The rolling/incremental release is something that Apple does, but it's not like Apple is the only company doing it. Several Linux distros follow the same release model, and other software (not just OSes) does it too - MATLAB switched to this style model years ago, and it is nice at work to have something that is never more than 6 months out of date.
The only downside is that you have to really plan out deprecating features. It's easy to drop features when going from major release to major release, but in a rolling update, you need to give developers a heads up that things are about to change and give them time to fix things in their code.
We dropped MATLAB because the communal version refuses to work without internet connection (standard in the field) and we cannot afford a licence for all field laptops, where they will be used very little (but still to do things that need to be done).
Python, mainly. Some people still use older R scripts. It's kind of hard to make people stick to the same language when there is no real common code base (we're scientists).
OSX jump version, Apple jump from big cat names to place names now.
OSX does have mini patch update. It seems like their new version is always bleeding edge, yosemite had major wifi drop issue even though they supposely fixed it with a few patches.
The article made it seem like there is no more major version and just Window 10 and bunch of patches/features?
Apple releases new "minor" versions every year but it's still 10.x.x.x. I just see the first part as being publicity and the second number starting the real semver.
How does that work exactly? Will they require a subscription? I have a hard time believing most Windows users who right now think they are getting "Windows for free" with their laptop and never have to worry about it again, would agree to pay Microsoft even $1 a month for it.
If there is no subscription then how will they charge users - per "major update"? Like some sort of Windows 10.1? What would happened to the Windows 10 users who don't want to pay for that update then? Do they still get security fixes?
Microsoft has already softened their pricing strategy by offering Windows for free on small tablets and by not charging for the upgrades from Windows 8 to 8.1 or to 10.
Perhaps they don't see Windows as the cash cow that it once was and will make all upgrades free.
It wouldn't surprise me to see them make the base OS for home users free, and then only charge for enterprise specific features. Think of 7 Home Premium as free, and Ultimate/Enterprise now the paid versions.
This is because 8 and 8.1 are a downgrade compared to 7 and weren't received well. Consider that Windows XP has a bigger market share than 8 and 8.1 combined.
They're trying to make Windows a platform instead of a cash cow. They've finally realized they have the advantage and google will never beat them unless they wait too long.
WindOwS X Snowelephant then Mountainelephant. There will most certainly be some kind of internal sub versioning for the kernel part.
Let's see which animals they will take for that, cats are already taken by OS X.
My guess is they'll lock licenses to a hardware fingerprint numbers in some way (as they already do), so a new machine or radical hardware upgrades would require a new license [1]. OEM's would likely get bulk discounts on licenses and be able to pre-install the license themselves.
Basically they'd be betting the Windows franchise on enough people upgrading their hardware every year that fees from upgraders' new licenses could support all the free riders who didn't upgrade that year.
[1] Arguably the first sale doctrine means that this might not be a restriction Microsoft can impose at the legal layer. But they'd certainly to get around any such restriction by trying to implement it at the technology layer with DRM -- refusing to provide any supported way to move their license from one machine to another.
Of course any technological restriction will always boil down to a conditional jump instruction that can be patched out, which leads to a kind of "arms race" between the pirates and the DRM. Recently there was an HN article about a (rather old) piece of software which contained multiple piracy checks to sabotage the long-term user experience of pirated versions in a way that wouldn't be immediately obvious (so users would be punished for using illegal versions, but the long-term checks would be subtle enough to slip past crackers' QA and they'd likely ship partially cracked versions that didn't patch all the checks that needed to be patched). Including deliberately deleting user data after prolonged use: http://starmen.net/mother2/gameinfo/antipiracy/
I'm not happy with this. I waited on XP until they got over vista, and I'm still on 7 while I watch in bemusement at the windows 8.1 nonsense.
Now, with windows 10, my security updates will come bundled with my unwanted OS changes. I doubt microsoft will let people opt out of unwanted cloud-based security risks or crazy interface experiments.
Well but if you op-out you op-out of everything, including security updates. There's no "I want security updates but no random feature/interface changes" button.
Aren't all Windows Update packages optional? This is what I see when I look at Windows update on 8.1 (I think 7 had similar options):
http://imgur.com/MxRVZ94
As someone else mentioned, to support the enterprise Microsoft makes updates piecemeal and optional.
I had Windows 8 here, Windows 8.1 force-installed itself, I found no way to opt out, or even to control when to update, I was working one day and it suddenly decided to shut me out and update itself to 8.1, there was no "cancel" or "wait" button.
So, MS already pulled a stunt like that recently, why they would not do it again, specially if they want people to use some shiny new tech part of their 3e strategy?
Internet Explorer 11 had that automatic updates too.
But it shows that Microsoft changes things that I may or may not want. They changed the "F12" Developer Tools in a significant way, basically completely replaced it with a completely new version with its positive and negative sides. And they introduced a "Search web" Bing search search box directly on the "New Tab" page that cannot be changed or removed. It also ignores the default search provider is DDG and not Bing.
I really liked IE since v4 and used it ever since Windows 95 with IE4 shell upgrade that made Win95 look like Win98. But the new Microsoft is the same as the old one, maybe even worse given their software as a service mentality. I won't upgrade to Edge/IE12 and maybe not even to Win10. Win7 is perfectly fine until 2022. And afterwards maybe we all use Android or a Web based OS like Chromium/FirefoxOS and Microsoft screwed up their Windows to irrelevancy/legacy.
> Now, with windows 10, my security updates will come bundled with my unwanted OS changes.
This is going to be utter and complete chaos for any organization that performs strict change management and compatibility testing. It's already hard enough to push out normal security updates for some organizations, so having to mix in feature or even kernel changes is going to be a nightmare...
>To support Windows 10 devices in these mission critical customer environments we will provide Long Term Servicing branches at the appropriate time intervals. On these branches, customer devices will receive the level of enterprise support expected for the mission critical systems, keeping systems more secure with the latest security and critical updates, while minimizing change by not delivering new features for the duration of mainstream (five years) and extended support (five years). On Long Term Servicing branches, customers will have the flexibility to deliver security updates and fixes via Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) which allows full control over the internal distribution of updates using existing management solutions such as System Center Configuration Manager or to receive these updates automatically via Windows Update
Where do you think these open source companies got the idea for long-term support policies from in the first place? Microsoft and IBM had been selling software and supporting for enough length of time that these things became necessary long before OSS projects caught up.
I think there will be some problems, but I don't think it will be that bad. The web has coped perfectly fine with continuously-updated browsers.
A significant proportion of 'change management' is pointless, box-ticking bureaucracy and achieves nothing. Just look at any large company's mostly semi-broken IT systems!
Critical infrastructure probably shouldn't be running on desktop Windows anyway, so it's not going to affected. At the other end of the spectrum, if Bob in Marketing's copy of Microsoft Word stops working for a day or two while Microsoft patches something - well, who cares. Hopefully the benefits from a rolling-release system will outweigh that.
Hopefully continuously-updated operating systems will encourage enterprise software vendors to avoid using undocumented/non-standard features, and we'll all be better off.
The problem isn't that Bob in Marketing's box doesn't work for a few days. It's that Bob (along with 90% of everyone over 25) hates user interface changes and works slower the first two-three months after a change. If MS starts throwing changes at him every 6 months that's a 15-20% decrease in Bob's productivity.
Okay, that was a bad example. It's likely to be small, obscure features that break (assuming that major stuff will be caught by good automated testing). Not many people will rely on that specific functionality, so not many people will be affected.
Care to tell me what your issue is with Windows 8.1? I've been using 8/8.1 for well over a year now, and it has been, perhaps, one of the best installments of the Windows line of operating systems I have ever used. There are a variety of third party applications and workarounds that can effectively re-patch explorer.exe to completely disable Modern UI and bring back the old start menu (think Start Is Back).
"Care to tell me what your issue is with Windows 8.1?"
You answered your own question with this line:
"There are a variety of third party applications and workarounds that can effectively re-patch explorer.exe to completely disable Modern UI and bring back the old start menu (think Start Is Back)."
Making a deploy image that doesn't try to get computers to sign in to Microsoft's cloud services and doesn't require patching or extensive training is very much a problem. We skipped 8 like we skipped Vista.
I switch back and forth between my minimal modern desktop and the old version with a single key press. That said, I modified the modern screen to just have a terminal, IntelliJ, Github bash terminal, and a few other things and it is handy enough for quick launches of whatever I need. I don't really think much about the windows interface, just the few apps I use. Same as with OSX and Ubuntu: a moments thought to switch between a bash shell, IntelliJ, a web browser, but 99% of of what I am thinking about is what I do in individual apps.
The operating system is getting to be irrelevant in my world as an author and programmer.
Except for random settings that are kick you into a Metro settings app for no apparent reason. It feels a bit like they randomly put some settings into the Metro interface and left some settings in the Desktop interface.
Before as well as after patching away the annoying parts of the "modern" UI, Windows 8.1 just feels like Windows 7 with less consistent UI and more asking for that Microsoft account I don't want to have.
>There are a variety of third party applications and workarounds that can effectively re-patch explorer.exe to completely disable Modern UI and bring back the old start menu (think Start Is Back).
I'll stop you here:
Why would I use an operating system so user-hostile that it's own advocates are saying "it's ok, lots of programs are available to unfuck it!", when the previous installment is on every level technically sound and doesn't require the unfucking?
What do you like better in Windows 7 than 8.1? Seriously, I have been a long time OS X and Linux user, and 8.1 has won me back to the Microsoft fold. I still use Linux and OSX, but WIndows 8.1 is now something I frequently use. I was not impressed by Windows 7.
So, serious question, what do you like better about Windows 7.
You don't have to use any Metro apps if you don't want to, and 10 brings back the start menu. If that's still to "Metro" for you you can install something like Classic Start.
Windows 10 brings back a Metro start menu. Initially, it was just bad, but better than Windows 8. The last updated made it much more like Windows 8. They really just don't get it at all.
I use that here... The fact that it is needed at all is already a failure of the OS.
And the Desktop app itself is sort of unstable, and classic shell is also sort of unstable, the combination result in lots of crashes, specially if you are having issues while trying to play some games (example: on my machine every time I scroll the map too much in Arcanum from Troika Games, it crashes, crashes the desktop, crashes the classic shell, and the mouse stops working completely... it is really amazing, it crashes so hard I am impressed instead of frustated).
I'm an Ubuntu Linux and OS X user and have been trying to like Windows 8.1 in the last weeks. The problems I have in no particular order ...
- network management in Windows 7 was usable, whereas in 8.1 it is totally fucked
- Microsoft accounts are on their way to become mandatory, as creating a regular account is not user friendly and there's a big and scary warning when you go that route; they are basically trying to resurrect Windows Live ID
- Microsoft has started to force people on using their products - I could not figure out a way to turn OneDrive off completely, or to use anything other than Bing as the search engine in their "Search Everywhere" (this also happens on Windows Phone)
- I haven't seen a "modern Windows" app that I like, they are all pieces of crap, including stuff from Microsoft; modern Skype for example is lacking crucial functionality; their app store is filled with trademark-violating malware and I've never seen such a low quality app store
- from a usability perspective Windows 8 is a failure - there's something inherently different about a PC with 21 inch monitors, keyboard and mouse, versus a tablet, yet Windows tries to unify both worlds, becoming hostile in the process - see this funny video on the subject - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTYet-qf1jo
- of course, you can totally ignore the "modern Windows" side of the coin for now, except that's where Windows is headed
- I bought the standard edition, then I discovered that I needed the Pro version to get disk encryption or to connect to it through Remote Desktop; plus you need the Enterprise edition to make it boot from an USB stick - apparently Microsoft considers disk encryption and Remote Desktop to be meant for businesses and not for personal usage
- for software developers Cygwin is the only thing that makes Windows tolerable and Cygwin is awful
The only thing that Windows is good for is for playing games. I'm only keeping it around for playing Heroes of M&M 3 (the classic one) and Path of Exile.
And every time I try Windows, I end up appreciating just how awesome Linux is.
Thank you! That was a good answer. Just one thing: OneDrive works well, if I may, I suggest giving it a try. Re: software development: I just live inIntelliJ for Clojure, Ruby, Java, JavaScript, Typescript, Clojurescript, and Python. IntelliJ runs about the same on every platform. I write my books now with markdown and leanpub, so for writing also operating system choice does not matter.
True confession: I tend to cycle slowly through OSX, Linux, and Windows 8.1 because I like a little change. Similar to programming languages. My strange way to have fun :-)
Does OneDrive work well with half a million files taking up half a TB of space across multiple devices?
Last time I tried it, I could never be sure when my files had synched. OneDrive would just spin in the background, not even using much CPU or network bandwidth, and with no indication of what the hell it was doing, while the file I just edited remained unsynched for hours.
For a product that wanted people to give it the entire content of their hard drives, OneDrive was woefully inadequate at handling large amounts of data. I ended up copying files manually to the device where I needed them to be, relegating OneDrive to the role of an eventually consistent backup.
When my (paid) subscription was up, I canceled it and never used it again. Now I'm much happier with a 1TB plan at SpiderOak.
I've tried BTSync, Syncthing, Dropbox, and rsync -avuz. The only thing which works consistently and doesn't take up 100% CPU for hours when working with many small files is rsync. Hopefully Syncthing will get there, but I wasn't impressed initially.
My experience with OneDrive has been downright abyssal. Even simple tasks like sync'ing a folder of torrents between my desktop and server for auto-watch somehow ends up failing in inexplicable ways.
Such a shame too since they have the best pricing AFAIK. I wish they would just buy Dropbox, integrate it into Windows in place of OneDrive, and call it a day.
I love OneDrive, possiblt the best native synchronization tool out there, at least for Windows anyway. Mine does a funny thing though, whenever i git clone a repo into a folder in OneDrive it will crash. Does that ever happen to you?
>- of course, you can totally ignore the "modern Windows" side of the coin for now, except that's where Windows is headed
It seems to me that they are backing off metro/"modern Windows" more and more. 8.1 made boot to Desktop the default, they are bringing back the start menu in 10 and Metro apps will run in windows in 10.
YMMV, but I can't tell the difference between the font rendering in Metro apps and WPF apps (on a Retina MacBook Pro). I really like the typeface and rendering choices they've made and it's easy for me to read.
WPF apps also traditionally had shitty font rendering. The issue is that they are pixel unaware so at small sizes it blurs. On a HiDPI screen it's fine, as well as with larger font sizes. On the standard Windows DPI settings, it's terrible.
Pixel snapping and ClearType are what deliver sharp small fonts at the cost of less "accuracy" since the renderer may need to bump things around by half a pixel or so.
Some people don't care/notice or simply prefer the antialiased look. Up until Win 8/10, this was a choice at the system level, generally.
I remember the good old days where they introduced that in XP (was it XP?) and suddenly all the fonts were blurry red/orange/black/green squishy messes that were impossible to read.
If they looked like that, then run the ClearType tuner. On most LCD panels for everyone I've showed it to, they were pretty impressed with the improved clarity.
ClearType was also the subject of some stupid partner-level politics inside of MS, actual end user experience be damned.
I like to call it "consolification" as it seems apparent to me that this is where MS is heading with their OS.
Not long and Xbox and Windows will be identical. And sadly, it will be the Xbox that has the dominant genes, UI wise at least.
It is all over their corporate speak, too. "Life time of device" when discussing the upgrade cycle of the OS... What is the life time of my PC that I built myself out of many different vendors offerings?
I, too am a bit worried that all this cloud business is getting more and more traction. When I saw the big warning "Not recommended" when trying to create a normal user account and not one of these windows online account deals I though "You can't be serious". Why would it not be recommended to use a local account which was the norm for so long? Unless they already plan many changes to the OS which would leave users with local accounts in the dust so better to try and convert as many people to our online accounts as possible, they must think.
Either way, I am in the process of building a new rig. The old one didn't even have an i3/5/7 CPU to let you know how long I've been using my current PC. And on this new PC, Windows7 Ultimate will be running the show and I will be watching from the outside over the next 5 years minimum how this Win10 business develops. From my point of view they have 5 years to do a lot of 180s and actually make a Windows11 which will take the under-the-hood advancements of Win8-10 and plug that into Windows7 so we can actually have that Windows7 improvement we all want.
A: I'm not sure how much MS really cares about enthusiasts. Reading the Win 10 forums and user voice, most of them seen like idiots, with all sorts of stupid suggestions and just plain drama. Though I agree "lifetime of the device" is a bit worrying.
B: I've talked the to the person responsible for MS Accounts in Windows 8. Really cool, smart guy. It was a hard thing to get right, and their intentions were not malicious like it might seem. For most users, using an online account is simply the better solution. Their photos and documents will automatically sync. Apps will automatically sign in and work. They can enable full disk encryption without worrying about losing keys. Enthusiasts can make two extra clicks to avoid it. While it personally annoys me and makes machines easier to compromise (by government), it's the only competitive option for most consumers.
Windows 10 is unpolished and downright janky, but if they get it cleaned up, there's little doubt it'll be pretty well accepted. If they had kept the start menu and not made metro apps so dumb in Win 8, it'd have been fine. Though they do need to make calc and other simple apps open as fast as they do on my bloody phone...
More concerning is the Windows Store, which is a cesspool, and MS shows no signs of caring. I've spoken to several ISVs that simply cannot get MS to help or respond to removing fake/scam/phishing apps. Even Netflix had trouble with this, FFS.
A: I personally prefer to buy retail licenses, precisely for the ability to move it around - like, I have an older license of Windows Vista that I still use (unfortunately the upgrade opportunity has come and gone). And I never pirate btw and I respect my licenses, so it has been installed on at most one PC at a time.
According to this new policy, what will happen with retail licensing? I presume that it will be either very expensive, or available only for enterprise/volume licensing, or simply not available anymore. Now that would suck.
B: while I'm sure that their intentions weren't malicious, I strongly disagree with you and with them.
First of all, encryption on Windows 8.1 standard edition is only available if your hardware supports TPM and SecureBoot on ConnectedStandby. There's absolutely no reason for this limitation. Linux's dm-crypt or ecryptfs do not need it. DiskCryptor does not need it. I smell lock-in.
Also, what is the problem with available encrypting solutions? What is wrong with remembering and inserting a password which would be required only on boot and not on waking up from stand-by?
Also, I repeat ad nauseam my biggest problem with the NSA revelations - if the NSA has the capability of installing back-doors and to coerce companies into doing whatever they want, what's stopping organized crime syndicates from doing the same thing, possibly using NSA's trails OR with their cooperation? It's only a matter of cost. Therefore, an encryption method that's saving the keys on Microsoft's servers is extremely flawed and for no good reason.
This also reminds me of OneDrive versus OneDrive for Business. Basically OneDrive for consumers does not have versioning or a fucking log of the events that happened (like both Google Drive or Dropbox do), because by their own admission, that's for businessy/enterprisish things. If for whatever reason a file disappears, a file out of tens of thousands like I have - well, you'll never know when or how. And also, synchronizing things on-disk is extremely hard because at any moment you've got multiple sources of truth that contend on the same files, with no good way to synchronize shit, which means that all clients are more or less buggy. And regular folks are non-technical and they might not know how to look at the log of events and do debugging, or to recover previous versions of a file, but non-technical folks usually have friends or access to professionals for hire ;-)
And I'm thinking that this is my biggest problem with Microsoft (but not only them) - they treat regular people as dumb fucks that have to be hand-holdem, for a monthly subscription of course (which is a totally understandable thing, since you don't own anything). And then you discover that what Microsoft's notion of personal usage does not apply to you and so for the features you need you need the Awesome edition which costs at least twice, possibly available only on volume licensing.
Now, as far as the whole desktop market is concerned, OS X has always catered to grandmas and to software developers refugees from Linux or other Unixes, Linux has always catered to die-hard backend software developers, while Windows has always catered to the people in between, the middle of the bell curve, the people that can get around their computer, but that don't know its internals, the power users. What we are seeing now is that Microsoft has totally lost the developer mind-share and the results are showing - Microsoft has lost the Internet-wide server-side and its app ecosystem only holds because of inertia, otherwise Apple's ecosystem for native apps is way more attractive.
And now Microsoft is going to lose the power users too, because according to their new directions, their user base are only the grandmas and the dumb ones that never made it to high-school. They are even ignoring the needs of the enterprise. And if that wasn't enough, on ultra portables they are also competing with ...
Is it really that bad for Calc???? I was not impressed how they took the windows photo viewer (whatever that app was called) and replaced it with a Metro version that sat at a full-screen splash screen for 5 seconds.
I have an "HD version" from Steam that isn't available on Linux. Though I bet it's usable with Wine. Path of Exile is a tricky one though, as it is more recent - BTW, if you loved Diablo 2, but hate Diablo 3, then try Path of Exile. It's very good and free of charge too - it's a pity that it runs on Windows only, but the company producing it is small, so I don't blame them.
I'm an Arch, OS X, and Windows user. I'm a developer in my day job, on the .net platform. I prefer Arch any day of the week, but I really like windows as well.
> network management in Windows 7 was usable, whereas in 8.1 it is totally fucked
I have zero problems with network management. It has not changed how you do it from the CLI, and the GUI is just different. If your definition of "totally fucked" includes "new GUI", then I'm not sure what to say. I agree that it's a step back from Windows 7, but saying it's totally fucked is downright wrong.
> Microsoft accounts are on their way to become mandatory, as creating a regular account is not user friendly and there's a big and scary warning when you go that route; they are basically trying to resurrect Windows Live ID
I was throughly against the Microsoft ID to start with, but for other reasons I had to get one and since I use multiple PCs it has actually been a positive experience for me. I see that as a good thing, and if you don't like it you can still create a local account. The warning is fair, because a lot of the new functionality depend on the MSID.
> Microsoft has started to force people on using their products - I could not figure out a way to turn OneDrive off completely
Nobody is forcing you to use OneDrive, it's a feature and if you don't like it don't use it. Simple as that. You either do not use a MSID as your login or disable it as this (http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/onedrive/wiki/sdinstall-s...) MS article instructs. Just because you cannot remove an integral part of the OS because you don't like it, doesn't mean it's bad. It actually benefits a lot of people.
> or to use anything other than Bing as the search engine in their "Search Everywhere" (this also happens on Windows Phone)
And? Of course they want you to use Bing and not a competitor - I'm sure you'd be just as outraged if they offered a version of windows without bing for an extra cost.
> I haven't seen a "modern Windows" app that I like, they are all pieces of crap, including stuff from Microsoft; modern Skype for example is lacking crucial functionality; their app store is filled with trademark-violating malware and I've never seen such a low quality app store
Valid points. MS needs to step up their game, and developers need to take the Windows Store more serious.
> from a usability perspective Windows 8 is a failure - there's something inherently different about a PC with 21 inch monitors, keyboard and mouse, versus a tablet, yet Windows tries to unify both worlds, becoming hostile in the process - see this funny video on the subject - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTYet-qf1jo
That simply is not true (that is a failure). The video is just a circlejerk full of hyperbole and the last 1m40s contains the essence of it. It was really hard to take it seriously. Yes the forced "Metro UI" was not good for desktop, fortunately it just meant an extra mouse click and it's gone. That is it, and MS even admitted it improved it a lot with 8.1 and Windows 10 is even more of an improvement as a result.
> of course, you can totally ignore the "modern Windows" side of the coin for now, except that's where Windows is headed
You obviously haven't really looked at the changes from 8 -> 8.1 -> 10, because they've, A: admitted that it was poor UI, B: toned it down a lot and committed to making it a good UI instead.
> I bought the standard edition, then I discovered that I needed the Pro version to get disk encryption or to connect to it t...
Windows 8 came with skydrive preinstalled, and I removed it. 8.1 has skydrive "integrated into the OS", so it can't be removed.
I tried skydrive on windows 7 when skydrive was first released, and instructed it to sync a few specific folders. I didn't like it enough to keep using it, so I uninstalled it and forgot about it.
In order to upgrade from 8 to 8.1, I had to put my microsoft account into the system (because the update was only offered through the store). Upon finishing the update, it immediately downloaded everything that had been in the "my documents" folder of my desktop when I had first tried skydrive, two years prior.
I never told it to sync "my documents" during that trial run, and I didn't know those files had been sitting on microsofts server for all that time. I had legal documents stored in there.
Windows 8.1 does things without asking me. Windows 10 will do the same. I don't want them to.
I shouldn't have to spend large amounts of effort making sure my own computer isn't doing things behind my back, regardless of whether microsofts engineers mean the best or not.
If I could remove skydrive (and cortana in win10, and whatever other new ~cloud~ features they dream up), I wouldn't care, but apparently it's all "integrated", so I can't remove it. Consumption is mandatory, it would seem.
Well I'm sorry, but I've worked jobs where the penalty for retaining information you no longer have official need for is 2 years prison. The penalty for leaking information in my current job is "merely" losing my job and consequently being deported.
I don't trust windows 8.1, and I don't trust windows 10. The best word to describe both operating systems is "treacherous".
If retaining data like that would land you in jail, you shouldn't be using cloud storage in the first place. Likely you'd be (rightfully) fired for doing so.
The point is that all those cloud features are enabled by default and difficult to opt out of.
I for one will not upgrade to Windows 10 until other people have identified all of the crappy cloud-based features (Microsoft Account, OneDrive/SkyDrive, Cortana, etc.) and written blogs on how to disable them permanently. Then I will do a clean install, disable all the crap, and only then connect the external drive that contains all my files.
Most people, though, will not be so cautious. If something is enabled by default, 99.9% of users will just keep it enabled, even if it's possible to disable it. After all, that's the whole point of enabling something by default.
That's exactly the problem. The insightful videos on Microsoft's Channel 9 made it clear that they went crazy with Metrics since Windows XP. What they don't get or simply ignore are the huge user base of power users and developers that deactivate the "phone home metrics systems" in Windows XP and newer. That's why they introduced the Ribbons-menubar and Metro-/Modern-UI - they believed or tried what they wanted by using skewed statistics based on one-sided metrics.
yes, thus far Windows 10 (I've been running a beta installation) has de-activated the OS three times in the last two months. And each time it's a new wrinkle in how it fucked itself. AND that's just the beginning.
Honestly, as a person who primarily uses Windows over my Mac or Linux boxes, I do wonder if this is a harbinger for Microsoft where people just stop using it. I hated how bad Windows 8 was, but I didn't expect the general consumer public to have the same reaction. I can't see them being happy with the lack of stability and clunkiness that Microsoft seems hell-bent on implementing.
On the flip side, I'm a Mac user (with a C#/Windows background) who really likes Windows 10. I've been on the fast ring for updates since day one on all my computers and been delighted--not a word I use lightly--with the updates and the stability of the whole thing.
It won't be my primary OS--nothing without zsh will be, and Cygwin isn't sufficient--but I really enjoy using Windows computers again, which I honestly never thought I would say after I switched to OS X.
> Now, with windows 10, my security updates will come bundled with my unwanted OS changes.
Had this experience with Mac OS X. For 10.4 they switched to a new, dynamically linked libstdc++ that used the new Itanium C++ ABI. 10.3 had a statically linked libstdc++ and the old ABI.
They pushed out an OS update that installed the new libstdc++ on 10.3, breaking linking against libstdc++ with standard cxxflags. You see they had integrated cross-compilation for 10.3 into the new Xcode on 10.4, and didn't give a shit about people who were still compiling stuff on 10.3.
I decided after that that if Apple was going to break working compilation on my OS because I hadn't upgraded to the newest and shiniest, then they didn't really want my money. They seem to be doing OK without it, and I'm doing fine without them.
If Microsoft pulls this sort of stunt with Windows, then fuck everything about this change. They're such sticklers in the opposite direction, doing so much to ensure backward-compatible everything that the house of cards sometimes comes crashing down, that I don't think that will be a problem with Windows 10+x.
Very informative, thanks. I write software for my daily job on OSX and I get the feeling that if you're not "current" then they don't care. Look at how they handled the recent security update and left all Mavericks users in the lurch by not back-porting the fix. (Does anyone know if they ever did?)
Specifically, OS X Yosemite v10.10.3 and Security Update 2015-004
Admin Framework
Available for: OS X Yosemite v10.10 to v10.10.2
CVE-2015-1130 : Emil Kvarnhammar at TrueSec
I think you could technically block updates that would appear to be major/minor updates. That level of control will have to be available for enterprise releases. I don't know what will happen with security updates though if you purposefully block some updates and allow others. It may be that some security patches will be dependent upon other system updates.
Well, the difference is that Apple sells hardware. It actually used to be the case that computer manufacturers routinely bundled operating systems for "free" with their hard ware. This has been a kegal issue in some cases, e.g. https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/473/908/
Stupid decision. Will take years before they realize Internet is not so fast everywhere and not every company would like to have only online version of OS.
Service packs have always been available on physical disc, in addition to downloading. I don't see why major updates couldn't be available on disc as well.
I agree with #2. I think Microsoft is likely producing a new operating system as we speak--one that hopefully is focused on security first. Perhaps a realization of the Singularity OS is coming. OS APIs running managed code, perhaps? The future will certainly be interesting for the Windows ecosystem.
Look up Midori — it's a managed code OS, supposedly based on the ideas from Singularity but with more of an idea for commercialisation. But basically haven't heard anything about it for three years now (on the other hand, the mention in 2012 was the first since 2008, so maybe that's meaningless).
Windows as a brand is still way too big, and unlike IE its reputation is okay and its market share huge, Microsoft has more to lose than to win rebranding Windows. I don't see it happening, but IMO there's no reason why Windows can't be the new Windows eventually.
Vista and 8 did do a great deal of damage to Windows' reputation. (I'd say somewhat undeserved in the former case, and there are plenty of people who will defend the latter. I'm sure it's great on the Surface).
That said, I'd agree that it'd be a bad move to rebrand Windows just yet. Then again, DOS was a well-known and well-liked brand too.
3) This is a fad. They'll do 1) for a while, but in about a decade (plus or minus a few years), there will be another release of Windows that is again branded under another name/number.
Your comment made me think that the branding of Windows 10 happened because they are in fact adopting this model and do not want to "sound worse/ lower" in version number than OS X which of course is MacOS 10.
In that regard I would love it if Apple would announce OS11 at dubdub. That would be too funny seeing MS standing there with their Win10 which they said would be the last Windows version.
Sadly, no. Given the up-and-down nature of the points to my response, my own joke was that someone who needed a pointer for what "joke" meant, given simply as a URL, might also need a pointer for what a URL means. With of course the contradiction that I gave it as a URL.
Well possibly the point here is the double pronged attack on the fact that Mac OS stopped at X (ten) and there is a common expression 'turn it up to eleven' [1]
I would be intrigued by an Adobe Creative Cloud equivalent for Microsoft products. Especially if it meant that a subscription was per-person, instead of per-machine.
This would work especially well coupled with the global "floating identities" introduced through signing in with your Microsoft Account. The image I would have is of Windows being automatically updated either way, but preventing sign-in to Microsoft Accounts whose subscriptions have lapsed (save for some limited kiosk functionality related to renewing the subscription, and local administrator access for fixing Internet connectivity et al.)
Such a model would create an amazing marketing opportunity for a Linux based OS. Instead of paying an annoying monthly subscription you get a free office system built in. Not including such basic functionality with the OS is like selling a phone without batteries. Suddenly Linux becomes a premium product with lots of high quality software included compared to the annoying app store you get with Windows.
In other words, it would force all the people currently pirating Windows and Office to actually decide between the products on offer based on their previously-merely-nominal market positions. (Which is, indeed, what Creative Cloud has done for Adobe.)
I don't think it's that unique to have continuous upgrades without major versions. It just seems too generic, but hey, who knows. I've seen all sorts of nonsense things.
The big reason why rolling release works so well on Arch is the assumption that the user is smart, so there are several difficult tasks which are pushed over onto the user (like handling non-trivial conflicts of software that the user may not have directly installed, e.g. libgl, handling exceptional circumstances, being able to recover after a failed update, ensuring the system is updated regularly, knowing when a reboot is needed etc.) A more mainstream OS has to automate these things.
I moved for the same reason. CentOS w/ 6-10 years of updates is probably a better recommendation for newer users. Any upgrade to the latest version is a real pain in pretty much every distro. Arch is great but sometimes new updates can interfere with workflow (it requires me to be very active monitoring changes).
If your IT organization is transitioning to or running web apps, Chrome OS just became a lot more interesting compared to the new MS browser, especially when you consider that ActiveX is finally being put out to pasture.
Aside from initially installing Arch and the major programs I know I am going to use I have never had a major problem with Arch which required extensive knowlege of linux to fix.
All in all I'd say I have about the same number of issues with Arch as a normal Windows install.
...until the next version where they had to do a clean break to add in whatever new feature it will be
maybe a better take away is that microsoft will be maintaining their code and regularly pushing patches, as opposed to the very discrete service pack updates
Off-topic rant: I used to live in a remote area, with very little connectivity. Upgrading tech used to involve traveling to a retailer, and buying the latest version off the shelf.
More recently, it involes traveling to a solid internet connection, downloading incremental updates and distributing them on location.
In Australia, satellite internet was subsidized in the 2000s (and easily eligible). Now, although still subsidized to some extent, you're on your own if you're on a supported line but your telco doesn't have the capacity.
It's a damn nightmare when large software is distributed in this manner for people with insufficient network access.
Note, this experience is from a small family business point of view, without dedicated tech support.
If you all can be 'squeaky wheels', microsoft et al will see that for relatively little overhead, they could have a lot of Austrialian people buying physical media.
Indeed! The frequency of Service Packs post-Windows 10 will be key for remote users. I haven't looked into this recently, I wonder how easy it is for end-users to roll their own.
I came to the conclusion last year that Australia will be left behind as developers make assumptions about fast connections. I think it was around the time of the Win8 to 8.1 upgrade which was about 2GB and not immediately available as an ISO/disc - it failed repeatedly overnight and consumed 50+% of my download quota for that month.
Australians: vote for a government who will build 21st century infrastructure. It's going to get ugly when we run out of shit to dig up and sell to China.
I can only imagine how OSX users cope with the giant OS updates and patches that get bundled. I thought that people here in the UK on ordinary broadband must get frustrated, but your experience puts it into perspective. It also makes me think more carefully about being "network-happy" in applications.
Those stupid Xcode updates are bigger than the OS updates, 5-6GB in size. At this point I'm thinking their infrastructure team is simply incompetent - downloads slow to a crawl, no incremental updates, and if the install fails sometimes it's back to zero.
I have noticed that about downloads and upgrades. The "system updates" app within App Store is poor. It is a webpage that fails to refresh when it's doing something, leaving you guessing when something is happening (that rotatey "progress" indication that is entirely indeterminate is no help either)
What on earth is wrong with a progress bar and text drawn on the screen instead, like Snow Leopard??
> this is much more than a one-time upgrade: once a Windows device is upgraded to Windows 10, we will continue to keep it current via Windows Update for the supported lifetime of the device – at no cost.
>We think of this as Windows as a Service
>we are introducing a new approach for business customers, which we are referring to as the Current branch for Business. By putting devices on the Current branch for Business, enterprises will be able to receive feature updates after their quality and application compatibility has been assessed in the consumer market, while continuing to receive security updates on a regular basis. This gives IT departments’ time to start validating updates in their environments the day changes are shipped broadly to consumers, or in some cases earlier, if they have users enrolled in the Windows Insider Program.
>Based on what we are hearing from customers, we expect most will take a mixed approach in how they keep their Windows 10 systems up to date. They will likely target a different pace of updates for different users and systems, depending on the specific business needs of each group.
I remember this "news" being on the front page of HN a few times already. The change is radical enough that we want to talk about it over and over again.
There are alternatives to "Windows 10 as a service" - WINE on Mac/Linux and ReactOS.
ReactOS is an attempt to build an open source version of Windows XP/7. It uses source code from WINE and it aims for better compatibility with legacy apps and drivers by developing a WinNT-like OS-Kernel: http://www.reactos.org/screenshots
It's not an alternative. At least not for a lot of companies. I work at a games studio and we exclusively use Windows - PS4, Xbox One, Wii U sdks and tools only work on Windows and only with Visual Studio(well, PS4 and Xbox One), and it's extremely unlikely that you would get them to work under Wine. So now our company will have to pay a fee to Microsoft to continue using windows, instead of a single flat payment when we bought our hardware.
Also - yes I know they are saying they will support Windows 10 for the lifetime of the device it was bought with,but I doubt it will work like this for enterprise users.
Visual studio 2010 and dotNet surely works fine under wine. But there are lots of small cornerstones in the tools and software companies use that does not work so great.
If there was an real free alternative to windows where all the specialized software worked i am dead sure companies would start to use it. But at this moment there is no such alternative.
If I am working with a latest, super secret revision of PS4 sdk that I can't even legally talk about, how would I ask developers of Wine for help if that SDK doesn't work with their software? I can't.
But Microsoft and Sony will be both legally bound to help, in certain cases they could even pay for delays if their software is at fault. I would much prefer to have a showstopper bug in closed software, thank you.
I'm pretty sure that Sony wouldn't like Microsoft to find out about their super secret PS4 sdk, as after all, they are direct competitors. So you can't seek Microsoft's help for something that happens with Sony's super secret PS4 sdk.
Of course it would be better with open source software. But what difference does it makes? There are no viable free/open alternatives to lots of commercial software out there and it will probably stay that way for the rest of our lifes.
I bet 1000sek that you are not able to setup an game development studio focusing on ps4 games with only free/open software for example.
If you're interested in attempting to get your software to work on other OSes through Wine, my company would be thrilled to talk to you. That's exactly what we do :)
WINE and Reactos are a bit more complicated than an alternative.
ReactOS is nothing more than (arguably pre-)alpha software. It's not possible, at this stage, to predict when and if it will ever reach sufficient stability and security. If you follow the project closely, you will realize how complex an O/S is, and how fundamentally it needs big backing (which it doesn't have) to reach maturity.
WINE is not an alternative to an O/S. Specifically, it's a layer which needs to be evaluated on a per-case (application) basis; it's not (and it's not meant to be) a universal solution (which an O/S needs to be).
Of course, ideas about tweaking WINE instead of fully porting software (see Carmack) are interesting, but again, that wouldn't make it a generic replacement.
I can see this in the consumer space perhaps.
They would need a lot of marketing to get people to pay up for a monthly / yearly subscription though. I figure that is how they will make money.
I can see consumers being annoyed have to pay every month to use the computer now. With the current versioned releases the consumer has a choice whether to pay for the upgrade or not.
In the enterprise space I dont see how this will work.
There are plenty of reasons that some companies are still clinging to Windows XP. For a large company to give up control over exactly what is on each computer and be able to plan long term is a non starter. Would we then see yearly "cumulative packs" being offered that can be tested prior to release?
Would there be a central tool provided by Microsoft for the enterprise customers that will allow them to control the exact feature versions, fixes etc for every computer centrally and that way to cumulative upgrades?
I would love for Microsoft to come out with a new Next Generation Operating system that breaks compatibility even more than Windows NT did back in the day. I think its long overdue but unfortunately i don't see it happening anytime soon.
They are investing a lot now in trying to use as much of the codebase as possible across all of their targeted devices. I
> I can see consumers being annoyed have to pay every month to use the computer now. With the current versioned releases the consumer has a choice whether to pay for the upgrade or not.
Yeah, I'm wondering if Canonical's marketing department is readying the champagne.
Six months ago I signed up for a family edition of Office 365, and I don't blink at the $99/year subscription fee. Everyone gets a terabyte of OneDrive cloud service, and the latest Office 365 applications if they want them. I did install the applications in my MacBook Air, but on my Ubuntu laptop and my Windows 8.1 laptop I just use the web versions of Word, OneNote, etc. Anyway a good deal.
If Microsoft charges a small charge for Windows updates, which I don't think they will, I probably won't mind.
I doubt that they will ask for subscription for the OS itself. I think they are more likely to go the iOS/Android route and will try to monetize Windows with the App store introduced in Windows 8.
And of course owning the Desktop OS market continues to put them in a strong position in the profitable enterprise market which doesn't mind paying for features and support.
Apple's move a few years ago towards yearly OS releases has drawn a lot of flak on HN for allegedly decreasing software quality. I don't know to what extent this is an inevitable result of the cadence versus simply Apple not having a good process at present (and to what extent the effect is mere confirmation bias...), but I wonder if people will start saying the same about Microsoft.
This isn't what OS X is doing, though. Some OS X updates are shipped too early, in order to hit a WWDC deadline. Apple is getting better at that though, by shipping major new features in OS updates throughout the year.
Previous Windows updates were shipped too slowly, due to having to amass enough updates to justify a three digit price tag. Now, updates to Windows will be shipped to consumers when they're ready. No predetermined release schedule. I would compare this strategy more to evergreen browsers like Chrome.
So a bit like Chromebook's constantly updating Chrome.
If people can opt out of automatic updates, the only difference I see here is the update mechanism and its default setting. Apple has to change 1 thing on its iOS updates to do the same.
The obvious question is, how are we going to pay for this?
With no periodic releases of new versions, it seems that Windows 10 will either be a subscription based service or, in all likelihood, a collection of subscription based services and extra features with a free, but spartan, core.
It's an interesting move, but I suspect MS is severely underestimating the backlash that will exist against monthly OS subscription payments.
How could you buy someone a laptop with windows on it? They'd have to pay a subscription forever? Or would it be like a phone, where it'd seem odd not paying every month.
Once steam boxes are out and popular, I doubt I'll be using windows again.
The Alienware Alpha is NOT a Steam Machine. It was supposed to be, but Valve couldn't figure out their shit soon enough, so they sold it as a normal small-form-factor PC before the hardware became obsolete.
Steam Machines won't be launched until at least November[0]. Anything launched before then, whether it has SteamOS or Windows configured to boot to Steam is just a PC.
I'm curious as to how much revenue/profit Microsoft still makes from the desktop line of Windows. Would setting desktop Windows free really hurt revenues at Microsoft that much? I'm not denying that each release of Windows requires engineering effort.
I figured most of Microsoft's profits come from software and services running on-top Windows, so SQL Server, Office, etc... Perhaps still charge for Windows Server, but let the Desktop and Mobile versions go free.
I'd have thought that Microsoft still sells a monumental pile of Desktop licenses to business because a) they've got the money b) they don't want to risk being caught without legal licenses.
In fact I've felt that up until around the last 5 years Windows was primarily focused on business users and consumers were just a happy bonus because what else were they going to run?
So I could see them giving away a version that can't join a domain (no use to business) for consumers, but I'd be very surprised if they did the same for business customers.
They still make a lot of money off of Windows desktop.
In 2014 they changed how they report segment revenue, but as of 2013 the Windows division (non server) had $19 billion in sales for that fiscal year. Revenue for Windows desktop is down a bit from there (perhaps 8%-10%) according to reports throughout 2014.
The operating income on that $19 billion was $9.5 billion. Needless to say it's still a wildly profitable cash cow for Microsoft, albeit a declining business.
The vast majority of that is businesses paying ~$140/copy for the enterprise edition. In fact, if you are under an EA, it's in violation of the agreement to use any version but Enterprise.
Your monthly subscription payments will come in the form of monthly Azure payments. People will accept that. This isn't 1996 anymore. People don't buy desktops, and laptops will soon be obsolete too. When your phone has a processor powerful enough to do all the work a consumer could ever want, there will be 3 main markets. Mobile, Server, and Gaming. Now they probably could keep charging for the OS for the gaming PC's, but servers and mobile are moving in directions other then Windows. Plus I think a lot of gamers were stealing windows anyways... so doesn't make sense to concentrate on that market.
Anyone can use Azure. They even have Linux distros available. Deploy what you want. Get charged micro transactions for CPU time. When your machine in the cloud is off, you only have a storage fee. Consumers won't really notice and Azure is priced to compete against other cloud providers.
Piracy will come back with a vengeance. I don't know how they'll tell people who go buy their laptops that they have to pay a monthly subscription if they want to keep using it.
The upgrade from Windows 7 and 8.1 to Windows 10 will be free the first year. It won't be free in 2017!
It's still unclear if you get an upgrade license or a full license of Windows 10. The first one would mean, if you ever need to reinstall the PC/Notebook (harddisk/ssd crash), you would have to install Win7/8 and then upgrade to Win10 again (if the key allows that and is still valid in e.g. 2017).
ReactOS is an attempt that building an open source version of Windows XP/7. It uses source code from WINE and it aims for better compatibility with legacy apps by using a WinNT-like OS-Kernel: http://www.reactos.org
No, you are going to pay all the monthly subscriptions at once up front before you buy the laptop. It will work like this average laptop life span is say 42 months, and the monthly fee is $1.50. So the cost of a windows license is 42 * $1.50 = $66
which is baked into the price of the laptop. Microsoft will use more accurate numbers but the concept is unchanged.
I always get such a kick out of how silly this is. There is no reason people won't continue to have both mobile and desktop. When 'mobile' reaches the computer power of desktop, and screen size, and input, then it will be a desktop. They aren't mutually exclusive.
And it will be glorious. Though I doubt we'll see it in the next 10 years in the phone formfactor. Tablets might be there soon, the Surface Pro certainly is close already.
I doubt they will do that for personal devices. I think they will have two tiers: personal and enterprise. Personal would essentially be bundled up with PCs for "free" to the end-users with money coming from the OEMs. They will then "upsell" the likes of Office for a subscription.
But I find the subscription concept interesting for enterprise customers who are already used to it. Bundle support services and extra add-ons tailored to enterprises in general or particular industry, could have a huge potential for them.
I don't think Microsoft makes much money off of shrinkwrap copies of Windows. Almost everyone I know just sticks with the version of Windows that came with the computer, and when they switch to a newer version it's because they bought a new computer that comes with it preinstalled.
The probable advantage to Microsoft is that they have a less disjointed platform to support. For example apps released for the app store don't run on Windows 7 and earlier, and apps that work on Windows 7 and earlier can't be put on the app store. That sort of thing has been an enormous success killer for some of Microsoft's newer business initiatives, and that in turn means it's a threat to the long-term success of the company.
It might also save on development costs. 3-year release cycles mean you're at great risk of sinking tons and tons of resources into gold plating ideas that ultimately bomb on the market. This new approach means they can fail fast, which means they should be able to produce value more efficiently.
They were still making $20 - $30 per license sold from major vendors like HP and Dell. They move millions of units per year. That is a lot of revenue to throw away.
That copy of windows does add at least $100 (or your regional equivalent) to the price of the computer, so it's not free but it's bundled with the other parts so hidden away. Out of sight out of mind.
> and apps that work on Windows 7 and earlier can't be put on the app store.
They announced that win32 based apps will have the possibility to be on the store - in one of the videos from build they even used Photoshop as an example.
Apple did that too with OS X. And a year later, the forced you to add the application to their store. Opening a third party application that is not blessed from Apple/store shows a warning to the casual end user. It's up to Microsoft to go the same route, or not.
I doubt they sold that many operating system upgrades to consumers anyway, and corporations might be decidedly less hostile to subscription based licensing/support packages if they're getting upgrade paths that preserve backward compatibility for their custom software and less unwanted complication and indirect expense than the major OS update every four years.
They undoubtedly make enough money on the sale of licensing to new devices that standalone installs are an afterthought, and the income from new device licensing means that supporting "older" devices (while continuing to keep the OS fresh) is trivial, cost-wise.
Potentially they could keep the same model they have now. Even though the updates are ongoing, people will not use the same computer forever. With automatic updates, Microsoft gains greater control over the performance profile of Windows, too. (ever tried sticking with the same iPhone for more than a couple of iOS versions?)
Presumably, we're not -- updates will be free, and the policy "pays" from increased focus and less disruption within Microsoft's product strategy. After a period, they only need maintain one version, and none of the updates can hurt adoption.
In other words, they've just announced that they're not going to pull another Vista or Windows 8 that damaged their brand, and neither are they going to make the mistake of supporting XP for so many many years again.
There won't be monthly subscriptions. OEMs will keep buying Windows for new machines and enterprises will keep buying software assurance licenses and 99% of Windows revenue will stay exactly the same.
Office365/OneDrive are doing well too. Anecdotally, I and many of my peers and family have taken out $120/yr family subscriptions, which is probably pretty close to - if not erring on the higher side of - the annual cost of Windows OS amortised over the frequency with which I/they replaced or added computers.
Amusingly, of 10+, I now only have one computing device running Windows at all (and it defaults to booting Ubuntu anyway), and yet Microsoft is still taking my money!
Office365 is a subscription service and can get quite expensive - if one compares it to a traditional Office 2003 or 2010 (comparable) license that is often used for 5+ years.
It seems they're planning on selling your data, and locking you in to their other services.
I recently tried out the Win10 tech preview. It's very very hard to disable internet searching whenever you try and find a file, and it's even worse to try and remove OneDrive.
Granted, this is a tech preview, so disabling this will probably be a tiny bit easier in the future, but I think it gives an indication as to the direction Microsoft is moving. Yet another advertising company.
I tried windows 8.1 for a while on my gaming desktop pc. Aside from the awful metro garbage thrown on top of the OS (which can be removed / turned off) It was quite unstable, all my games would randomly crash, even the mouse exhibited weird behaviour and bugs. I went back to 7, everything is fine now. I get the impression windows 10 will be more of the same, this is just pushing me more and more towards using linux all the time, now that linux gaming is becoming more and more viable also.
Also MS are starting to act like apple, intentionally crippling their software. For example to develop windows store apps, you need windows 8 or higher, you cant just download the sdk for windows 7 even though it has the same kernel as 8 and is essentially the same OS. Also the development process for windows store is horrible and unnecessarily complicated (compared to say android development which is very developer friendly). Also in order to force people to move to windows 8 MS have made some optimisations to directx that they have not released for 7 even though once again there is absolutely nothing preventing it except for their attempt to manipulate their users.
Yeah, windows store development is as bad as iOS development. A very low bar. I've developed for iOS and I get the impression MS are following apples lead here.
I cant abide when something pragmatic has its design intentionally made less useful for arbitrary reasons.
As I said, I'm fine, I'm just going more and more towards linux, where the goal is to make the OS as useful as possible and most importantly empower the user rather than the other way around. I just still have to use windows 8 and osx in work.
That sucks! The OS's job is to allow you do use the computer to do what you want and not get in the way. Having to implement various workarounds and fixes for many different applications (which I'm sure will conflict with one another at some stage) means windows 8.1 is a failure as an OS.
Microsoft broke their API model with Vista and 7. The last version of Windows that didn't have this problem was Windows XP. That is why so many businesses stick with XP because it runs their business apps without compatibility issues.
Vista and above has compatibility issues and it needs workarounds like I explained to get things to work.
Windows 7 added a better compatibility mode and fixed some of the flaws with Vista. It even added a Windows XP mode in the Enterprise and Pro and up editions to download an XP virtual machine. To get some software to work.
But Microsoft abandoned XP support, and is forcing companies and people to upgrade.
I know a lot of people and businesses still on XP/Vista because it came with their PC, and their software works with it so they stick with it.
The whole reason why Apple sells a lot of Macs is that Windows has become so awful to support legacy apps that people don't mind paying more for an alternative that works better and apps just install without issues on a Mac.
Some are going to Linux, and Linux as a web server does a better job than Windows Server 2012. Microsoft sells Azure services for people who can't figure out how to set up a Windows Server or a Windows machine.
Microsoft lost $1.89B on Surface Tablets and Windows 8.X sales. It is the real reason why Steve Ballmer was forced into early retirement. They used the Metro/Modern UI which is confusing and they broke compatibility that needs tricks to get around it. They got rid of the Start Menu, etc. The changes made it worse to the average user experience.
I really don't see Windows 10 addressing the compatibility issues, an the Start Menu they use is quite a bit different from the XP/Vista/7 Start Menu.
It is an attempt that building an open source version of Windows based on XP etc. It uses source code from WINE, and it aims for better compatibility with legacy apps.
Microsoft is getting into the software subscription model.
Remember Office 365? You don't own a copy of Office, you only rent it per year and when updates come out you get the updates as long as you keep paying.
Windows 10 is going to be a software subscription model. They'll most likely have a free upgrade version but it is limited in features. If you want more features you will have to buy a subscription.
They already announced a Windows 10.1 codenamed Redstone. So each Windows update will have a 10 in front of it for now on. Will Microsoft charge for upgrading to 10.1? Who knows? Instead of service packs, they just do what Apple does and add a new number after the 10 and call in a minor version or whatever.
I got a feeling pirated Windows users will get a free update that is basically a Starter Edition with limits on it, and they have to buy a subscription to get out of the limited version.
Apple bundles the OS with the hardware. Once you buy a Mac, you get free OSX updates until they no longer support your model for the new OSX versions. The cost of OSX is bundled in the price of the Mac, which is why Macs cost more than PCs.
Microsoft cannot do that because OEMs sell PCs and bundle Windows with it. A totally different business model than Apple has. Steve Ballmer tried to copy the Apple Business Model with Surface Tablets and the Microsoft Store, and he failed.
I don't see it as totally different. The vast majority of Windows users get their license with their PC purchase. That's where Microsoft makes the bulk of their money. I suspect most users never upgrade from that version unless they buy a new PC. So giving free upgrades is not a big loss for Microsoft; it was never a big income generator.
I've paid money for Windows updates as well but I know I'm in the minority. The vast majority of consumers don't do it. The vast majority of businesses have their own licensing agreements.
Which is why the Enterprise editions are not eligible for free upgrades to Windows 10. They want businesses to do their licensing directly with Microsoft.
I'm thinking of this as something similar to how OS X releases work. There's a way to get the distribution you need without having to start from OS X 10.0 Cheetah and upgrading all the way.
If you bought Windows XP in recent years, the DVD already installed Windows XP together with the latest available Service Pack. If you buy Windows 8 right now it automatically installs Windows 8.1 from the disk. It will work similarly for Windows 10, regardless of the nomenclature they are going to decide on.
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[ 4.6 ms ] story [ 282 ms ] threadThe only downside is that you have to really plan out deprecating features. It's easy to drop features when going from major release to major release, but in a rolling update, you need to give developers a heads up that things are about to change and give them time to fix things in their code.
OSX does have mini patch update. It seems like their new version is always bleeding edge, yosemite had major wifi drop issue even though they supposely fixed it with a few patches.
The article made it seem like there is no more major version and just Window 10 and bunch of patches/features?
Microsoft is even stopping on Windows 10!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Subspecies_of_Canis_lu...
Windows 10 Dingo. Would be funny.
Windows 10 chihuahua
Windows 10 chinook
Windows 10 chippiparai
Windows 10 chowchow
If there is no subscription then how will they charge users - per "major update"? Like some sort of Windows 10.1? What would happened to the Windows 10 users who don't want to pay for that update then? Do they still get security fixes?
Perhaps they don't see Windows as the cash cow that it once was and will make all upgrades free.
Edit: if this [1] reuters article is true (I couldn't find a reference on Microsoft's site), they are also including pirated versions...
[0] http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-10/about
[1] http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/03/18/us-microsoft-china...
Basically they'd be betting the Windows franchise on enough people upgrading their hardware every year that fees from upgraders' new licenses could support all the free riders who didn't upgrade that year.
[1] Arguably the first sale doctrine means that this might not be a restriction Microsoft can impose at the legal layer. But they'd certainly to get around any such restriction by trying to implement it at the technology layer with DRM -- refusing to provide any supported way to move their license from one machine to another.
Of course any technological restriction will always boil down to a conditional jump instruction that can be patched out, which leads to a kind of "arms race" between the pirates and the DRM. Recently there was an HN article about a (rather old) piece of software which contained multiple piracy checks to sabotage the long-term user experience of pirated versions in a way that wouldn't be immediately obvious (so users would be punished for using illegal versions, but the long-term checks would be subtle enough to slip past crackers' QA and they'd likely ship partially cracked versions that didn't patch all the checks that needed to be patched). Including deliberately deleting user data after prolonged use: http://starmen.net/mother2/gameinfo/antipiracy/
Now, with windows 10, my security updates will come bundled with my unwanted OS changes. I doubt microsoft will let people opt out of unwanted cloud-based security risks or crazy interface experiments.
[this will] let Microsoft tinker more with the software to test new features and see how customers like them
you're wrong. IE/Edge has the same type of updating, and it can and ill always be opt-outable because of the enterprise.
As someone else mentioned, to support the enterprise Microsoft makes updates piecemeal and optional.
So, MS already pulled a stunt like that recently, why they would not do it again, specially if they want people to use some shiny new tech part of their 3e strategy?
Because I DIDN'T want Windows 8.1 installed, at all.
Unless you think this tutorial is useless and people invented it because they are liars too:
http://www.askvg.com/how-to-stop-automatic-forced-upgrade-fr...
But it shows that Microsoft changes things that I may or may not want. They changed the "F12" Developer Tools in a significant way, basically completely replaced it with a completely new version with its positive and negative sides. And they introduced a "Search web" Bing search search box directly on the "New Tab" page that cannot be changed or removed. It also ignores the default search provider is DDG and not Bing.
I really liked IE since v4 and used it ever since Windows 95 with IE4 shell upgrade that made Win95 look like Win98. But the new Microsoft is the same as the old one, maybe even worse given their software as a service mentality. I won't upgrade to Edge/IE12 and maybe not even to Win10. Win7 is perfectly fine until 2022. And afterwards maybe we all use Android or a Web based OS like Chromium/FirefoxOS and Microsoft screwed up their Windows to irrelevancy/legacy.
This is going to be utter and complete chaos for any organization that performs strict change management and compatibility testing. It's already hard enough to push out normal security updates for some organizations, so having to mix in feature or even kernel changes is going to be a nightmare...
http://blogs.windows.com/business/2015/01/30/windows-10-for-...
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/LTS
A significant proportion of 'change management' is pointless, box-ticking bureaucracy and achieves nothing. Just look at any large company's mostly semi-broken IT systems!
Critical infrastructure probably shouldn't be running on desktop Windows anyway, so it's not going to affected. At the other end of the spectrum, if Bob in Marketing's copy of Microsoft Word stops working for a day or two while Microsoft patches something - well, who cares. Hopefully the benefits from a rolling-release system will outweigh that.
Hopefully continuously-updated operating systems will encourage enterprise software vendors to avoid using undocumented/non-standard features, and we'll all be better off.
Why would such a problem only hit one user, in a place that rolls out an SOE?
You answered your own question with this line:
"There are a variety of third party applications and workarounds that can effectively re-patch explorer.exe to completely disable Modern UI and bring back the old start menu (think Start Is Back)."
Making a deploy image that doesn't try to get computers to sign in to Microsoft's cloud services and doesn't require patching or extensive training is very much a problem. We skipped 8 like we skipped Vista.
The operating system is getting to be irrelevant in my world as an author and programmer.
Except for random settings that are kick you into a Metro settings app for no apparent reason. It feels a bit like they randomly put some settings into the Metro interface and left some settings in the Desktop interface.
Before as well as after patching away the annoying parts of the "modern" UI, Windows 8.1 just feels like Windows 7 with less consistent UI and more asking for that Microsoft account I don't want to have.
I'll stop you here: Why would I use an operating system so user-hostile that it's own advocates are saying "it's ok, lots of programs are available to unfuck it!", when the previous installment is on every level technically sound and doesn't require the unfucking?
So, serious question, what do you like better about Windows 7.
No Metro crap jumping all over you. And that's why I likely will migrate over to Linux once MS stops Win7 support.
And the Desktop app itself is sort of unstable, and classic shell is also sort of unstable, the combination result in lots of crashes, specially if you are having issues while trying to play some games (example: on my machine every time I scroll the map too much in Arcanum from Troika Games, it crashes, crashes the desktop, crashes the classic shell, and the mouse stops working completely... it is really amazing, it crashes so hard I am impressed instead of frustated).
- network management in Windows 7 was usable, whereas in 8.1 it is totally fucked
- Microsoft accounts are on their way to become mandatory, as creating a regular account is not user friendly and there's a big and scary warning when you go that route; they are basically trying to resurrect Windows Live ID
- Microsoft has started to force people on using their products - I could not figure out a way to turn OneDrive off completely, or to use anything other than Bing as the search engine in their "Search Everywhere" (this also happens on Windows Phone)
- I haven't seen a "modern Windows" app that I like, they are all pieces of crap, including stuff from Microsoft; modern Skype for example is lacking crucial functionality; their app store is filled with trademark-violating malware and I've never seen such a low quality app store
- from a usability perspective Windows 8 is a failure - there's something inherently different about a PC with 21 inch monitors, keyboard and mouse, versus a tablet, yet Windows tries to unify both worlds, becoming hostile in the process - see this funny video on the subject - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTYet-qf1jo
- of course, you can totally ignore the "modern Windows" side of the coin for now, except that's where Windows is headed
- I bought the standard edition, then I discovered that I needed the Pro version to get disk encryption or to connect to it through Remote Desktop; plus you need the Enterprise edition to make it boot from an USB stick - apparently Microsoft considers disk encryption and Remote Desktop to be meant for businesses and not for personal usage
- for software developers Cygwin is the only thing that makes Windows tolerable and Cygwin is awful
The only thing that Windows is good for is for playing games. I'm only keeping it around for playing Heroes of M&M 3 (the classic one) and Path of Exile.
And every time I try Windows, I end up appreciating just how awesome Linux is.
True confession: I tend to cycle slowly through OSX, Linux, and Windows 8.1 because I like a little change. Similar to programming languages. My strange way to have fun :-)
Last time I tried it, I could never be sure when my files had synched. OneDrive would just spin in the background, not even using much CPU or network bandwidth, and with no indication of what the hell it was doing, while the file I just edited remained unsynched for hours.
For a product that wanted people to give it the entire content of their hard drives, OneDrive was woefully inadequate at handling large amounts of data. I ended up copying files manually to the device where I needed them to be, relegating OneDrive to the role of an eventually consistent backup.
When my (paid) subscription was up, I canceled it and never used it again. Now I'm much happier with a 1TB plan at SpiderOak.
Such a shame too since they have the best pricing AFAIK. I wish they would just buy Dropbox, integrate it into Windows in place of OneDrive, and call it a day.
It seems to me that they are backing off metro/"modern Windows" more and more. 8.1 made boot to Desktop the default, they are bringing back the start menu in 10 and Metro apps will run in windows in 10.
The metroization is all over with its terrible blurry font rendering and gimped settings.
Pixel snapping and ClearType are what deliver sharp small fonts at the cost of less "accuracy" since the renderer may need to bump things around by half a pixel or so.
Some people don't care/notice or simply prefer the antialiased look. Up until Win 8/10, this was a choice at the system level, generally.
ClearType was also the subject of some stupid partner-level politics inside of MS, actual end user experience be damned.
Not long and Xbox and Windows will be identical. And sadly, it will be the Xbox that has the dominant genes, UI wise at least.
It is all over their corporate speak, too. "Life time of device" when discussing the upgrade cycle of the OS... What is the life time of my PC that I built myself out of many different vendors offerings?
I, too am a bit worried that all this cloud business is getting more and more traction. When I saw the big warning "Not recommended" when trying to create a normal user account and not one of these windows online account deals I though "You can't be serious". Why would it not be recommended to use a local account which was the norm for so long? Unless they already plan many changes to the OS which would leave users with local accounts in the dust so better to try and convert as many people to our online accounts as possible, they must think.
Either way, I am in the process of building a new rig. The old one didn't even have an i3/5/7 CPU to let you know how long I've been using my current PC. And on this new PC, Windows7 Ultimate will be running the show and I will be watching from the outside over the next 5 years minimum how this Win10 business develops. From my point of view they have 5 years to do a lot of 180s and actually make a Windows11 which will take the under-the-hood advancements of Win8-10 and plug that into Windows7 so we can actually have that Windows7 improvement we all want.
B: I've talked the to the person responsible for MS Accounts in Windows 8. Really cool, smart guy. It was a hard thing to get right, and their intentions were not malicious like it might seem. For most users, using an online account is simply the better solution. Their photos and documents will automatically sync. Apps will automatically sign in and work. They can enable full disk encryption without worrying about losing keys. Enthusiasts can make two extra clicks to avoid it. While it personally annoys me and makes machines easier to compromise (by government), it's the only competitive option for most consumers.
Windows 10 is unpolished and downright janky, but if they get it cleaned up, there's little doubt it'll be pretty well accepted. If they had kept the start menu and not made metro apps so dumb in Win 8, it'd have been fine. Though they do need to make calc and other simple apps open as fast as they do on my bloody phone...
More concerning is the Windows Store, which is a cesspool, and MS shows no signs of caring. I've spoken to several ISVs that simply cannot get MS to help or respond to removing fake/scam/phishing apps. Even Netflix had trouble with this, FFS.
According to this new policy, what will happen with retail licensing? I presume that it will be either very expensive, or available only for enterprise/volume licensing, or simply not available anymore. Now that would suck.
B: while I'm sure that their intentions weren't malicious, I strongly disagree with you and with them.
First of all, encryption on Windows 8.1 standard edition is only available if your hardware supports TPM and SecureBoot on ConnectedStandby. There's absolutely no reason for this limitation. Linux's dm-crypt or ecryptfs do not need it. DiskCryptor does not need it. I smell lock-in.
Also, what is the problem with available encrypting solutions? What is wrong with remembering and inserting a password which would be required only on boot and not on waking up from stand-by?
Also, I repeat ad nauseam my biggest problem with the NSA revelations - if the NSA has the capability of installing back-doors and to coerce companies into doing whatever they want, what's stopping organized crime syndicates from doing the same thing, possibly using NSA's trails OR with their cooperation? It's only a matter of cost. Therefore, an encryption method that's saving the keys on Microsoft's servers is extremely flawed and for no good reason.
This also reminds me of OneDrive versus OneDrive for Business. Basically OneDrive for consumers does not have versioning or a fucking log of the events that happened (like both Google Drive or Dropbox do), because by their own admission, that's for businessy/enterprisish things. If for whatever reason a file disappears, a file out of tens of thousands like I have - well, you'll never know when or how. And also, synchronizing things on-disk is extremely hard because at any moment you've got multiple sources of truth that contend on the same files, with no good way to synchronize shit, which means that all clients are more or less buggy. And regular folks are non-technical and they might not know how to look at the log of events and do debugging, or to recover previous versions of a file, but non-technical folks usually have friends or access to professionals for hire ;-)
And I'm thinking that this is my biggest problem with Microsoft (but not only them) - they treat regular people as dumb fucks that have to be hand-holdem, for a monthly subscription of course (which is a totally understandable thing, since you don't own anything). And then you discover that what Microsoft's notion of personal usage does not apply to you and so for the features you need you need the Awesome edition which costs at least twice, possibly available only on volume licensing.
Now, as far as the whole desktop market is concerned, OS X has always catered to grandmas and to software developers refugees from Linux or other Unixes, Linux has always catered to die-hard backend software developers, while Windows has always catered to the people in between, the middle of the bell curve, the people that can get around their computer, but that don't know its internals, the power users. What we are seeing now is that Microsoft has totally lost the developer mind-share and the results are showing - Microsoft has lost the Internet-wide server-side and its app ecosystem only holds because of inertia, otherwise Apple's ecosystem for native apps is way more attractive.
And now Microsoft is going to lose the power users too, because according to their new directions, their user base are only the grandmas and the dumb ones that never made it to high-school. They are even ignoring the needs of the enterprise. And if that wasn't enough, on ultra portables they are also competing with ...
> network management in Windows 7 was usable, whereas in 8.1 it is totally fucked
I have zero problems with network management. It has not changed how you do it from the CLI, and the GUI is just different. If your definition of "totally fucked" includes "new GUI", then I'm not sure what to say. I agree that it's a step back from Windows 7, but saying it's totally fucked is downright wrong.
> Microsoft accounts are on their way to become mandatory, as creating a regular account is not user friendly and there's a big and scary warning when you go that route; they are basically trying to resurrect Windows Live ID
I was throughly against the Microsoft ID to start with, but for other reasons I had to get one and since I use multiple PCs it has actually been a positive experience for me. I see that as a good thing, and if you don't like it you can still create a local account. The warning is fair, because a lot of the new functionality depend on the MSID.
> Microsoft has started to force people on using their products - I could not figure out a way to turn OneDrive off completely
Nobody is forcing you to use OneDrive, it's a feature and if you don't like it don't use it. Simple as that. You either do not use a MSID as your login or disable it as this (http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/onedrive/wiki/sdinstall-s...) MS article instructs. Just because you cannot remove an integral part of the OS because you don't like it, doesn't mean it's bad. It actually benefits a lot of people.
> or to use anything other than Bing as the search engine in their "Search Everywhere" (this also happens on Windows Phone)
And? Of course they want you to use Bing and not a competitor - I'm sure you'd be just as outraged if they offered a version of windows without bing for an extra cost.
> I haven't seen a "modern Windows" app that I like, they are all pieces of crap, including stuff from Microsoft; modern Skype for example is lacking crucial functionality; their app store is filled with trademark-violating malware and I've never seen such a low quality app store
Valid points. MS needs to step up their game, and developers need to take the Windows Store more serious.
> from a usability perspective Windows 8 is a failure - there's something inherently different about a PC with 21 inch monitors, keyboard and mouse, versus a tablet, yet Windows tries to unify both worlds, becoming hostile in the process - see this funny video on the subject - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTYet-qf1jo
That simply is not true (that is a failure). The video is just a circlejerk full of hyperbole and the last 1m40s contains the essence of it. It was really hard to take it seriously. Yes the forced "Metro UI" was not good for desktop, fortunately it just meant an extra mouse click and it's gone. That is it, and MS even admitted it improved it a lot with 8.1 and Windows 10 is even more of an improvement as a result.
> of course, you can totally ignore the "modern Windows" side of the coin for now, except that's where Windows is headed
You obviously haven't really looked at the changes from 8 -> 8.1 -> 10, because they've, A: admitted that it was poor UI, B: toned it down a lot and committed to making it a good UI instead.
> I bought the standard edition, then I discovered that I needed the Pro version to get disk encryption or to connect to it t...
I tried skydrive on windows 7 when skydrive was first released, and instructed it to sync a few specific folders. I didn't like it enough to keep using it, so I uninstalled it and forgot about it.
In order to upgrade from 8 to 8.1, I had to put my microsoft account into the system (because the update was only offered through the store). Upon finishing the update, it immediately downloaded everything that had been in the "my documents" folder of my desktop when I had first tried skydrive, two years prior.
I never told it to sync "my documents" during that trial run, and I didn't know those files had been sitting on microsofts server for all that time. I had legal documents stored in there.
Windows 8.1 does things without asking me. Windows 10 will do the same. I don't want them to.
I shouldn't have to spend large amounts of effort making sure my own computer isn't doing things behind my back, regardless of whether microsofts engineers mean the best or not.
If I could remove skydrive (and cortana in win10, and whatever other new ~cloud~ features they dream up), I wouldn't care, but apparently it's all "integrated", so I can't remove it. Consumption is mandatory, it would seem.
Well I'm sorry, but I've worked jobs where the penalty for retaining information you no longer have official need for is 2 years prison. The penalty for leaking information in my current job is "merely" losing my job and consequently being deported.
I don't trust windows 8.1, and I don't trust windows 10. The best word to describe both operating systems is "treacherous".
Cortana can be disabled, or never turned on even.
I for one will not upgrade to Windows 10 until other people have identified all of the crappy cloud-based features (Microsoft Account, OneDrive/SkyDrive, Cortana, etc.) and written blogs on how to disable them permanently. Then I will do a clean install, disable all the crap, and only then connect the external drive that contains all my files.
Most people, though, will not be so cautious. If something is enabled by default, 99.9% of users will just keep it enabled, even if it's possible to disable it. After all, that's the whole point of enabling something by default.
Honestly, as a person who primarily uses Windows over my Mac or Linux boxes, I do wonder if this is a harbinger for Microsoft where people just stop using it. I hated how bad Windows 8 was, but I didn't expect the general consumer public to have the same reaction. I can't see them being happy with the lack of stability and clunkiness that Microsoft seems hell-bent on implementing.
It won't be my primary OS--nothing without zsh will be, and Cygwin isn't sufficient--but I really enjoy using Windows computers again, which I honestly never thought I would say after I switched to OS X.
Yuck. Why?
Lack of depth in 8 makes it harder to figure out which window is in focus and which ones are on top of others.
Had this experience with Mac OS X. For 10.4 they switched to a new, dynamically linked libstdc++ that used the new Itanium C++ ABI. 10.3 had a statically linked libstdc++ and the old ABI.
They pushed out an OS update that installed the new libstdc++ on 10.3, breaking linking against libstdc++ with standard cxxflags. You see they had integrated cross-compilation for 10.3 into the new Xcode on 10.4, and didn't give a shit about people who were still compiling stuff on 10.3.
I decided after that that if Apple was going to break working compilation on my OS because I hadn't upgraded to the newest and shiniest, then they didn't really want my money. They seem to be doing OK without it, and I'm doing fine without them.
If Microsoft pulls this sort of stunt with Windows, then fuck everything about this change. They're such sticklers in the opposite direction, doing so much to ensure backward-compatible everything that the house of cards sometimes comes crashing down, that I don't think that will be a problem with Windows 10+x.
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201222
I was under the impression that they are currently updating 10.8 to 10.0 (if it affects all these releases).
https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT204659
https://truesecdev.wordpress.com/2015/04/09/hidden-backdoor-...
Are they backporting this?
This isn't really a thing, not anywhere near the level of Vista.
You're more of a luddite in this behavior than I think you may realize.
Or are they just going to rely on people just paying for the convenience of having Windows pre-installed and working out of the box?
In all honesty, they'll probably do fine relying on the latter.
1) as others are suggesting, they'll adopt Apple's versioning model putting everything under the windows 10 umbrella.
2) they are setting the table for a rebranding/replacement of Windows in the same fashion as they are doing with IE.
That said, I'd agree that it'd be a bad move to rebrand Windows just yet. Then again, DOS was a well-known and well-liked brand too.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Up_to_eleven
This would work especially well coupled with the global "floating identities" introduced through signing in with your Microsoft Account. The image I would have is of Windows being automatically updated either way, but preventing sign-in to Microsoft Accounts whose subscriptions have lapsed (save for some limited kiosk functionality related to renewing the subscription, and local administrator access for fixing Internet connectivity et al.)
Personally, I like the rolling model. Chromebook is probably best example for regular users.
If I had a penny every time I had to help a friend with a failed Ubuntu upgrade...
Why did you not type it into the CLI? If not a runlevel 3 perhaps with a tiling window manager.
I jest :-)
sudo pacman -Syu;
maybe a better take away is that microsoft will be maintaining their code and regularly pushing patches, as opposed to the very discrete service pack updates
More recently, it involes traveling to a solid internet connection, downloading incremental updates and distributing them on location.
In Australia, satellite internet was subsidized in the 2000s (and easily eligible). Now, although still subsidized to some extent, you're on your own if you're on a supported line but your telco doesn't have the capacity.
It's a damn nightmare when large software is distributed in this manner for people with insufficient network access.
Note, this experience is from a small family business point of view, without dedicated tech support.
Australians: vote for a government who will build 21st century infrastructure. It's going to get ugly when we run out of shit to dig up and sell to China.
What on earth is wrong with a progress bar and text drawn on the screen instead, like Snow Leopard??
I feel like i could reply to half the top level posts with this link:
http://blogs.windows.com/business/2015/01/30/windows-10-for-...
>January 30, 2015
> this is much more than a one-time upgrade: once a Windows device is upgraded to Windows 10, we will continue to keep it current via Windows Update for the supported lifetime of the device – at no cost.
>We think of this as Windows as a Service
>we are introducing a new approach for business customers, which we are referring to as the Current branch for Business. By putting devices on the Current branch for Business, enterprises will be able to receive feature updates after their quality and application compatibility has been assessed in the consumer market, while continuing to receive security updates on a regular basis. This gives IT departments’ time to start validating updates in their environments the day changes are shipped broadly to consumers, or in some cases earlier, if they have users enrolled in the Windows Insider Program.
>Based on what we are hearing from customers, we expect most will take a mixed approach in how they keep their Windows 10 systems up to date. They will likely target a different pace of updates for different users and systems, depending on the specific business needs of each group.
etc.
It's Sunday and it finally got picked up. It happens. I submitted it a while back and its just when people see it.
Maybe "re-framed" for frankly lazy tech "journalists" is a more accurate summation of what occurred?
ReactOS is an attempt to build an open source version of Windows XP/7. It uses source code from WINE and it aims for better compatibility with legacy apps and drivers by developing a WinNT-like OS-Kernel: http://www.reactos.org/screenshots
Also - yes I know they are saying they will support Windows 10 for the lifetime of the device it was bought with,but I doubt it will work like this for enterprise users.
Visual Studio 2010 and the dotNet Framework work fine in WINE: https://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=applicatio... . VS run as early as 2003 in ReactOS: http://virtuallyfun.superglobalmegacorp.com/wordpress/wp-con...
As ReactOS also supports the Windows graphic card driver from NVidia, AMD and Intel - it's for sure an upcoming alternative to Windows. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ReactOS . Beside that more and more Indie-game-developers support Mac & Linux (PR via Humble Bundle), and beside Indie: GOG and Steam (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam_Machine_(hardware_platfor... ) are going strong too.
If there was an real free alternative to windows where all the specialized software worked i am dead sure companies would start to use it. But at this moment there is no such alternative.
Bugs are often easy to locate and fix, if one can reproduce it. A small donation usually helps open projects.
But Microsoft and Sony will be both legally bound to help, in certain cases they could even pay for delays if their software is at fault. I would much prefer to have a showstopper bug in closed software, thank you.
Or am I missing something?
I bet 1000sek that you are not able to setup an game development studio focusing on ps4 games with only free/open software for example.
ReactOS is nothing more than (arguably pre-)alpha software. It's not possible, at this stage, to predict when and if it will ever reach sufficient stability and security. If you follow the project closely, you will realize how complex an O/S is, and how fundamentally it needs big backing (which it doesn't have) to reach maturity.
WINE is not an alternative to an O/S. Specifically, it's a layer which needs to be evaluated on a per-case (application) basis; it's not (and it's not meant to be) a universal solution (which an O/S needs to be). Of course, ideas about tweaking WINE instead of fully porting software (see Carmack) are interesting, but again, that wouldn't make it a generic replacement.
If there is a real benefit for companies, things can change fast ... see the history of UNIX and Linux. ReactOS is where Linux was in 1996.
Windows XP and 7/8/10 supports several driver models (incl. legacy) and drivers models are in user- and kernel-mode. So for most devices it's not a problem. The display driver model changed with Vista; Win2000 display driver are still supported. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Driver_Model , http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Display_Driver_Model , http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Driver_Frameworks
Not to be confused with actual lifetime of the device.
I can see consumers being annoyed have to pay every month to use the computer now. With the current versioned releases the consumer has a choice whether to pay for the upgrade or not.
In the enterprise space I dont see how this will work. There are plenty of reasons that some companies are still clinging to Windows XP. For a large company to give up control over exactly what is on each computer and be able to plan long term is a non starter. Would we then see yearly "cumulative packs" being offered that can be tested prior to release?
Would there be a central tool provided by Microsoft for the enterprise customers that will allow them to control the exact feature versions, fixes etc for every computer centrally and that way to cumulative upgrades?
I would love for Microsoft to come out with a new Next Generation Operating system that breaks compatibility even more than Windows NT did back in the day. I think its long overdue but unfortunately i don't see it happening anytime soon.
They are investing a lot now in trying to use as much of the codebase as possible across all of their targeted devices. I
Yeah, I'm wondering if Canonical's marketing department is readying the champagne.
If Microsoft charges a small charge for Windows updates, which I don't think they will, I probably won't mind.
And of course owning the Desktop OS market continues to put them in a strong position in the profitable enterprise market which doesn't mind paying for features and support.
Previous Windows updates were shipped too slowly, due to having to amass enough updates to justify a three digit price tag. Now, updates to Windows will be shipped to consumers when they're ready. No predetermined release schedule. I would compare this strategy more to evergreen browsers like Chrome.
If people can opt out of automatic updates, the only difference I see here is the update mechanism and its default setting. Apple has to change 1 thing on its iOS updates to do the same.
With no periodic releases of new versions, it seems that Windows 10 will either be a subscription based service or, in all likelihood, a collection of subscription based services and extra features with a free, but spartan, core.
It's an interesting move, but I suspect MS is severely underestimating the backlash that will exist against monthly OS subscription payments.
Once steam boxes are out and popular, I doubt I'll be using windows again.
[0] http://store.steampowered.com/sale/steam_machines
I figured most of Microsoft's profits come from software and services running on-top Windows, so SQL Server, Office, etc... Perhaps still charge for Windows Server, but let the Desktop and Mobile versions go free.
In fact I've felt that up until around the last 5 years Windows was primarily focused on business users and consumers were just a happy bonus because what else were they going to run?
So I could see them giving away a version that can't join a domain (no use to business) for consumers, but I'd be very surprised if they did the same for business customers.
In 2014 they changed how they report segment revenue, but as of 2013 the Windows division (non server) had $19 billion in sales for that fiscal year. Revenue for Windows desktop is down a bit from there (perhaps 8%-10%) according to reports throughout 2014.
The operating income on that $19 billion was $9.5 billion. Needless to say it's still a wildly profitable cash cow for Microsoft, albeit a declining business.
I think Microsoft is really spot on here.
Leverage their desktop monopoly to gain market share in the cloud? Sounds familiar. Maybe Azure is just part of Windows, like IE?
It's still unclear if you get an upgrade license or a full license of Windows 10. The first one would mean, if you ever need to reinstall the PC/Notebook (harddisk/ssd crash), you would have to install Win7/8 and then upgrade to Win10 again (if the key allows that and is still valid in e.g. 2017).
ReactOS is an attempt that building an open source version of Windows XP/7. It uses source code from WINE and it aims for better compatibility with legacy apps by using a WinNT-like OS-Kernel: http://www.reactos.org
This was the original vision for Ubuntu Phone
It will never be the case that everyone wants the exact same tradeoffs.
But I find the subscription concept interesting for enterprise customers who are already used to it. Bundle support services and extra add-ons tailored to enterprises in general or particular industry, could have a huge potential for them.
The probable advantage to Microsoft is that they have a less disjointed platform to support. For example apps released for the app store don't run on Windows 7 and earlier, and apps that work on Windows 7 and earlier can't be put on the app store. That sort of thing has been an enormous success killer for some of Microsoft's newer business initiatives, and that in turn means it's a threat to the long-term success of the company.
It might also save on development costs. 3-year release cycles mean you're at great risk of sinking tons and tons of resources into gold plating ideas that ultimately bomb on the market. This new approach means they can fail fast, which means they should be able to produce value more efficiently.
If not, they still could charge for OEM licenses bundled to hardware.
They announced that win32 based apps will have the possibility to be on the store - in one of the videos from build they even used Photoshop as an example.
In other words, they've just announced that they're not going to pull another Vista or Windows 8 that damaged their brand, and neither are they going to make the mistake of supporting XP for so many many years again.
Amusingly, of 10+, I now only have one computing device running Windows at all (and it defaults to booting Ubuntu anyway), and yet Microsoft is still taking my money!
I recently tried out the Win10 tech preview. It's very very hard to disable internet searching whenever you try and find a file, and it's even worse to try and remove OneDrive.
Granted, this is a tech preview, so disabling this will probably be a tiny bit easier in the future, but I think it gives an indication as to the direction Microsoft is moving. Yet another advertising company.
So I could probably have phrased that better.
I cant abide when something pragmatic has its design intentionally made less useful for arbitrary reasons. As I said, I'm fine, I'm just going more and more towards linux, where the goal is to make the OS as useful as possible and most importantly empower the user rather than the other way around. I just still have to use windows 8 and osx in work.
Vista and above has compatibility issues and it needs workarounds like I explained to get things to work.
Windows 7 added a better compatibility mode and fixed some of the flaws with Vista. It even added a Windows XP mode in the Enterprise and Pro and up editions to download an XP virtual machine. To get some software to work.
But Microsoft abandoned XP support, and is forcing companies and people to upgrade.
I know a lot of people and businesses still on XP/Vista because it came with their PC, and their software works with it so they stick with it.
The whole reason why Apple sells a lot of Macs is that Windows has become so awful to support legacy apps that people don't mind paying more for an alternative that works better and apps just install without issues on a Mac.
Some are going to Linux, and Linux as a web server does a better job than Windows Server 2012. Microsoft sells Azure services for people who can't figure out how to set up a Windows Server or a Windows machine.
Microsoft lost $1.89B on Surface Tablets and Windows 8.X sales. It is the real reason why Steve Ballmer was forced into early retirement. They used the Metro/Modern UI which is confusing and they broke compatibility that needs tricks to get around it. They got rid of the Start Menu, etc. The changes made it worse to the average user experience.
I really don't see Windows 10 addressing the compatibility issues, an the Start Menu they use is quite a bit different from the XP/Vista/7 Start Menu.
I donated some money to the ReactOS project: https://www.reactos.org/
It is an attempt that building an open source version of Windows based on XP etc. It uses source code from WINE, and it aims for better compatibility with legacy apps.
The world did not want Windows 8.
Remember Office 365? You don't own a copy of Office, you only rent it per year and when updates come out you get the updates as long as you keep paying.
Windows 10 is going to be a software subscription model. They'll most likely have a free upgrade version but it is limited in features. If you want more features you will have to buy a subscription.
They already announced a Windows 10.1 codenamed Redstone. So each Windows update will have a 10 in front of it for now on. Will Microsoft charge for upgrading to 10.1? Who knows? Instead of service packs, they just do what Apple does and add a new number after the 10 and call in a minor version or whatever.
I got a feeling pirated Windows users will get a free update that is basically a Starter Edition with limits on it, and they have to buy a subscription to get out of the limited version.
Microsoft cannot do that because OEMs sell PCs and bundle Windows with it. A totally different business model than Apple has. Steve Ballmer tried to copy the Apple Business Model with Surface Tablets and the Microsoft Store, and he failed.
I bought Windows 8 Pro upgrade for $40 when it came out.
Microsoft might give Windows 10 out for free to make money on the Windows Store that sells apps, movies, music, and other things.