davelorde

Join Date 11/2012

Is Groupy a Windows 10 'Sets' competitor?

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I recently had an email from the Microsoft 'Windows Insider' programme, describing a new feature called 'Sets'. This allows all the windows particular to some activity to be grouped into a 'Set', and sounds very similar to Groupy - except more richly featured.

Here is the email text:

Introducing “Sets” — an easier way to organise your stuff and get back to what you were doing

Many of the most important things we do happen across apps, web sites and PCs — whether that’s writing a report for school, planning a trip, managing a complex project at work — or even flipping back and forth between playing a game and watching a game. In today’s evolving modern workplace, we work on sets of things in fits and starts, often in between other commitments. We spend time setting things up just the way we want them for a project, with all our files, websites, notes and apps at hand, only to be pulled away at the last minute by a call, a meeting or some other interruption that seem to happen throughout our busy days. And that’s the moment we’re focusing on, that moment when you have everything ready to be worked on but are pulled away. We believe there’s an easier way to organise your stuff and get back to what you were doing.

In the coming weeks in WIP, we will begin releasing a new Windows 10 feature we are calling “Sets” (we’ve not landed on a name yet). With Sets, what belongs together stays together — making it easier and faster to create and be productive. The concept behind this experience is to make sure that everything related to your task – relevant webpages, research documents, necessary files and applications – is connected and available to you in one click. As Office, Windows and Edge become more integrated to create a seamless experience, you can get back to what’s important and be productive, recapturing that moment, saving time — we believe that’s the true value of Sets. And with Timeline, it’ll be even easier to go back and find the Set you were working on.

This video gives you an idea of our vision for Sets:

...

Terry Myerson
EVP Windows and Devices Group

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It certainly looks like it. There does seem to be some major differences. Groupy is available now and is being designed to work across all (most?) apps you use, including file explorer. Sets is available to Windows Insiders and will roll out slowly. MS Sets is targeting UWP apps like Mail and Calendar, then office apps, then other Win32 apps that don't affect the task bar. (TechCrunch Article). To get the full power of Sets it appears you will need a Microsoft account and subscribe to Office 365. I like how Groupy is attempting to work across all apps right out the gate.

One feature of Sets I would like Groupy to mimic is the new tab button. Click it and it will present programs, called Frequent Destinations in Sets, to choose from. Working across PC's you may sign in to is also a huge plus.

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I'd like to see a way to save and reload a group. I can't see me using it much otherwise.

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Another difference is that Groupy will work across multiple versions of Windows (including Windows 7) whereas with Sets, you need to upgrade to a specific minimum version of Windows 10. This may not be a big deal for home users, but corporate users may not even be running Windows 10 or may be locked down to a specific version of Windows 10. It might take years before corporate users can use Sets.

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sdrohan

Join Date 10/2012

+732

Quoting emunews,

reply 3

but corporate users may not even be running Windows 10

I should not be as shocked as I am with how many still run Win 7.

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Sets will not be available on RS4 (March 2018) said MS a month ago so groupy in the only solution for the next year Moreover, sets will be MS software so with a lot of restrictions (as all MS softwares) ....MS do softwares for them not for customers (start menu is a good example). Stardock do the opposite

stardock softwares works all the time very well. So for me, no deal : groupy only.

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Looks like Groupy will continue to be the only option for at least the short to medium term as Microsoft have scrapped the original Sets idea (which was based on the Edge browser which itself is being rewritten to use the Google Chrome engine).

One gets the impression that MS still want to do something along these lines though.

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I use Groupy, but it's very buggy and the customer support is poor. I was looking forward to Sets because Microsoft could probably do a better job than Stardock. Oh, well.

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Groupy always hangs when i restart/shutdown on my 2 Asus desktops, SP3 & SP6. Not really a fond lover of groupy tbh. It a shame set is dead was really looking forward to switching.

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