Windows 10, because 7 8 9

It's been almost two years since I started wandering Windows 8 and I've had no regrets sticking with it. Oh, there were things that were speed bumps, things to get use to or to tweak and configure and things that just didn't stand out as obvious at first like how to search on the start screen in 8.0.

When people would decry Windows 8 and later 8.1, I would meet their resistance with as much skepticism and perhaps a little derision as I did those who talked about Vista being so terrible and such a failure. I used Vista for a few years on the same hardware I had run XP Pro 64 and for my experience it was an improvement. (I love the Windows Mojave Experiment.) I would talk about how tablets have really exploded and explore the reasons why. While the new and cool factor helped, I think the convenience of the form factor and simplicity and focus of finding, installing, and using a large selection of programs is what really helped it take off. There's an App for that and you can figure out how to use it without reading anything.

Lets be clear that I am no Microsoft fanboy or apologist and I was quick to acknowledge the rough spots I experienced and the areas I felt should change. Several I chronicled on my Wandering Windows 8 blog, and many more I formalized in conversations among friends over time. From the blog a few stand out to me:

• Non-intuitive Search - Starting a search on the 8.0 start screen was not intuitive and I have no idea how a tablet user ever got that job done.
• Hidden Power Button - The power button was overly hidden in what seemed like an overly tablet/laptop-centric view of things. Sure Sleep worked the best it ever had on my desktop, but sometimes I wanted to shut down.
• Jarring Windows Store / Desktop Experience - Mixing windows store apps and desktop mode software was just jarring, even when splitting the screen with desktop mode and sometimes the windows store app versions didn't work as well as I was use to.
• An example of this is the jarring experience of jumping from Desktop mode to Windows Store App mode when double-clicking an image.

As I talked with others about these experiences I started forming some opinions on what should be done differently.

• Desktop vs Tablet mode - Have a way to specify that you preferred Desktop mode or Tablet Windows Store App (ex-Metro) mode and have it auto-switch your program defaults similar to the XP era program default settings for your preferred email and browser.
• Start Screen / Menu Icon - Give people a thing to click to get back to the start screen since, unlike myself, most people want something visual instead of quickly learning to rely on the Windows key. I didn't feel I missed or needed the start menu, I was fine with the start screen, but it was a common complaint. I thought Windows 8.1 took care of this, but for most people who started in the 95 era it wasn't enough, they wanted their menu back. A bit of "change bad" like people uglifying Windows XP with a Windows 2000 start menu.
• Less Jarring Desktop Experience - In general, anything else that can keep from jarring a Desktop user into Tablet/Phone mode, but don't take away the Windows Store Apps, I think they are a promising direction.

So, when I watched the Windows 10 announcement video I saw some changes to look forward to.

• Start Menu - I found it interesting that the first feature highlighted was the return of the start menu. It had a Vista & 7 style search at the bottom, so I was fine with whatever was there. 
• Intuitive Search - Additionally, new users have a nice magnifying glass search icon to click so they don't have to click around and see that it is also in the start menu.
• Less Jarring Desktop Experience - Windows Store Apps will open in windowed mode instead of full screen, acting more like windows programs from the last twenty years on your desktop.
• Intuitive Task Switching - If, after the last 20 years, you haven't learned Alt+Tab have no fear, there is now a button for that on the task bar, next to the Start and Search buttons. I'm into the keyboard thing, but this will make it easier for me to help others.
• Multiple Desktops - The few people I've talked to about this didn't seem to get it without showing them, but for me it was like a throw-back from my first days using a desktop manager in X-Windows. It's nice to have it join the party as a standard MS Windows feature.

Now I'm a registered Insider for the Windows (10) Technical Preview and have it running on my Windows 8 system under Virtual Box.

One question I was hoping would be answered on the video or the Microsoft Preview web site is "Why Windows 10" (or where did Windows 9 go). Some things I read said basically "We think when you try it you will see why we went to 10" or "This is not an incremental change". I disagree with both statements. It seems incremental to me, and I don't see why they skipped 9 and went to 10. 

I joked with co-workers about Windows 10 having an App Store, a Dock, and a Search that maybe should be called Quicksilver and later updates would keep the 10 like 10.1 and have code names like Polar bear or Snow Cat. They weren't Mac people and didn't get that I meant the roman numeral X or the rest of the joke.

The best reason I've found for why Windows 10 involves a bit of grade school playground humor. Why are all of the other numbers afraid of 7? Because 7 8 (ate) 9.

Why Windows 10? Because 7 8 9.