Windows 10X initial impressions

TechFreak1

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Full comment from a posted in - https://www.windowscentral.com/microsoft-windows-10x-screenshot-gallery?

Note: I'm typing this on HPProbook 4730s not my old PC where I installed the emulator on so no screenshots, which I suppose I'll call my old PC Thermal Cake or TC lol as I'm getting tired of referring to as 'my old dying pc' :grincry:. The PC case is a thermaltake PC case and it acrues dust like Snorlax on snacking spree, also calling the PC something like dusty... is kinda weird and it has all sorts of weird connotations haha.. when someone reads "installed windows 10x on dusty"... lol.

Installed the 10X image in the emulator last night on TC after re-enroling into the insider programme. I have to say apart from the start menu and the full screen app launching, I'm a massive fan of the UX.

The start menu looks like it came out from a ancient Windows CE based PDA lol but that's me.

According Daniel Rubino, the app launching in full screen is most likely a screen size limitation and I'm hopeful it is; given Panos Panay is now over seeing windows client and there is no way he will ever want the Windows 10X to have a subpar experience when devices like the Surface Neo is docked.

Going back to 10X I am amazed how well the win32 container works I was able to install FL Studio onto the emulated 10X image without issues - it was a straight download from ImageLine's website. I didn't need to mess around with dlls at al - not that I'd have been able to do so given how bare bones the 'Modern' file explore is compared to it's win32 counterpart.

But given the i5-2500K CPU in TC is prehistoric I was not able to get it launch although you can hear the Fl studio launch chime. Also the screen capture software (screen2gif) was being starved for CPU cycles so frames were not being stored correctly.. this occured after 500 frames, even at 15 fps let alone 60 fps screen capture.

The UX over all is pretty smooth, I hope it replaces tablet mode in Windows 10 which is just woeful. The ability to interact with options within the action centre?

Halleujah!

Finally Microsoft has given us a well thought out and efficient design. Additionally, the preview of music playing apps, will in my opinion relegate the custom rainmeter skins to the ether (although not many people know about this powerful litlle application) which mimic this functionality in Windows. It's a pain in the rear to get this working after every time Spotify for example updates their app.

There are few issues which most likely will be addressed over time - or this perhaps could be related to Fl studio win32 installer - i'm not sure need to do more testing. When clicking on task view Fl Studio did not show up nor did the install window. Got the entire week off next, plenty of time for testing.

But first need to get emulator running on my main PC which is running on Ryzen 2700X, the plan was to run it in vmware with a virtual machine utilising 8 gigs of ram and 8 cores (wouldn't have been able to that with Intel without spending a fortune) but after the latest updates I can't seem to get it to run with core isolation enabled.

There is no way in a blue moon I'm disabling core isolation to run virtual machines in vmware. Might end up running vms with hyper v. If I do, I might upload a video to the forums using something like active presenter, otherwise it will be some short gifs, going past 500 frames screen2gif has been giving me errors but that's due to i5-2500k running full tilt when emulator is running. Due to motherboard issue I can't overclock it or the ram... lol.

I'll upload what I can on this thread.

Overall from brief 40 minute test of 10X on TC, I am loving the engineering behind the scenes of 10X. I seriously want to see more of this from Microsoft. A light weight o/s that is capable of running complex win32 applications containerised?

Hell yeah bring it on, I am not ashamed to admit I was somewhat skeptical but from what I've seen Microsoft may have finally nailed it.

Not to mention if Microsoft can pull this off this will be a massive benefit to battery life as CPU cycles are not being used up running unnecessary code.

10X bundled with a ARM SOC + a large battery + LTE + Inking + nfc + windows hello + slim form factor?

That is one a mighty combo.
 

TechFreak1

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I might be willing to give this a try. I just don't have time right now to go through everything.

I hear ya, as you have to enrol the insider programme for the latest build on the fast ring.

Right now, I'm going to put up my feet up and watch some comedy then I'm going to snooze for two days straight - Sunday and Monday as it's come to a point where work has started to linger at the back of my mind.

As unfortunately according to Mauro in this article www.windowscentral.com/how-install-windows-10x-emulator-windows-10

The image doesn't work with AMD CPUs at the moment.... which is a pain in the rear as I was planning to setting Tuesday aside to checking out the emulator on my main PC.

Now will probably spending most of the day messing around with different VM products or dual booting.

Wednesday, Thursday set aside for my portfolio work and Friday to Sunday will plan those later on the week lol.

Depending how things go on Tuesday might end up buying an NVME M.2 and dual booting an insider build on the main PC. Not taking any chances with W10 builds given how notoriously buggy they have been - 1909 Home installed on a siblings laptop and after the install the C:\Windows\temp folder kept filling up with junk until it ate up every single megabyte of storage.

Anyway, on to the comedy!
 

nate0

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@TechFreak1
When I saw Zac's sharing of the video couple weeks ago or whatever I almost went out and installed the emulator right away...but I did not yet. Only because it has been hard to get excited about Microsoft now. I am building up to it though or hoping not too, as we all know where our expectations get us...
 

TechFreak1

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Yup, that was me when I read Mauro's article and read it's no supported on AMD CPUs.. next week is when my pay comes in so will be buying a NVME and will try an dual boot an insider build on my main PC. However I'm not holding out much hope... if it doesn't work I'm going to clone my install onto the NVME given the issues with W10 1909...

@TechFreak1
When I saw Zac's sharing of the video couple weeks ago or whatever I almost went out and installed the emulator right away...but I did not yet. Only because it has been hard to get excited about Microsoft now.

Well... I suppose you could say I'm a very hyper critical optimist lol.. as otherwise everything is rather bleak... gotta look forward to something...

I am building up to it though or hoping not too, as we all know where our expectations get us...

I know what you mean... Microsoft have squandered so many opportunities and with the current track of Windows updates...
 

TechFreak1

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A little update, finally got round to installing 10X emulator and the Surface Duo Emulator on my main PC.

Installed on the 1909, non-insider install.

But it still seems the 10X emulator image still requires nested virtualisation therefore not supported on in AMD CPUs...

Emulator - 10X + Duo.PNG

The farthest I've gotten tweaking settings for a few minutes is this... just as my hopes started to rise as so far all I had gotten was a blank two side slabs... the error message popped up again.
W1909+ W10X Emulator.PNG

But as a downside I can't run VMWare Workstation now lol... need to do some more checking.

Edit: Looks like something was flipped in registry or there is a lingering system file the VMware is checking as can't even run it with Hyper-V disabled.device guard / credential guard aren't even running. The first things I enabled was Core Isolation on the NVME install. Not really going to reinstall Windows again as I don't want to go through the rigmarole for IT re-enabling my PC for Citrix Workspace / Desktop. Guess, will need to wait a few months until Microsoft irons out the bugs for version 2004.
 
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