I wouldn't mind a complete visual regression to Windows 7. In fact, I remember that Win 7 Aero only had rounded corners.

Except that the rounding only happened on the window decoration, which took space. The client rendering area was a full rectangle. Now, they’re cutting corners out of the client rendering area.

Windows 8 distinctly had no rounded corners. The metro design language was quite square

I'll just say that my laptop (Lenovo Thinkpad Yoga) has a touchscreen and I love it. Every laptop I buy from here out will be a touchscreen merely because the ability to reach up while I type and just tap where i want my mouse to go next is such a better system than working with a nipple or trackpad.

I think as laptops with touchscreens become more affordable lots of people will change across. When i'm forced to work on my work laptop without KB&M, I really miss the ability to touch my screen instead of working with the god awful trackpad.

Besides, this "touch-first" approach has been tried with win8 and in my experience it was atrocious

But there isn't a perpetual Agreement guaranteeing MS won't ever increase its cut in the future when its store becomes more popular. The Store hasn't yet been terribly successful. Most of my Windows apps are installed outside the MS store: Notepad++, VSCodium, Steam, and so on. So MS will try to get more apps in the Store and then lock down Windows like iOS once it has enough apps, then increase its own cut so that it can transfer wealth from the middle class to billionaire MSFT shareholders, just like AAPL does.

Transparent windows and widgets make it more like Vista.

> This is great. That's how it s done

It can't go on, though. Why won't every developer turn their app "free" and use Stripe or something to shave even more off the commerce fees? Meanwhile Microsoft eats hosting/maintenance/development on the store for zero return. We saw why Apple went the IAP route even if it's unpopular among developers and the fees could afford to be reduced.