Windows 10 and Trainz xxxx

JCitron

Trainzing since 12-2003
I've recently joined the Technical Preview, via my TechNet subscription with Microsoft, of their new Windows 10 platform. This is truly a replacement of Windows 8 and that horrid, awkward, almost backward way of doing things. Returned is the start menu, now with the inclusion of a side panel of the Store Apps. There are other nifty things too such as the ability to resize Metro apps just like normal windowed applications, and the multiple desktop feature, which is now finally implemented directly into the operating system.

My tests so far with my standard suite of applications, namely TransDEM, Trainz TS12, T:ANE Beta, Sim4, and other utilities, has been promising. Even at this early stage, the performance is quite nice compared to Windows 8, and maybe a fraction faster than Windows 8.1.

As time goes on, I will let you all know what going on.This so far is a no-brainer upgrade IMHO.

John
 
At one time I was ridiculously thrilled using Windows 10 as a daily operating system.
I know it's a beta, but I stopped doing so after Team Fortress 2, a game I'm mad-wicked addicted to, had stopped operating properly.
I couldn't download custom files from community servers, and making maps for the game resulted in "error" models replacing the ones I had chosen when I booted the map in-game for testing.
That was my only issue with 10.
Please keep me updated with new features if possible.
 
This sounds like a security issue. When did this occur? The current build, which I am using now, 9841 is very, very stable. There have been no issue I can find with it other than some drivers which I needed to update to the native, albeit, Windows 8.1 versions to get the best performance. This is normal anyway with a Windows install.

TS12 ran flawlessly all day yesterday. In fact the performance was a bit better than under Windows 8.1

I'll update the thread here from time-to-time.
 
This sounds like a security issue. When did this occur? The current build, which I am using now, 9841 is very, very stable. There have been no issue I can find with it other than some drivers which I needed to update to the native, albeit, Windows 8.1 versions to get the best performance. This is normal anyway with a Windows install.

TS12 ran flawlessly all day yesterday. In fact the performance was a bit better than under Windows 8.1

I'll update the thread here from time-to-time.

Build 9860. And that build too.
It just doesn't like the source engine apparently.
FWIW, old signature:
f2f31fba1cdd88fb68ffd9a9bc5eefad.jpg
 
Just installed Windows 10 Build 9879. TS12 ran perfectly from the original 8.1 location, no need to re-install. I agree with John, performance was a bit better than under 8.1.
TANE didn't run from it's 8.1 install location due to missing .dll's, so I'm now going to install directly under Win 10 and see what happens.
What we need is for Trainz to be ported to a REAL os: GNU/Linux. Not holding breath..........
 
Just installed Windows 10 Build 9879. TS12 ran perfectly from the original 8.1 location, no need to re-install. I agree with John, performance was a bit better than under 8.1.
TANE didn't run from it's 8.1 install location due to missing .dll's, so I'm now going to install directly under Win 10 and see what happens.
What we need is for Trainz to be ported to a REAL os: GNU/Linux. Not holding breath..........

I ran into the same thing with the W10 install and TANE.

What I found afterwards though, is the sound doesn't work at all in TANE, but then there are sound issues anyway.

W10 Build 9879 is a bit wonky with some Windows Store Apps not working but my own stuff works fine including the reinstalled TANE, TS12 and everything else I use.

It would be nice if the program was ported over to Linux or Solaris, but then there's no 'big' market either. Even Ubuntu is too Geeky, as much as they try to make it pretty, for the average consumer. :)

I am definitely pleased with this Windows version and can't wait for the final release.

John
 
Even Ubuntu is too Geeky, as much as they try to make it pretty, for the average consumer. :)

And that's the real shameful thing about linux. I'd consider myself a bit above the average computer user, but tell me to use linux and I'd sit there and look at you like you're stupid.
I can't figure out how to even install things properly on linux, no matter what distro I use.
 
And that's the real shameful thing about linux. I'd consider myself a bit above the average computer user, but tell me to use linux and I'd sit there and look at you like you're stupid.
I can't figure out how to even install things properly on linux, no matter what distro I use.

And to make it worse there are so many flavors of Linux so there are subtle differences to confuse things even more. I came from the Ultrix, Xenix, and Solaris world which makes things even more confusing being real Unix. The operating system is very, very powerful in that it can be really customized to suit the environment. This is what makes it very difficult to develop consumer applications for it. The developer needs to have multiple different ports of the same application to run on different versions because of the subtle code differences. Granted there is WINE which allows some Windows-based applications to run, but that's not the answer because it's an emulated environment.

Speaking of VMs There's some good sources to learn, and among the many of them is Oracle Linux and Solaris. You can get the pre-made environments which will build the VMs ready to install in Virtual Box. Solaris comes either prebuilt and ready to run, or as an install from the ISO, which I recommend anyway because this is the real way of installing it on SPARCs and Intel platforms.

Up until a few years ago, I used to support and operate a SPARC server and an Oracle/Red Hat server, and ran an old Sun SPARC Ultra 10 as my home server where I kept a big file share. Making the system available to the Windows-based clients was interesting because I had to download and install SAMBA which is not native to the OS. Nothing installs easy either in these environments since a GUI-based installation Wizard is a rare animal in many cases. This is true even for SAMBA which is native on Mac OSX, and in various Linux flavors, but for Solaris it was an all command line operation.

Once the package was downloaded, which was the easy part, it had to be untarred (uncompressed) using tar and gzip. The actual install involved editing a make file, and executing a pkgadd or package add install in a terminal window. After the actual software was installed, I then had to edit the conf (config) files for SAMBA to ensure the proper user logins were created, and client configs were setup. Not being familiar with the process, made this a lengthy, almost eye-glazing affair, but eventually I got it working successfully. I then had to create a startup file, which would execute on reboot should the system be shut down for any reason.

Like any system, you just need to learn the commands. What is confusing though is the similarity to familiar MSDOS or CMD Windows commands. Commands such as mdir, format, rename, all exist while there are other new ones such as rm, which is ReMove and is very dangerous. This is where people get into trouble because rm * run at wrong place can delete a lot more than intentioned.

I recommend getting some books on Linux and other 'Nix environments. You can find them on Amazon and at such stores as Barnes and Noble.

John
 
Yes, John is right. VM machines can be VERY helpful. I used Oracle Box, Microsoft Virtual PC 2007, and VMware, and the one that I left on my computer was Microsoft Virtual PC. I use it to have a virtual Windows 98 machine to run older applications since some games and programs don't run as well like they do on say Windows Vista or Windows XP.
 
I hope Win 10 has dropped the rather sinister standard setup of hooking you up to the "cloud" without permission. Sorry, but I have no intention of putting my personal files up on the cloud for others to see.

Linux? I'm sick of playing with it. Works quite well if you use the standard packages but step outside the box and it can get difficult very quickly with tortuous paths, permissions and commands only a diehard Unix user would love. Sorry, guys it will never catch on with normal people.

I quite like VMWare. If I had my way I would have that as a base O/S and Windows and Linux/whatever as guest operating systems.

I'm pleased to hear Win 10 works well. My Win 8.1 installation has a host of addon applications to make it looks somewhat like Win 7.
 
I hope Win 10 has dropped the rather sinister standard setup of hooking you up to the "cloud" without permission. Sorry, but I have no intention of putting my personal files up on the cloud for others to see.

Linux? I'm sick of playing with it. Works quite well if you use the standard packages but step outside the box and it can get difficult very quickly with tortuous paths, permissions and commands only a diehard Unix user would love. Sorry, guys it will never catch on with normal people.

I quite like VMWare. If I had my way I would have that as a base O/S and Windows and Linux/whatever as guest operating systems.

I'm pleased to hear Win 10 works well. My Win 8.1 installation has a host of addon applications to make it looks somewhat like Win 7.


I agree, Paul. Needing to be part of the Cloud for everything is more than a bit annoying. With Windows 8.1 and eventually with Windows 10, you can login in locally to your machine. You need to create a local account and when you do you'll still have access to your same files and everything. When you need to get your mail, it'll sign in and stay connected if you want to do it that way. I also turn off synchronizing with the OneDrive because I don't want a constant transfer of data over the network.

I've used VMWare in the past and it's very similar to Virtual Box. The Oracle full version trial VMs are fully loadable into VMWare and VMWare drives can be loaded into Virtual Box, which is cool if you have various sources of VMs. I agree though, Linux is just too much for the average consumer. I hear a support call right now on this which would be pretty scary for anyone in support.

I've used those shell overlays too. They work well and make things a lot easier. This will be built into W10 so the shell add-on is redundant.

John
 
Great. Windows 10 is what 8 doesn't. START MENU! At least Microsoft learned after many complaints to never touch the formula from the Windows 95 days again. Windows 8 was more a Tablet then a PC. Windows 10 brings the best of 2 worlds, but will probably drop some support of old Windows XP applications since by that point, it will have been almost 2 years since they dropped the support.
 
Great. Windows 10 is what 8 doesn't. START MENU! At least Microsoft learned after many complaints to never touch the formula from the Windows 95 days again. Windows 8 was more a Tablet then a PC. Windows 10 brings the best of 2 worlds, but will probably drop some support of old Windows XP applications since by that point, it will have been almost 2 years since they dropped the support.

Yes, they finally got things right this time around. I agree they shouldn't have touched what was good for everyone even if the new hardware was a tablet since a tablet can handle the start menu too. It was Sinofsky's idea to go with the new interface and he's no longer with Microsoft. I wonder if he left on his own...

Windows XP support has been waning for sometime. The OS is now 15 years old and is truly very insecure. The current lowest standard is Windows Vista, although there is Windows 98 and XP are listed still in the application compatibility options. For the most part, things written for Windows 7 and even some before work fine. The present build is really buggy though and has caused a bit of angst with the testers including myself. But, we have to keep in mind that Beta equals broken and what works one day may not the next until the bugs get worked out.

John
 
Not to start an OS war but in all honesty, every time a new windows preview comes out, be it 8, 8.1, or 10, it makes me want to go back to a Mac.
Not to say that I hate windows, but with the Mac OS, almost everything was plug and play for me. Everything just worked for the most part, very little tinkering required. On top of that you have that beautiful UI that windows just lacks without an abomination of tweaks you have to install for custom shells and what not.
Just my two cents, it's a shame I can't afford an (older, non-trashcan) mac pro at the moment. I plan on building a fully supported hackintosh down the road however.
Now if you'll excuse me I'll go back to crying in the corner about selling my 2008 15" Macbook Pro
 
Yes, they finally got things right this time around. I agree they shouldn't have touched what was good for everyone even if the new hardware was a tablet since a tablet can handle the start menu too. It was Sinofsky's idea to go with the new interface and he's no longer with Microsoft. I wonder if he left on his own...

Windows XP support has been waning for sometime. The OS is now 15 years old and is truly very insecure. The current lowest standard is Windows Vista, although there is Windows 98 and XP are listed still in the application compatibility options. For the most part, things written for Windows 7 and even some before work fine. The present build is really buggy though and has caused a bit of angst with the testers including myself. But, we have to keep in mind that Beta equals broken and what works one day may not the next until the bugs get worked out.

John
Yeah. Just look back in 2005-2007. Windows 2000 was noted as VERY unsecure. XP was more less built off the same code, but the time it had support, it was way more secure then 2000 would ever be. It also seems that it's every other OS from Microsoft that is always a good release. Windows ME failed to sell due to it having MANY fatel bugs due to real-time MS-DOS being removed, Windows 2000 and Windows XP succeeded. Windows Vista failed due to bugs which was ME's case as well. Windows 7 succeeded by a long shot, often being referred to as XP 2. Windows 8/8.1 flopped, but at the same time, barley succeeded. It seems that they have a set plan, as from the looks of it, Windows 10 will succeed.
 
The interesting thing will be whether Microsoft will be able to win back the IT pros, as end users, as decision makers, as developers. Windows 8 was a disaster, probably not only the product itself but even more important the message it conveyed. The recent decisions in the .Net world, however, look somewhat more promising. The server side of .Net is becoming Open Source, under MIT license. MS teams up with Xamarin who offer .Net based development tools for all mobile platforms (No wonder there were no apps for MS's mobile world with that ugly programming model). Xamarin is also the group behind the Mono development, the .Net variant on Linux/Unix and porting server-side WCF appears to be first on the agenda. That's the "cloud" segment of the market. All this is targeting decision makers and developers, not end users, of course. From what I have read until now, Win 10, on the other hand, hasn't made much of an impression yet to disillusioned long-term customers.
 
As an ex Microsoft tester, I gave up on MS after the Longhorn / Vista fiasco, I'm waiting to see what they actually release, judging on previous OS's it will probably incorporate new annoyances not in the Betas or Preview editions..... I'll wait to see actual reviews of the RTM version before making any decisions.
 
As a longtime beta MS tester myself, I am living and hoping what we see now will remain, the working parts that is, in the new release once it's out he door. So far I haven't had any truly broken things except for a few Microsoft Metro apps which are a known bug, however, one of the other beta testers supplied a PowerShell script to fix that and now they work as well.

Live and hope, I suppose since I am not keen in learning something new at this point in my life. I had that over the years as I supported and ran everything from VMS to Solaris with a quick segue into OS/2 then out again. :)

John
 
...I supported and ran everything from VMS to Solaris with a quick segue into OS/2 then out again.
We still have a few VMS and VAXELN systems in the field, even Micro PDP11s (11/73), the latter running Micro Power Pascal, put into service more than 20 years ago and still performing. (I may have mentioned that before).

When Dave Cutler left DEC and started on the NT kernel I became curious, first time I looked at MS not as a toy company. It turned out we could port a good deal of the ELN stuff to NT without major problems (apart from replacing Pascal with C++), since both had the same multi-threading programming paradigm ("Wait for multiple objects") while Unix then without threads was just a pain in the ... Never seen anything more counter-intuitive than forking a process.

My suggestion since XP always has been to split Windows up again, into a consumer and a pro branch. But they wouldn't listen. :D
 
Seems someone is always updating a perfectly working, user friendly OS, site, program ... making it more difficult to use.

Even Google Images has changed, making less images seen ... and you can no longer click: "Go to Webpage".

MS Weather is now powered by stupid "Bing" ... and allot of features were obliterated.

Why do they constantly have to keep changing things on us ?

I was perfectly happy with Vista, and Windows7, and knew exactly how to get to every place on my PC ... Stupid Windows8 colored tile screen ... Sheeesh !

Can't wait for Windows9 to come out :o
 
Last edited:
Back
Top