Microsoft’s Latest Windows 10 Experiment: Running Apps in Tabs

Megalith

24-bit/48kHz
Staff member
Joined
Aug 20, 2006
Messages
13,000
With its latest feature in Windows 10, currently dubbed "Sets," Microsoft has taken some major cues from what browser makers learned years ago. Basically, it lets you group together Windows apps in tabs. That might sound simplistic, but Sets (which isn't the final name yet) could fundamentally change the way we work in Microsoft's OS.

Think of Sets as a mashup of existing and emerging Windows 10 technologies. Take Windows Explorer and the little-used Task View within Windows 10, mix in the newer “Pick up where you left off” and “Timeline” features, and wrap it all into a single-window experience. The idea is that every task requires a set of apps—Mail, a browser, PowerPoint, even Win32 apps like Photoshop—and those apps will be optionally organized as tabs along a single window.
 
In before the Microsoft is trying to kill the desktop! :D ;) Sounds interesting but, I doubt I would use it myself since I have not used virtual desktops either.
 
Don't they already group open apps in tabs (buttons) on the Taskbar?

I could drag the Taskbar to the top of the screen if I wanted to I guess.
I don't want to.

Some people just want a "quiet" Plain-Jane OS that runs reliably and
provides for easy efficient user interaction.

I don't want tablet/phone style tiles, more and more buttons and options,
and a laser light show.


.
 
I like this idea, in that all the apps pertaining to a single use or single project could be grouped into a window. Switch between windows for having all you need on one stop for each specific project.
 
Don't they already group open apps in tabs (buttons) on the Taskbar?

I could drag the Taskbar to the top of the screen if I wanted to I guess.
I don't want to.

Some people just want a "quiet" Plain-Jane OS that runs reliably and
provides for easy efficient user interaction.

I don't want tablet/phone style tiles, more and more buttons and options,
and a laser light show.


.

Yes and no. All Word docs, for example, that are open could have 1 icon on the taskbar, if you haven't disabled stacking like I have, but that's just all of the same type. This is talking about things related to specific groups. So, you could have all the Excel, Word, and Visio docs, and a few Chrome tabs, from a specific project in one place without including docs from another project or use.
 
Meh, for all my works tabs would make it harder to properly research anything. rather have my 3 widescreens and have my working document up in half my main monitor, and 5 other resources split half screen on the rest of the desktop real-estate, or 10 quarter-split screens... for laptops, rather do side by side screens... maybe in laptop have one working doc in half screen then all other junk tabulated on the other half?
 
Yes and no. All Word docs, for example, that are open could have 1 icon on the taskbar, if you haven't disabled stacking like I have, but that's just all of the same type. This is talking about things related to specific groups. So, you could have all the Excel, Word, and Visio docs, and a few Chrome tabs, from a specific project in one place without including docs from another project or use.

I guess I'm more task oriented in the way I use the computer.
Windows I'm not using get closed, I don't need to keep 87 things open all at once.

Just my opinion as a grumpy old man.

.
 
And that is while all of that stuff is on the start button and task bar. Say good bye to both in the near future.
 
Been saying this since the first tabbed browsers. Nice to see them implement it.

Yes, the taskbar groups items. But this is more convenient as you don't have to hover over the task bar, find the one you want (which may be cut off name wise) and switch. If you're working in multiple documents of office, you'll now be able to just switch between them at the top. Assuming they group all office apps together and not just each individual.
 
Apps in tabs? I don't use Apps, I use applications. :)

This is really not an issue for me since I now only use Windows 10 for games and the occasional Photoshop session.
 
I am liking this feature, as we are also Office 365 users we have been doing a lot of this already using a combination of Chrome plugins, this simplifies things a little but I doubt it will be enough to pull the users out of Chrome and into Edge but it is a start.
 
With the video it sure looks like a lot of flipping back and forth. I seldomly work with just 1 application visible at a time, I usually have at least 5 or more visible windows open.
 
I guess I'm more task oriented in the way I use the computer.
Windows I'm not using get closed, I don't need to keep 87 things open all at once.

Just my opinion as a grumpy old man.

.
You're lucky to do so.

I currently have this open at work:
Project 1: a word doc for instructions, 2 Chrome tabs up for Jira to manage the project tasks, a spreadsheet for keeping track of the systems I'm updating, WinSCP with 3 sessions open, 3 PuTTY windows, and 1 remote desktop session. (currently awaiting an install to complete)
Project 2: 2 remote desktop sessions to backup servers, a spreadsheet with the backup schedule, and a Chrome tab for Jira for the project tasks
Administration duties: 3 Chrome tabs up for Samanage for our open incident, open incident specific to my department, and change requests, 2 Chrome tabs for managing our Rackspace Email accounts, Active Directory Users and Computer, DNS, MS SSMS for SQL Server, and half a dozen Chrome tabs for researching a SQL problem (got frustrated, needed a little mental time out to gather thoughts to try to figure out this SQL permissions issue)
Monitoring: Pulseway Dashboard, one Chrome tab for Graylog, one tab for Packet.net
Chat: Slack for chat within IT and 24im for chat with our users and helpdesk
Personal: 4 Chrome tabs open for HardOCP, HardForum, Facebook, and Ananadtech.

It would be nice to be able to keep these confined to single windows for specific purposes, rather than search through manually each time I change subjects.
 
Great.
When the browser crashes all your work goes pfft.

The more they make the browser do, the more likely it is to fall over.
Double win lol.
Up with their normal standard these days.
 
Great.
When the browser crashes all your work goes pfft.

The more they make the browser do, the more likely it is to fall over.
Double win lol.
Up with their normal standard these days.
I don't know about you, but it has been many years since I last had a browser crash on me because of the browser. I have had plugins fails and web sites quite responding, but not the whole browser crash.
 
I like the idea behind this, I'm curious to see how this feature expands. I fear that this is going to be so closely tied to the OS and Microsoft Services that it will exclude, say, Google Services or other 3rd party applications. So unless your school or workplace fully buys into the MS ecosystem hook and sinker, it might be less useful. We'll see. The browser wars have shown that it doesn't HAVE to go that route.
 
I don't know about you, but it has been many years since I last had a browser crash on me because of the browser. I have had plugins fails and web sites quite responding, but not the whole browser crash.
The cause is irrelevant.
The chance of it occurring is what matters because your work is at risk.
Its no longer just your viewing a website that can get hosed.

My Desktop only has a problem maybe once per year when I'm arsing about, programs dont care if the desktop is working or or not.
Even when that crashes all the programs still function within their own workspace.
If they keep this method of operation then fine, but they wont.
They want all the data in one place thats always connected to the internet where they can snaffle as much information about you as possible.

Another issue.
Because apps tend to need permissions that you wouldnt allow a browser, now you will have to give the browser higher level permissions.
If you care about keeping your system safe, this will undo it.
 
Last edited:
You're lucky to do so.

I currently have this open at work:
Project 1: a word doc for instructions, 2 Chrome tabs up for Jira to manage the project tasks, a spreadsheet for keeping track of the systems I'm updating, WinSCP with 3 sessions open, 3 PuTTY windows, and 1 remote desktop session. (currently awaiting an install to complete)
Project 2: 2 remote desktop sessions to backup servers, a spreadsheet with the backup schedule, and a Chrome tab for Jira for the project tasks
Administration duties: 3 Chrome tabs up for Samanage for our open incident, open incident specific to my department, and change requests, 2 Chrome tabs for managing our Rackspace Email accounts, Active Directory Users and Computer, DNS, MS SSMS for SQL Server, and half a dozen Chrome tabs for researching a SQL problem (got frustrated, needed a little mental time out to gather thoughts to try to figure out this SQL permissions issue)
Monitoring: Pulseway Dashboard, one Chrome tab for Graylog, one tab for Packet.net
Chat: Slack for chat within IT and 24im for chat with our users and helpdesk
Personal: 4 Chrome tabs open for HardOCP, HardForum, Facebook, and Ananadtech.

It would be nice to be able to keep these confined to single windows for specific purposes, rather than search through manually each time I change subjects.


When you're sitting in a cube for 8 hours, I can see keeping a lot of that stuff you need open and then maybe having a way to group stuff together.
You make a good point.

That's the idea behind using virtual desktops though right?

I was an admin at a large bank years ago, and I remember that I also had a lot of stuff open all the time (not as much as you listed though).

Now that I'm working for myself, I focus on one task for one customer, then move on to the next thing.
The most I usually have open is email, a couple of browser windows, an old WinXP diagnostics VM, and RDP to my server for Quickbooks.

For the most part, I like to avoid open window clutter whenever possible.


.
 
I like the idea. I haven't tried it but it does seem like it could make managing things easier. I tend to have a lot of applications and tabs open at any time and have 3 monitors. Even with a unique taskbar per monitor and only showing apps for that monitor on that taskbar it can be a bit confusing. This might be helpful. Is it actually tied into edge though? Or is it a windows feature? I don't use edge much and probably won't start anytime soon.
 
Yes that hit the nail on the head. W10 is an experiment, and we are the lab rats.

It's disgusting that they use their monopoly and market position to use regular users like this.

If I'm using an OS on a mission critical config then every feature change should be strictly opt in. I'd be glad to experiment on a secondary spare system, as we used to since the dawn of the PC, but nooo that wasn't good enough for them, they made every PC running windows into an experiment whether you like it or not.
 
Looking at the video, so they basically killed the taskbar with pinned apps, combined icons and hidden labels, so they now "invented" tabs to get the same functionality back that the taskbar was perfectly capable of handling until they changed the default behavior of it. :ROFLMAO:
 
Yes that hit the nail on the head. W10 is an experiment, and we are the lab rats.

It's disgusting that they use their monopoly and market position to use regular users like this.

If I'm using an OS on a mission critical config then every feature change should be strictly opt in. I'd be glad to experiment on a secondary spare system, as we used to since the dawn of the PC, but nooo that wasn't good enough for them, they made every PC running windows into an experiment whether you like it or not.


Yep.

I think there are some cases where Windows 10 would be a very poor choice where you need a stable reliable "no nonsense" OS.
You can't have the OS doing forced driver updates, forced reboots, Candy Crush updates, feature updates, and the silly "Would you like fries with that?" kind of pop-ups.

Sometimes you just need an OS to be an OS and that's it.

.
 
Yep.

I think there are some cases where Windows 10 would be a very poor choice where you need a stable reliable "no nonsense" OS.
You can't have the OS doing forced driver updates, forced reboots, Candy Crush updates, feature updates, and the silly "Would you like fries with that?" kind of pop-ups.

Sometimes you just need an OS to be an OS and that's it.

.
What else can I put on my I9 workstation? They basically fucked everyone with "no support for you a-hole if you run an older OS on a new PC"
But at least they added the option to turn off driver updates and forced restarts in Pro/Enterprise trough group policies.
 
What else can I put on my I9 workstation? They basically fucked everyone with "no support for you a-hole if you run an older OS on a new PC"
But at least they added the option to turn off driver updates and forced restarts in Pro/Enterprise trough group policies.

Pro allows you to turn off driver updates without using group policy.
 
Why is this even needed? I mean seriously, how is this even remotely better than Alt + Tab or Windows key + Tab? This just sounds like more unnecessary OS bloat.
 
I haven't tried this yet, but it's rumored to work well:

https://github.com/zeffy/wufuc

"Disables the "Unsupported Hardware" message in Windows Update, and allows you to continue installing updates
on Windows 7 and 8.1 systems with Intel Kaby Lake, AMD Ryzen, or other unsupported processors. "

The part I wonder about is chipset drivers though. For example, Z370 drivers for Windows 7, I don't think they exist.
I should say, "I don't think they exist anymore", I saw reports that Intel did make Win-7 Z370 drivers, but then pulled
them and they are now unavailable.

.
 
I wanted to open two excel files at the same time, in separate windows, but also still be able to look at a browser.
Could I do this by default in Office? Of course not.
Some googling and registry changes later I could.
It wasn't like this before, but now it is.
Sometimes change is bad.
Damn kids refuse to learn the software, dumb it down.
And now those kids run the companies, lead the developers and their changes.
And they wonder why I don't like their changes.
-----
Crap like this is not much different.
 
This is FANTASTIC!!!! Being able to have multiple tabs open with multiple applications running within those tabs would be a pretty sweet feature.
 
I wonder if they are going with the usual MS crap and make it part of the OS and no choice.(except through 3rd party app like other stuff)
 
I haven't tried this yet, but it's rumored to work well:

https://github.com/zeffy/wufuc

"Disables the "Unsupported Hardware" message in Windows Update, and allows you to continue installing updates
on Windows 7 and 8.1 systems with Intel Kaby Lake, AMD Ryzen, or other unsupported processors. "

The part I wonder about is chipset drivers though. For example, Z370 drivers for Windows 7, I don't think they exist.
I should say, "I don't think they exist anymore", I saw reports that Intel did make Win-7 Z370 drivers, but then pulled
them and they are now unavailable.

.
The problem with 3rd party workarounds is they work until they stop working and start causing issues with newer updates. Not very suitable for a PC I just need to work all the time.
 
I don't know about you, but it has been many years since I last had a browser crash on me because of the browser. I have had plugins fails and web sites quite responding, but not the whole browser crash.

I had Firefox Quantum actually lock up my machine. I had the esr version of Firefox crash last month. And yes, I've run memory diagnostics and system stress test with no problems.

I'm blaming it on windows 10 since I also discovered last night that the lastest update broke my USB connection to my scanner. Hopefully, I just have to reinstall the chipset drivers to get things working again.
 
I had Firefox Quantum actually lock up my machine. I had the esr version of Firefox crash last month. And yes, I've run memory diagnostics and system stress test with no problems.

I'm blaming it on windows 10 since I also discovered last night that the lastest update broke my USB connection to my scanner. Hopefully, I just have to reinstall the chipset drivers to get things working again.

I'm running FF Quantum 58.0b7 under Ubuntu MATE 16.04 without a single issue, stable as a rock.

Just for reference re: Your belief that Windows may be at fault.
 
I'm running FF Quantum 58.0b7 under Ubuntu MATE 16.04 without a single issue, stable as a rock.

Just for reference re: Your belief that Windows may be at fault.

I haven't tried Quantum on my Linux partition yet since the Windows 10 version locked up I thought I'd give it a while before trying it again.

Something with this last update has definitely screwed up my USB interface to my scanner. I'm using Vuescan and when I do a preview scan with my Win 8.1 system it takes around 20 seconds. The preview on the latest Win 10 takes 4 or 5 minutes! The previous version of Win 10 worked just like it does in Win 8.1. All my other USB devices (mouse, keyboard and an external USB drive) work just fine, it's only the scanner that's having issues.
 
I haven't tried Quantum on my Linux partition yet since the Windows 10 version locked up I thought I'd give it a while before trying it again.

Something with this last update has definitely screwed up my USB interface to my scanner. I'm using Vuescan and when I do a preview scan with my Win 8.1 system it takes around 20 seconds. The preview on the latest Win 10 takes 4 or 5 minutes! The previous version of Win 10 worked just like it does in Win 8.1. All my other USB devices (mouse, keyboard and an external USB drive) work just fine, it's only the scanner that's having issues.

Well, Win 10 borked the Epson driver for the scanner, had to uninstall Vuescan and the Epson driver. Then did a reinstall of both and things are working the way they should now. I really hate this twice a year full windows update, each one has screwed up something on my system (not fatally).
 
Well, Win 10 borked the Epson driver for the scanner, had to uninstall Vuescan and the Epson driver. Then did a reinstall of both and things are working the way they should now. I really hate this twice a year full windows update, each one has screwed up something on my system (not fatally).

It's not just Epson scanner drivers that are affected, I've encountered the issue under Brother scanners and certain HP printer drivers just don't print after the update - Documents leave the print queue never to be seen again. Tried everything regarding the HP issue, in the end the only solution was to reinstall an older version of Windows, couldn't roll back as the client didn't update using Windows update, instead he applied the update manually.

The whole things an outright mess.
 
I don't know about you, but it has been many years since I last had a browser crash on me because of the browser. I have had plugins fails and web sites quite responding, but not the whole browser crash.
never mind that when apps crash, including my browser, they tend to gracefully recover when restarted. If you can only work in a set, then I don't like it, but I suspect that you can use these in separate windows too. I'd assume that much like you can drag a tab off of your browser and have that open a new browser window, if you drag your word tab off of the set, it'll likely open word in a new window (possibly within a new set that only has that instance of word in it).
Whatever it is, I'm not worried. It sounds like this isn't set in stone and will likley change before it hits the masses.
 
There's a similar (and not quite as fluid) feature in KDE 4.x - "Attach as tab to...", allowing a user to group multiple windows into a single window with multiple tabs. Unfortunately this feature has not yet been re-introduced into KDE 5.x.
 
Back
Top