Using Mizu

The desktop works the way a 90s one did: windows you drag and resize, a taskbar, and a Start menu that knows every installed program.

Keys worth knowing

In the Run box, explorer opens Files, cmd the Command Prompt, devmgmt the Device Manager, eventvwr the Event Viewer and netplwiz Accounts. A path opens in its program, quotes and all: notepad "Z:\Users\Koi\Documents\a list.txt".

Your folders

Everything of yours lives in Z:\Users\your name: Desktop, Documents, Downloads, Music, Pictures and Videos. They stand above the drives in My Computer and in every Open and Save dialog, under their names in your language (the names on the disk stay English, so nothing breaks when you switch languages). Screenshots go to Pictures\Screenshots; the Player plays what is in Music.

Files and the desktop

• Choosing several: drag a rubber band across them, or hold Ctrl to add one at a time and Shift for a run. Cut, copy, delete and properties then act on all of them.
• Dragging: files go between Files windows, folders, the desktop and the Recycle Bin. On the same drive they move, onto another they are copied; hold Ctrl to copy, Shift to move.
• Desktop icons stay where you put them. Right-click the wallpaper > Arrange icons lines them up again.
• ZIP: double-click an archive (or right-click > Extract all) to unpack it into a folder beside it; right-click files or folders > Compress to ZIP to make one. Archives with passwords and ZIP64 are not read.
• Music: right-click a folder > Play plays just what is in it; Add to queue adds songs or folders to what is playing.

Notifications and screenshots

When something happens (a screenshot saved, an alarm, a message), a yellow balloon appears over the tray for a few seconds. Click it to open what it is about. The bell in the tray keeps the list, with a red count of what you have not seen.

A screenshot is saved as PNG and also put on the clipboard, so it can be pasted straight into Paint with Ctrl+V. Screenshots work with menus open too.

On the desktop

• Gadgets (right-click the wallpaper > Gadgets...): a clock, a calendar, and dials for the processor and memory. Drag them where you like; right-click one to take it away.
• Screen saver (Control Panel > Display): ripples on water, flying through space, Mystify or a blank screen, after as many minutes as you choose.
• Date and Time (click the clock in the tray): a big clock, a calendar to leaf through, alarms that ring even with the window closed, and setting the date, time and time zone.

What comes with Mizu

Start > Accessories: Files, NoteEdit, Paint, Picture, Player (music and video, from files or internet addresses, full screen, with a queue, shuffle, repeat and bars that dance), Command Prompt, NetSurf (a web browser), Nami Explorer, kUBIK, Calculator (with a scientific view), Character Map, Solitaire and FreeCell (with Microsoft's numbered deals: game 1 is the game 1 you know). System Tools: Task Manager, Registry Editor, Updates, Device Manager, Event Viewer.

Languages and keyboards

Control Panel > Language chooses the language of everything on the screen: English, Russian, Ukrainian, Polish, Czech and Greek today, and anyone can add another (see Translating Mizu). Keyboard layouts are chosen separately, in any set: the interface may speak English while you type Russian, Greek and Czech. The two letters in the tray show the one typing now; click them to switch. Czech comes as QWERTZ (the default) and QWERTY, with dead keys for accents and AltGr for @ # € [ ] { }.

Shutting down and restarting

Start > Shut Down or Restart, or the same from Ctrl+Alt+Del. Mizu lets a file operation in progress finish, stops any new ones, has every disk write out its own cache, and only then turns the power off. Pulling the plug instead can leave a file half written.

If the desktop stops answering, press Ctrl+Alt+Del three times within three seconds: the kernel restarts the machine itself, still stopping the disks first. Five times restarts at once, for when even the kernel is stuck.

Updates and the App Store

• Updates downloads a new system into the spare slot, checks its signature, and switches to it at the next restart. If it does not start, the previous one comes back.
• App Store installs and removes extra programs: games, DOOM, Quake, Lua, Mizugram (a Telegram client) and more.
• An updated app takes effect the next time you open it, once its windows are closed. No restart is needed for apps.
• Nothing updates by itself: you decide when.

The Command Prompt

A DOS-like prompt in a window, with drive letters, dir, copy, batch files and pipes. The arrow keys, Home, End and Del edit the line being typed; select with the mouse and copy and paste from the Edit menu or with Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V. A few commands that are Mizu's own:

When something goes wrong

A program crashed

Only that program ends. Mizu tells you which one and where; the rest keeps running.

The desktop does not start

After three quick failures Mizu leaves you at the command prompt. Type desktop to try again, or log KOI.LOG and send the file with an issue. If even the prompt cannot start, the kernel's recovery console takes over: slot switch returns to the previous system, command tries the prompt again.

Something stutters or freezes for a moment

The kernel keeps a flight recorder: which task had the processor, slow system calls, disk and USB waits, interrupts left off, and firmware interrupts (SMI) that stop the whole machine. When a turn of the desktop takes longer than 50 ms, the records from around it are kept as a hitch. Open System Tools > Event Viewer: under Hitches, each one is taken apart (what stands out, who had the processor, every record). The threshold can go lower from the Event Viewer menu. If what you saw was too short for that (the pointer or the sound stopping for an instant), press Ctrl+Alt+M right after it: the last three seconds are kept as a hitch of their own. Sound gaps are recorded too. Save report writes the log, every hitch and its records as bytes into one text file in Documents; send that file with an issue.

No internet

Look at the network icon in the tray, or Control Panel > Network. Only wired Intel cards and phone tethering work, with DHCP or an address set by hand.

Translating Mizu →