Windows 10 – First Impressions

Photos App
Photos App

Photos App – Fail

First of all, I give the photos app a fail. It tries to be helpful, but if you are organized, then it gets in your way rather than helping you.

  • If there are copies of the same picture, in different resolutions or different file formats, it’s not possible to tell which are which so you can include the high rez or the JPG rather than RAW formats in your albums. There is no way to see the file details of a photo while you are in the selection page when you are building an album. This makes Photos a non-starter for me actually. One of my cameras takes Raw photos and I often resize photos to put them on my website, so albums are a non-starter if I can’t put the high rez photos into the album or figure out which photos are which.
  • It is not possible to leave feedback in photo app or elsewhere probably, without signing into MS Account, which changes the way you sign into windows. I want to leave feedback without changing the way I sign into windows. Sorry, no feedback from me. Also same for purchasing Apps. So I won’t be getting any more apps from the store. It’s too much trouble to uncouple Windows from my MS account.
  •  The Photos App crashes if you set a header photo, and then remove it from the album, apparently.
Albums, done their way, not yours.
Albums, done their way, not yours.

Photos tries to find all your photos and make albums based on date. So if you have very different subjects taken with different cameras, but on the same date, then they end up in the same album. Fail.

And if you have, as I mentioned, resized your photos for the web, then you get two copies you can’t tell the difference among, at least when you are building an album.

Duplicate Photos? Which are High Rez?
Duplicate Photos? Which are High Rez?

Use Picasa

So, pass on Photos and go get Picasa, or any of the 100’s of other photo apps out there. I like Picasa. I organize my photos in folders by date / subject, so I just tell Picasa where my folders are, leave out the folders that have low rez web photos and I’m all set. And the face recognition feature of Picasa, which Windows 10 photos does not have, is great too. But I digress. I’m sure you can find Picasa reviews out there.

Be Careful How You Log In

In other windows 10 news, Be careful how you log in. Windows 10 wants you to log in with your Microsoft account. Which of course requires web access. And you can’t download those free, or paid apps, from the store without doing that. You can’t leave feedback either without logging into your Microsoft account.

But be careful. When you tell Windows 10 your Microsoft account, it changes the way you log in to your windows machine, and makes you use your MS Account password to do it. Sigh. Can’t they keep those separate? I’ve sworn off the MS Windows Store.

But there is a way back. In the Start menu, click on your name, and choose: Change Account Settings. And you’ll find a way to go back to the old way. So if you have to buy Solitaire for $10 / year to have no ads, then you can go back to using your local account. What a pain.

Windows 10 is for Geeks

Some things with Windows 10 are more geeky than they were. The task manager looks very high tech and presents all the data together rather than on separate pages.

Very Geeky Task Manager
Very Geeky Task Manager

And the File Operations Progress panel is very geeky too, if you open the details:

Two file operations, with details.
Two file operations, with details.

You get a running graph that shows how the performance has varied over time, and here are two operations going at the same time.

More later. Enjoy.

– ww