU/RAM/HDD vs SSD)
4 or better a non booting PC (or black screen as some may encounter as they broke the Video WDDM for some old video drivers and it sets the output to 0x0 resolution)
the Fix is use LTSB version if MS wount offer a legitimate LTSB single user licence then how are people supposed to buy it
jabber - Tuesday, April 25, 2017 - link
Just be aware that if you have a mix of Office products say 2010 and 13/16 it will still delete off the latest versions if you do an upgrade. Well done MS, still not fixed that one.Gich - Tuesday, April 25, 2017 - link
it didn't happen to me...I got Office 2007 and 16.
jabber - Tuesday, April 25, 2017 - link
The disappointment for me is that MS is concentrating on adding fluff, bling and bloat I have zero use for but not concentrating on making it more secure, robust and faster. I'd also like a return of the custom install option so I can choose to install that fluff or not.Dave Null - Tuesday, April 25, 2017 - link
Indeed. I finally bit the bullet and installed the LTSB version. This is the lightweight version of Windows I've been looking for.lord_anselhelm - Tuesday, April 25, 2017 - link
Agreed. I also wish they'd focus on fixing bugs they've introduced as a result of updates. For example, Anniversary Update broke centre-alignment of folder/filenames in certain folder views and caused Libraries to start ignoring custom folder views. Both issues still exist in the Creators Update!Gasaraki88 - Tuesday, April 25, 2017 - link
"secure, robust and faster"What does that even mean? How do you even quantify that enough to be worth an update. Do you want them to list that inthe change logs?
herbc - Wednesday, April 26, 2017 - link
Yup , a grossly overbloated OS from the start continues to get worse , my God the idiocy of MS is mind boggling.MutualCore - Sunday, April 30, 2017 - link
Your comment has no substance.fm13 - Tuesday, April 25, 2017 - link
I still can't install this thing - Windows Update seems busted and standalone installer stays stuck on 99% for days.Although Win10 is a nice OS, some things in it seem broken - things that worked flawlessly for years. For example, virus definitions on my system can't update themselves anymore - I have to download and install them manually.
How the hell do you break something like that?
MattMe - Tuesday, April 25, 2017 - link
Are you by any chance running an install of 10 that was upgraded from an earlier version? Several test machines at work, and alll my home machines struggled after an upgrade, I hated it the first few weeks. The I did a fresh install on them and it fixed 99% of all issues I had on every device. Just a thought :)fm13 - Tuesday, April 25, 2017 - link
I tried upgrading from 8.1 Pro but gave up and just installed Win 10 on a formatted drive. So this is a "clean" install I'm talking about.Instyle - Wednesday, April 26, 2017 - link
An issue I've ran into is that the update files that got downloaded were in some corrupted state. So instead of checking for updates, Windows Update would try to use them and fail. The solution I've found is to delete C:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution. This is where update files get downloaded to (including new updates like the Creators Update, culmulative updates and security updates) before being applied. Normally you can't just rename/delete it as there is typically some update process running in it. You have to kill any process running in it by opening Task Manager > Performance > Open Resource Monitor > CPU > Associated Handles and enter the folder path into the Search box. It'll pull up a list of processes open in that folder, end each of them. Next go to the folder and either rename (if you're wary) or delete it. Then check for updates. Hope this helps!lord_anselhelm - Tuesday, April 25, 2017 - link
Don't know if this will help, but you might want to try the Windows Update Troubleshooter. I had a problem on my laptop where a couple of files had been corrupted and I was unable to update Windows. The troubleshooter fixed it. Also, consider using Windows Update MiniTool: it's so much nicer than the default updater.faizoff - Tuesday, April 25, 2017 - link
This update was surprisingly the smoothest update process for me. Too much stuff configured currently for me to do a clean install, the update itself went about without any consequence. No programs have been affected that I could see. The upgrade process has been getting better and better. Though there is still some issue with my wifi adapter when using the latest drivers provided by the mfg. wifi only works well with a particular version of the driver.I like the Edge enhancements, don't use game mode so don't care about it. paint 3D is fun and I'd never thought I'd actually prefer the previous iteration of the start menu with all apps tagged along with the pinned tiles. Really warming up to it now.
One issue still prevails that's been there from the start, explorer.exe crashes randomly and restarts, still cannot for the life of me figure that one out.
blahsaysblah - Tuesday, April 25, 2017 - link
The security center needs an update. I guess maybe in minority but my PC is on a UPS and i have its status connected via USB port. So i have two yellow warnings about LCD being set to max brightness and sleep being turned off, both impacting battery life.The problem is there is no way to turn off/confirm those alerts, so i always see a yellow triangle. So i just ignore it now as i have no way to know if there is a new and valid issue.
DanNeely - Tuesday, April 25, 2017 - link
The workaround for the LCD brightness notice is apparently to set the screen at 99%. (Seen elsewhere, not tested.)benedict - Tuesday, April 25, 2017 - link
The Creators Update broke the DateTime Picker on all legacy applications. Microsoft are aware of this problem since early March and still haven't done anything to fix this. I've told all my customers who were unfortunate enough to update to revert back to the old version and wait for Microsoft to fix their bugs.JimmiG - Tuesday, April 25, 2017 - link
Is game mode really activated by default? I've always had to open the game bar and check the "User game mode with this game" checkbox.mr_tawan - Tuesday, April 25, 2017 - link
I think it's enabled by default only in select title and UWP games.Ubercake - Tuesday, April 25, 2017 - link
When it comes to hardware of any kind coming out of Microsoft, count on Microsoft to stop producing and supporting (or in other words "giving up") on it within a couple of years. This Surface Studio is a fantastic idea. The Microsoft Band was a great idea/product. Now no longer supported/produced. The Surface RT was a great idea that wasn't supported after its 3rd year. Mainstream phone apps are still not there. Zune music player (sort of competing with iPod) was gone soon after it was started.The universal windows platform or whatever it won't be called because the hardware just won't be their to support the idea in a few years. Nothing portable device outside of the Surface Pro (all 10 of you Surface Pro users know what I'm talking about!) will be around using the Windows OS in a few years. Why is Microsoft focusing at all on a universal platform that isn't Android- or iOS-based when you know no Microsoft hardware is supported for more than a couple of years? So they can quit it in a couple of years like everything else?
xthetenth - Tuesday, April 25, 2017 - link
The reason the Surface 3 is gone without a successor is because the niche for a lower cost 2 in 1 is an ecosystem now, not a single product.Flunk - Tuesday, April 25, 2017 - link
Intel also pulled the plug on the line of Atom chips the Surface 3 used, leaving Microsoft high and dry. It's possible they'll come up with a new non-pro Surface that uses ARM chips, but that didn't sell all the great the first time.gerz1219 - Tuesday, April 25, 2017 - link
They seem to have a foothold with the Surface Pro, so I wouldn't expect them to kill that any time soon. The problem with Microsoft's hardware ventures is that many of them simply haven't sold very well. They kind of had to give up on the Zune when they had warehouses full of unsold units and it was clear that nobody wanted an alternative to the iPod. Same for Surface RT and the Windows phones.I think any Microsoft device that kind of overlaps with traditional desktops will be well supported in the future. It's their attempts to branch out into mobile that have routinely failed and been abandoned.
Holliday75 - Tuesday, April 25, 2017 - link
I have a Surface Pro. Who are the other 9 users? We should start a club!SaolDan - Tuesday, April 25, 2017 - link
SP4 FTW.Instyle - Thursday, April 27, 2017 - link
The Surface Studio is currently available so I have no idea what you're talking about there. The Surface Pro and Xbox lines have sold in the millions, have plenty of active users and are currently supported. The Zune was supported for quite a long time as well. I think you need to go do some research. The main failed products were Windows Mobile, Surface RT and Microsoft Band.DanNeely - Tuesday, April 25, 2017 - link
"Hopefully we’ll have a chance to dig into this a bit more in the future."Some things in game mode I'd be interested in seeing tested (and might try myself in a few weeks or month when I install the update) are if it helps distributed computing play any nicer with not just games but foreground apps in general. I run several BOINC projects with my spare CPU/GPU cycles. For the most part it just works on the desktop and with simpler games. Games that are GPU heavy or use multiple heavy threads are a problem though because the OS doesn't give enough GPU to keep frame rates up and effectively only lets the game have a single CPU core. Boinc's mitigation options are rather limited; basically I can set it so that when certain apps are running (by executable path) Boinc entirely stops CPU and/or GPU apps. It's all or nothing though (meaning I can't let it leave 4 cores free for my game and continue to do science on the other 4).
More recently I've ran into occasional problems with HTML5 video playback while a GPU apps are running. Years ago I had similar problems with the general desktop and some GPU apps, but that was a much more consistent case. This is far more intermittent and I haven't been able to nail down any sort of pattern yet. May try gaming my browser to see what happens.
dgingeri - Tuesday, April 25, 2017 - link
Why am I so much less enthused about this update than I was about the last big one? It just doesn't seem to have anything I'm interested in.kwall8 - Tuesday, April 25, 2017 - link
The best addition is an address bar in regedit. Only took them 20 years :Devilspoons - Tuesday, April 25, 2017 - link
Well, there was an extremely primitive registry in Windows for Workgroups 3.11 (not Windows 3.1), so it's more like 23-24 years :|lmcd - Tuesday, April 25, 2017 - link
While Windows 10 Mobile looks dead-ish, I wouldn't say for the reasons you guys have selected. The list of phones there consolidates the list of different cores Microsoft is supporting down to A7 (why this made the cut I don't know), A53, and Kryo. The former will probably be dropped soon, and Microsoft will go to exclusively ARMv8 powered devices. I wouldn't be surprised if support for ARMv8 devices lasts far longer than projected here. Microsoft is still investing hard in new ARM-based platforms, and devices within the same scope as those platforms will likely keep evolving.danjw - Tuesday, April 25, 2017 - link
Type: "Hopefully we will here some more news on this front soon." The "here" should be "hear".versesuvius - Tuesday, April 25, 2017 - link
In a nutshell Win 10 is one big mess. Just about everything Microsoft is doing is fixing a problem or iterating on a solution to an unknown problem. The cost and time that needs to be put into installing and running and keeping a watch on what is happening to the computer that is running Win 10 is too prohibitive.Mr Perfect - Tuesday, April 25, 2017 - link
The thing that bugs me in Creator's Update is the removal of the links to "Control Panel" and "Programs and Features" when you right click the start button. They've replaced them with links to the modern "Settings" and "Apps and Features", respectively. There are still to many settings that can't be adjusted in the modern apps, they're not ready to replace the legacy versions yet.On the other hand, they replaced "Command prompt" with "Power Shell" and Power Shell is absolutely ready to take over.
Samus - Tuesday, April 25, 2017 - link
What I find interesting are the browser power consumption benchmarks.I don't agree with Microsoft.
Edge is undoubtedly more power efficient on my laptop for light browsing sessions, but Netflix is more efficient in Chrome. Also, for light browsing, I'd say Chrome is the least efficient. It's like a Honda Civic, no matter how hard you beat on it, it gets the same fuel economy; Chrome consistently uses about the same amount of power. It is occasionally bested by Firefox and almost always bested by Edge, except in Netflix where Edge seems to use more power.
These are my observations over the years I've been running Windows 10, and honestly the anniversary update didn't improve the Netflix performance for Chrome. My laptop is a Haswell Elitebook 810 G2.
Allan_Hundeboll - Tuesday, April 25, 2017 - link
Like a Civic you say? I have Civic and it will do 15 km/l when I drive with a light foot. If I drive like I stole it it will only do about 10 km/l...Zeratul56 - Tuesday, April 25, 2017 - link
Why don't you use the Netflix app? It is pretty nice actually. I don't have my tablet in front of me but I am sure the memory footprint for the app is at least half compare to running in the browser.I am sure running Netflix in chrome has some hardware excelleration not found in other browsers. It would behoove Netflix to do that given the large user base of chrome.
I don't get why people don't jump on the app bandwagon in windows. I use the slack app over the browser as it uses much less resources. That seems to microsofts problem, they can't get people to break their old ways.
Shadowmaster625 - Tuesday, April 25, 2017 - link
I have yet to download, install, or otherwise use a single UWP app. Everything is still basically win32.mikato - Tuesday, April 25, 2017 - link
So there is no update or successor to Windows Movie Maker in this Creators Update?Aloonatic - Tuesday, April 25, 2017 - link
Well, so far all that's happened for me is that Minecraft has gone from about 25 fps to 5 or 6, with "game mode" turned off.ruzicka4613 - Tuesday, April 25, 2017 - link
For some of us, The update fails to install, even when using an ISO. To date, Microsoft tech support is stumped. The install gets to 75%, reboots...then fails.https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/...
Gigaplex - Tuesday, April 25, 2017 - link
The new Windows Defender UI overhaul now nags at me that I've got a driver issue. Following the prompts it turns out that it doesn't like disabled devices. Well, that's how the Cisco VPN system works, the VPN adapter is disabled while not connected. Stop nagging me already!serendip - Tuesday, April 25, 2017 - link
UWP is still needed for Windows tablets for instant resume and long battery life. There are a bunch of small tablets that run full Windows for less than $200 but they all use old Cherry Trail Z38xx chips, as no Apollo Lake parts go below 4W TDP.Anyway, I'm totally stoked about Windows Subsystem for Linux. It's been a pain running Ubuntu VMs on an Atom-based tablet because of VM integration issues and a big hit on battery life. Hopefully I can do dev work on a Windows tablet without the horror of Cygwin...
serendip - Tuesday, April 25, 2017 - link
And then I found out 32-bit Windows doesn't get WSL. Why, Microsoft, why? Ubuntu has 32-bit images of the latest releases.So it's back to Cygwin and VMs for me. Looks like a whole bunch of Atom machines are due to get EOL'd because they're stuck with 32-bit UEFI even though they have 64-bit CPUs, all because Microsoft couldn't get Connected Standby working properly on 64 bit Windows way back when.
Zingam - Thursday, April 27, 2017 - link
What is a 32bit Windows?Ascaris - Thursday, April 27, 2017 - link
"Consumers want more features, and sooner,"Are you sure about that? There are an awful lot of consumers who are going out of their way to avoid any of the new features in Creator's... and Anniversary... and Threshold 2... and RTM... and Windows 8.1... and Windows 8. MS had to force the new "features" on these consumers using every dirty trick they could think of even though Windows 10 was a free upgrade!
I don't want new features. I want the old ones back! Things like user control over updates and telemetry, a desktop-centric UI featuring a complete lack of "app" garbage, no nags when I install or use non-MS software, no ads, no changing my settings, no uninstalling my stuff, changing my drivers, or downloading stuff I never asked for... those are all must-haves. Any product lacking any one of these isn't even worthy of consideration.
versesuvius - Thursday, April 27, 2017 - link
Very true. Thank you very much for that comment.The bug as feature philosophy is gaining new ground in Microsoft strategy. And this is one of the richest companies in the world with practically unlimited resources. The future is bleak. I can already picture robots that shit their pants as a natural feature.
Zingam - Thursday, April 27, 2017 - link
A bunch of unneeded stuff and no fixes for older laptops - mostly driverAnd then it looks like new laptops have probs too. I am talking from personal experience.
Icehawk - Thursday, April 27, 2017 - link
Jesus, when will they learn that one friggin place for settings is a lot better than two? Just go back to the old control panel for F's sakeEricaSplash - Friday, April 28, 2017 - link
when will they learn that one friggin place for settings is a lot better than two? Just go back to the old control panel for F's sakemartixy - Friday, April 28, 2017 - link
WSL is good stuff. So Woot.TheUsual - Saturday, April 29, 2017 - link
I'd definitely like to disable updates/restarts while the computer is hibernated.[email protected] - Saturday, April 29, 2017 - link
I have had a number of software compatibility issues with this upgrade. On my desktop the MS Windows Media Player is no longer usable for files not purchased via MS, legacy programs of several types are no longer supported and there are a number of problems that were addressed in new updates that were posted after MS found out they had Screwed Up! I have been on Win 10 for over two years! I just formatted my SSD and am now running Win 7 Pro. It would appear that MS is returning back to their unfriendly stance that has dominated their history! Beware!lanceton - Saturday, April 29, 2017 - link
This update broke many apps for me so I rolled it back.h4rm0ny - Sunday, April 30, 2017 - link
>>"this version has less big features,"So by "less big" you mean "smaller"? :D :D
Or do you mean fewer big features? :D
Jaybus - Monday, May 1, 2017 - link
That many/some legacy apps don't work with high DPI displays cannot be blamed on Microsoft alone. The WM_DISPLAYCHANGE windows message, which supplies both screen resolution and color depth, has been available in the win32 API since Windows 2000, so it certainly isn't their fault that these legacy apps don't bother to scale their windows to fit the screen size.mrvco - Tuesday, May 2, 2017 - link
Being that I self-identify as a marketing genius, my recommendation to Microsoft would be that they start naming their OS releases after burrowing mammals. e.g. Mole, Pocket Gopher, Great Gerbil, Groundhog, Vole, Prairie Dog, etc.snapch23 - Friday, December 29, 2017 - link
We have make it so simple to get the movie maker for widows 10 at http://moviemakerwindows.com when we how to make the movies in windows.