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Windows 10: Can Microsoft Get It Right This Time?
An anonymous reader shares this article about what Microsoft needs to accomplish with Windows 10 in order to make gains in the mobile market and everywhere else. "Later this week Microsoft will provide more details of Windows 10, most likely focusing on how the new operating system will look and feel on smartphones and tablets. According to Mary Jo Foley, Microsoft is likely to unveil a version of Windows 10 that's expected to work on Windows Phones and smaller Windows tablets running ARM and perhaps Intel processors. Microsoft will be hoping that by making it easier for developers to build for tablets and smartphones it can take some of its dominance of the desktop world and port that to the mobile world. That may help a bit, but will not in itself create the breakthrough that Microsoft wants: when it comes to mobile, Microsoft's Windows Phone is still a distant third in a two-horse race."
No.
They took the Windows 8 'core', upgraded it a bit, rejiggered some window effects, and re-added the desktop as primary for a desktop/laptop experience.
The only thing people hated about Windows 8 on a PC was the interface. If this gets rid of that it will not be as bad as Windows 8 which means they did something right...
Windows 8.1 isn't in need of being fixed, really. It's better than Windows 7, which was better than Windows 2000 (windows XP was a heaping pile of dung).
"Murphy was an optimist" - O'Toole's commentary on Murphy's Law
Right now, as the underdog, their focus should be marketshare. But right now, their mobile stuff is too damn expensive. I looked at a Surface tablet over Christmas. Nice piece of tech, but at $800 I just laughed and walked away. Similar Android tablets are less than $200.
They need to be pretty much giving this stuff away right now to pry the market away. Maybe do something like when they gave all MSDN subscribers a Pocket PC (I think that was around 2002) to get it out there. But they also need to make it competitive with Android stuff. Cheaper even.
After they capture market share, then there will be more people developing for it which will lead to more apps for it. But first they've got to get it into people's hands. That's not happening right now. There's a huge potential for Windows on all devices, PC and mobile, but they are acting like they already own the mobile space and instead they are a weak third party in the mobile game. They really should be questioning the wisdom of cannibalizing their desktop OS in a mad gamble to build mobile marketshare. I think they are going about it backwards.
"Getting it right" goes against their business model, they make more money selling you an expensive piece of crap OS, because they know it will be obsolete in a few years and they can sell you another copy of a new version of the same old piece of crap OS again
Like shooting at a moving invisible target = ReactOS will never win trying to catch up to running windows
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
In what way? Internally maybe. From a user perspective on a PC? Absolutely not.
Even if Windows 10 does correct the major UI issues from Windows 8 (as expected), the memory of Microsoft trying to ram Metro down users throats wont soon be forgotten. The fact that Microsoft was willing to sacrifice its desktop users on the alter of winning a new market (Tablets) will leave them wondering what surprises await them if they stay on with the Windows ecosystem.
It just has to be a lot less wrong than Windows 8.x. Enough so the corporates will eventually install it. Thats all that matters.
Just install Directory Opus for your file manager and be happy.
Microsoft brought back, I mean, Microsoft is incorporating the start menu for the consumer in Windows 10, so with that kind of technological advancement underway, they've clearly managed to catapult themselves 20 years ahead of the competition.
The people that will buy windows will continue to buy it. Mostly businesses, and home users still on the desktop paradigm.
Tablets, laptops and phones are another story, and unfortunately for MS, that's where THE story is these days.
The worst thing that ever happened in computers was that we had one monopoly, being Microsoft in the desktop market. Microsoft didn't even see the Internet coming when it was pushing MSN. If not for Trumpet I don't know how else you could connect. There was no native support. Still today I say the one think that is holding most companies back is Microsoft. Exchange and MS Office as two examples. Most people believe that these are the best of the best. but trying to have this discussion will just produce a flame war.
DRM? No thanks, I'll just get it somewhere else...
It's not about mobile. Windows 8, as a purely mobile, touchscreen OS, was okay. No major complaints there. The problem was that Windows 8 on Desktops, or even laptops with a touchscreen, tried to enforce an extremely oversimplified interface onto desktop users. Then to add insult to that, they had two parallel paradigms (Windows and Metro) and half the settings are in one place and half in the other. The solution is simple: they have to support both. The reason is just as simple. Right now I'm using my Lenovo Yoga 2 Pro as a laptop. So I want it to behave as a full featured desktop OS with all the power, control, widgets, bells and whistles I need to do all the things I need to do. As soon as I flip the screen around into a tablet mode, I need to be able to use it as a tablet.
I pretty much am at that state now with some 3rd party software, although again, half the settings are in Metro and half in classic Windows. So it's not like it would be all that hard for MS to get this right. They've just done the same thing they've done over, and over, and over. They take a paradigm or design philosophy, and push one or two steps too far.
The other big issue with Windows 8 is it had to bridge the divide between classic laptops, and the next generation laptops that have touchsreens. Metro with only a mouse? Awful. They force that on people, and the users hated it. Personally, I've only ever ran Windows 8.1 on my own machine that also had a touchscreen, so it wasn't nearly as bad.
Better known as 318230.
And with good reason: the default user interface of Windows 10 on desktop and "conventional" laptops is the Desktop user interface, not the "Modern" tiled interface that frustrated users transitioning to Windows 8.x to no end. As such, users of Windows 7, Vista and XP will be able to transition to Windows 10 quickly, and that means much higher consumer end user and corporate user acceptance this time around, meaning likely a much more "normal" upgrade cycle.
They've never managed to fuck up Windows 10 before!
Would it mean there would never be Windows 11? MS would only update Windows 10 like linux distributions are updated: one bit at a time?
If so, does the announcement of next Windows version always mean MS didin't get it right?
Wasn't Microsoft making noises about releasing a single OS which would be the same for a mobile device and a desktop?
In which case I expect a "one size fits some" approach, which will lead to a bloated mess on smaller devices.
Mobile devices aren't the same as desktops, don't have as much resources, and need to be a little more slimmed down -- like apps which weigh in at 10s of megs instead of gigs.
I'm just not sure Microsoft is going to hit the mark and not end up with something which is useless on at least one platform.
I don't want my tablet or my phone running the same OS as my desktop -- because that makes no sense unless you're just going to force the mobile devices to get even bigger.
Sometimes, I just think Microsoft has no real understanding of the markets they're chasing.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
In the HiPEAC conference a presenter showed today a graph plotting the resource requirement of the successive Windows versions. He was saying that hardware requirements have not changed in 3 versions now. This may mean that they are focusing on cleaning their OS.
The main complaint about Windows 8 was how it ran on desktops, not how it ran on tablets and smartphones, although there were plenty of complaints about the latter too. Leveraging their dominance of the desktop to move into mobile devices runs the risk of making the same mistakes with the desktop interface as last time. Or maybe make new variations on those mistakes.
Maybe the whole idea of trying to use desktop "leverage" *is* the problem.
If Windows 10 doesn't use the same installer for phones and desktops, then it's not the same OS.
Ah, I guess that means using a web installer vs. ISO gets you two different operating systems.
Gotcha.
All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
Windows 10 will just be another spyware ridden OS, it wont let you uninstall OneDrive, the Camera app, or the Windows Store. It seems like it'll have at least 2 browsers again, at least 2 calculator apps, and default search is "Everywhere" (sending your search queries to MS).
And in the darkness, spit up the blue screen of death.
You probably shouldn't. Do you ask that question for every piece of software that you don't use?
What?
I'm not sure you understand how Linux distributions are updated. They have major releases and patches just like Windows.
... take some of its dominance of the desktop world ...
Outside of the enterprise world, is Microsoft really dominant on the desktop anymore?
.
Anecdotally, it looks like Microsoft is losing its dominance in the consumer desktop world to Apple, i.e., Microsoft no longer enjoys the 90+% marketshare on the consumer desktops that it once had.
That they finally start with a package manager (or package manager manager) : OneGet which will integrate with Chocolatey is a big "right" in my book. As a Linux user for a decade, one of the strangest things in Windows-land has been that users still need to go to web-pages and download installers manually - which in it self poses a security risk since the average user might not verify that the web page is genuine. With an efficient software management (keep everything up-to-date) and installation eco-system, we can hope that a lot of the crapware littering download sites will go extinct (I have had to clean up various computers for friends and family running Windows - those running Linux did not need much support apart from the occasional upgrade). As a GUI front-end I find Chocolatey Explorer user friendly enough, but other options will most likely pop up later.
> Windows 10: Can Microsoft Get It Right This Time?
Outlook not so good
Microsoft had the window of opportunity to gain a foothold in the mobile market, but Ballmer screwed it all up.
The mobile ship has sailed. Microsoft had already admitted defeat by (grudingly?) porting Office to iOS and Android. Supposedly a Windows-exclusive killer app that could tempt people to Windows phones and tablets.
I have a Surface Pro and while it's nice it's still clunky as hell, Windows 10 will not fix this because honestly Windows is 100% crap for a touch interface. The software and OS are not designed for touch and therefore will be clunky.
Windows 10 for laptops.
Windows Touch for touch devices.
Stop trying to unify the two because IT WILL NOT WORK. windows 8 sucks horribly on a laptop but works nice on a tablet. windows 10 is awesome on a laptop but SUCKS on a tablet. (Yes I tried living with it on my surface pro for 4 weeks. it sucks as much as windows 7 does and windows 8.1 does when using non touch apps)
So unless they fire all their management and design teams and start over with people that understand that the two ecosystems are different and need to remain separate nothing will change.
Proof that your touch UI and OS is crap when your users of your flagship device use a mouse and keyboard with it most of the time.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Later this week Microsoft will provide more details of Windows 10, most likely focusing on how the new operating system will look and feel on smartphones and tablets (emphasis mine).
Or, in short, NO.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I've been using Win8 since it came out and haven't looked back. All the whiners about something (the start menu) that is used 0.000001% of one's time on the computer is truely a tribute to how whiny people are.
Why should I waste my time with Windows 10?
Why? Well, if you want to run Windows Applications :-)
And it's Windows 7, I haven't even looked at Windows 8.
Short Answer: No, you should not upgrade.
Long Answer: If you're interested in kernel side stuff, like most OS releases kernel changes are incremental. Here are a few :-
0) Secure Boot - With a chained OS boot you can be sure (well, its microsoft :P ) that your kernel mode components have been cryptographically verified. IIRC they started using this 10 years ago with the xbox 360. Ofcource the 360 security was promptly broken after people figured out how to patch the firmware, but I still think it is a nice-to-have feature.
1) Client side Hyper-V runs all OSs, including host OS on a thin hypervisor with minimal performance impact (Intels SLAT tech)
2) Native USB 3.0 , I've found that on Windows 7 third party usb 3.0 drivers are a hit/miss in terms of maximum performance.
3) Stricter LFH (Low fragmentation heap) Internals (guard pages, less determinism, etc) -Result - You're better guarded against buggy drivers and potentially malicious kernel mode components.
4) Newer API for driver mem alloc (NonPagedPoolNx) - IIRC windows kernel components have switched to using this. Result - Stability boost, Security boost - all kernel memory objects are in non excutable mem, etc
5) Uses Intels new-ish RDRAND instruction for a higher quality random number gen as the basis for ASLR
There's some nice nerd features: virtual desktops, Task View, Continuum, Matroska and FLAC support, package management. Runs very fast and the animations are smooth. I guess that's about it.
I don't think that we want MS to extend its control of the desktop to the mobile world, do we? Fortunately, they seem to be stuck at a 3% (or less) market share there. That's where it belongs.
They crippled Windows RT so badly, and so deliberately, there was no way it could be successful. And the same marketing geniuses that were responsible for that disaster are still in control. The best thing that Microsoft could do is fire everyone anywhere near the top, and they haven't done that, so, no, it will be a failure.
As many have mentioned, Windows 8 failure was purely from a UI standpoint. Any Windows users who have used it with Start8 or Classic Start can attest that it's faster, more stable and overall better than Windows 7. This is also the first Windows release under Satya Nadella (Ballmer Free!) as well as with a new lead for the Windows faction of the company (I have read many an issue with Sinofsky being a terrible lead for Windows 8) so I think 10 will likely be the "best" Windows we have seen yet.
Now to speculate, my belief is MS will continue its cheap/free licensing of Windows 10 for tablets and phones. They will also offer a free/cheap upgrade for Windows 8 users to upgrade to Windows 10, and unlike Android tablets MS can push that right to users without having to go through the OEMs (not sure about Windows Phone 8) so we'll quickly see Windows 8 market-share plummet and 7 and 10 will be the majority of users.
Now despite all this Windows will likely still drop marketshare on the desktop and will gain a bit on the mobile side. Linux folks will still use Linux. Apple folks will not be dropping their Macs and iPhones to get Windows 10, but that doesnt really matter. If Windows 10 is technically as good/better than 8 and get' the interface right (which it seems like they are doing enough to satisfy desktop users) then they will keep their Windows userbase happy and likely Win10 will be the one we see business move off Win7 and right now that's likely job #1 for them.
It needs to be smooth, it needs to be organized. The OS needs to stay out of the way and not over-complicate things. We are there to run applications, not Windows. Windows needs to run and organize files and applications, that's it.
A simple file copy shouldn't take several minutes to start. When I say copy, start copying! We need Windows, not tiles. Windows is the name of the OS after all, and IMO the Windows paradigm still works. They need to preserve backward compatibility except when it would too badly affect performance or security. And I don't think it would or else MS themselves wouldn't be recommending DOSBOX to run 16-bit applications.
Short answer: NO!
Long answer F**K NO!!
Correction. The "Modern" tiled interface didn't frustrate users "transitioning to Windows 8". It is simply bad. Horrible. The worst UI in the history of Windows, and since that history includes Windows ME and Vista that's saying quite a bit. It would be more appropriate to say that the UI in question is what PREVENTED the transition of users to Windows 8--not because they couldn't figure it out, but because they simply deemed it garbage.
Look at your own experiences with governments, phone companies, cable companies, banks.
The kind of focused, reasonable analysis needed to produce workable products seems to end when the greatest concerns in the organization are self serving personal behavior and organizational preservation.
Which means that Microsoft is at the mercy of some dimwitted manager who's had a brainwave and somebody's ear. The results are usually disasterous (e.g. Windows 8 interface, Powershell interface instead of VBScript.net, the lack of realistic automated language migration from something like Winforms to ASP, WPF, etc. which could have been avoided with forethought and better design...). Somebody wanted their good review and their bonus. That's all it's about now at Microsoft, or any large organization.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
IMO, Microsoft has a big hit on their hands with Windows 10, from the looks of the developer preview. If it continues as planned, it should be the upgrade all of the Windows 7 holdouts have been waiting for. It has package management from the command line (a real plus for I.T. folks supporting these systems on a network), and native support for the latest hardware technologies like USB 3. The problems with the Metro UI in Windows 8 should hopefully be worked out, too.
But Windows Mobile for phones? They've tried and tried again and it's pretty much a non-starter. People simply aren't that interested in a Windows UI on a cellphone. IMO, they need to cut their losses and quit trying to have Microsoft everywhere. Focus on what works and build on that. EG. Move forward with such things as Office for iOS, because that's being smart. (It costs too much to try to convince everyone to ditch an iPad and buy a Surface tablet instead. Make your money off selling apps for iOS instead.)
Given that Microsoft has skipped Windows 9, it will be interesting to see how things pan out. Will the established pattern of good release, bad release, good release, bad release continue? Or, will it see the missed version number and think "hold on a minute, I need to make this release a bad release, because they've skipped the good one"?
Businesses have still been buying Windows 7, AFAICT. Once Windows 10 is out, they may well be more receptive.
This one is not difficult for Microsoft to get right. They had the right interface w/ Windows 7 on desktops/laptops. That needs to be the Windows 10 interface for those devices. For tablets, one could be given a choice of the 7 or 8 interface, and for phones, the interface is just fine.
The issue that MS has in the Tablet/phone space is that Windows RT/Windows Phone is a late entrant to the market, and alien to the ARM platform - Windows CE notwithstanding. Also, MS doesn't have the Wintel apps to leverage that space, and is therefore at a disadvantage. I have a Lumia, and the main issue for me has never been the interface. It's the fact that most of the apps suck, and also, most of the popular apps in the market are present on iOS and Android, but not on the Windows Phone. As a result, the phone is partly useful for professionals (has Skype, Office, OneNote, ADP, Concur, and a few useful apps) but pretty poor as a general purpose phone.
While Microsoft has done a good job in having a common development platform, it would do well to regulate what goes into its app store. Right now, too much of it is crap, in sharp contrast to iOS. Not sure about Android
...Until you try to do something like manage your files, or administrate your own OS. Then the pain starts. It gets even more painful if you have to do this for a living, and the UI is fighting you all the way.
Most of the complaining about Windows 8 that I hear seems to be from people who don't use Windows (much) anyway, and instead use OS X or Linux.
Speaking as a software engineer who has always used Windows primarily, I think Windows 8 is a fantastic upgrade over Windows 7. I say that while acknowledging that the WinRT stuff is klunky on a non-touchscreen device, and admitting that most Windows 8 computers seem to be in that category.
However, Windows 8 still rules if for no other reason than the easy OS reset/reinstall/wipeout feature. I can now tell my friends and relatives who infect themselves with malware to just back up their files, reset with strong prejudice, and off they go again to download more viruses. It's a profound advancement that directly benefits the unwashed masses.
While this is horribly off topic, I'm going to chime in anyway. I'm a PharmD, and if people ask, I tell them to skip Tamiflu. It's a waste of money.
MS of course can get it right if they just design a solid desktop OS. They have come a long way in stability while maintaining pretty much their desktop monopoly. All they have to do is update the OS for the current tech and continue to polish the desktop UI that has been progressing for years.
But they don't want to do that. They want to use that desktop monopoly to force their way into the mobile market and thus we had Windows 8. And even with that failure they can't just let it go. And I've used the Win10 preview and it still is not as good a UI as Windows 7. It does make a fair amount of concessions to getting back to more of a Windows 7, non-mobile UI, desktop but it still sucks compared to Win7.
And the real thing that I don't understand it this obsession with trying to merge two different UI formats into one. When I'm using a mobile device that has no keyboard/mouse then of course I want a UI that is designed for that. But when I am on a computer with a keyboard and mouse I freaking want a UI designed for that!
I'll finish with an obligatory car analogy. When I'm driving a car I expect that the controls reflect what I'm trying to do. But when I'm in a boat, while similar, the controls are changed to suit that vehicle's needs. UI's should be the same way. And there is no reason why MS should accept that they can have two UI's for their OS.
Really, I know what I'm doing...Ohhhh, look at the shiny buttons!
No.
On desktop though, Win10 is already worlds above Win8, even when using a tablet. They need to work on the scaling issue, though...
How dare you not insult Windows. I demand you immediately add some dollar signs to your text and complain that Windows 8.1 took your first-born.
That's your problem, not the user's problem. You are there to support them; they are not there to make your job easier; you are there to make their job easier...
Not necessarily, but in this case you do get two different operating systems. The RAM and storage of low-cost "Windows 10" phones will be lower than the requirements for Windows 10, proving that the OS on those phones isn't Windows 10.
Everyone knows that an even-numbered Microsoft release is no good, starting with DOS 2.0.
Prove anything by multiplying Huge Number times Tiny Number
Yeah, because my PC is as interactive and important as my dishwasher!
Indeed, we shouldn't concern ourselves with options outside of that which Microsoft provides. Doing so is stupid, and makes you stupid. Right?
If not, we can only assume that he'd rather waste our time than his own.
I thought Windows was a distant fourth. In the wild I see new and old BlackBerry's regularly, but I've only ever seen a Windows phone twice. This is Canada though, things might be different in the US.
because Windows 10 == Windows X
I understand a end user saying something like this but if you are an IT professional I'm surprised to hear that. As an IT professional you life will always involve learning new software and technology. The day that isn't true you're probably are out of a job or at the bottom of your field.
After using 8 and beyond little while, installing 7 feels almost like using NT4 on a 386. Almost. Since you probably will have to pay for the upgrade to the 10, you should forget about it altogether, free the drive space, go for Linux or xBSD and drive the entertainment with dedicated devices when applicable.
I'll buy some Tamiflu and take it, just so I can laugh my hat off and piss on your grave in case you were wrong.
That is the problem with Windows 10, you don't know what will still run on it.
When I downgraded to Windows 8 from 7 I could not play The Sims Medieval, Diablo 2 and a few other games. My Blu-ray player no longer worked, even though it was supported on Windows 8. The Blu-ray player problem turned out to be a missing system DLL caused by me upgrading to Windows 8 instead of doing a fresh install.
My prediction for Windows 10 is that more games and software will not work. Will it be something you use? Who knows.
The other fun thing was with Windows 8 my boot time increased from about 45 seconds to 90 seconds. Probably to do with upgrading instead of fresh install, but it takes a long time to get everything setup after a fresh install.
My computer died and I am happily running Windows 7 on the new one.
Microsoft, Apple, Google, Amazon what's the difference? All steal money from devs and control with walled gardens.
None of those, with the possible exception of USB3, are useful to 99% of users.
Why? Well, if you want to run Windows Applications :-)
I'm wondering why we need a new Windows version every couple of years, just to run some applications.
My understanding is that many corporations just recently moved off XP to Win7. That's probably going to be fine for a number of years. I understand that Microsoft needs to release something in the consumer space for marketing reasons, but what does 10 accomplish other than as advanced field beta testing for the next corporate version?
I might run 10 on a test machine just to see what we're in for, but I plan to run 7 on my workstation for as long as practical. 7 was a nice bump from XP, 8 was nasty, 7 is where it's at for now.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Yeah. 99% of all users don't care about stability (3, 4) or security (5).
Just because he uses ugly computer terms doesn't mean that those don't translate into improvements that a mother could love.
Just enough already.
The OS for a smartphone/tablet and a desktop/laptop should NOT ever be the same. Especially not the UI, stop trying to make them the same.
Give me a quad core Atom phone, with an intel GPU (none of the powerVR bullshit), running DESKTOP WIN10 when docked and a phone environ when not...and I'll buy fucking 5 of them.
But I doubt they will get back the market share they lost to Android and iOS in the home users market. People who switched to mobile platforms proably don't have any serious productivity needs for their home computer and use it primarily for email, social networking, Youtube, etc. So why come back to Windows and have to deal again with anti-virus subscriptions, crappy app updates that installs third-party toolbars and all the complexity of running/managing a Windows PC?
Sorry, I know that sounds slightly hostile, so let me try and explain before I'm simply filed in with the rest of the people who still type things like "macro$haft" in these threads. :)
I've used Windows 8...it was fucking terrible. No getting around it. Switching between Metro and Desktop when you click the start button? You need to go to your PC settings to shut it down manually? Oh, and by the way, PC settings is actually just a subset of the control panel, which you'll only even be presented as an option in desktop Mode? You actually have to _search_ for Control Panel in Metro to get to it there?
Some of it has since been fixed...some of it hasn't. I think just about everyone, including Paul Thurrott and the astroturfers at Neowin, would agree that WIndows 8 was fucked on release. Now? At this point I don't really think it's any better (or worse) than GNOME 3 on the same touchscreen laptop that I use...and the laptop isn't fast enough to run games decently, so whether or not I have Windows or Linux on the laptop really doesn't make any difference...as long as the hardware is supported I'll be using it for roughly the same things. I'm sure Windows 10 will fix a lot of what's wrong with Windows 8.1 at the moment...I'm also sure, having ran Windows from 3.0 up to the present in various iterations, that Windows 10 will have a metric fuckton of bugs and other issues when it's released, it's kind of Microsoft's pattern at this point. They'll probably be fixed, for the most part, after a while...and oddly enough, this is where Fedora 21 is currently edging it out for me. I've actually experienced less problems and fewer issues configuring GNOME 3 than I ever have with Windows 8.1, installing all the crapware from the manufacturer and others, untying my Outlook account from the system login, ad nauseam. Unless Windows 10 does something for me in addition to 1) watching the occasional video and 2) fairly light internet usage (maybe Youtube or Netflix on a really good day)...well, it's probably going to cost $200-299. It'll cost that much and be broken. Fedora 22 will be free, it'll probably be broken when it first comes out as well, but at least I'm not out a third of what I make a month to use it...and it's less "broken" than some of the alternatives. Windows 10 would have to either do those things better, or at the very least Microsoft could take an actual step toward user privacy and have all of their sync nonsense disabled by by default. Even if they showed some semblance of being not just like every other tech company with their own OS out there currently, I'd at least be encouraged...but Microsoft would easily make up in volume what they lost in pricing if they were selling one version of their desktop OS, in one package, for like $40. Less than the price of a top tier game. Just about every business out there who's not using valid licenses (but are big enough to worry about it) are going to think twice with a price drop like that...all of a sudden they're legit for several tens of thousands less than otherwise. As for the average person, like me? I'd buy WIndows 10 on release day for 40 bucks. To paraphrase Adam Osborne, at $40 if it doesn't work then hey, I've learned something. :)
At this point though? Windows 10 looks like it's going to be a (mildly) less fucked version of Windows 8.1...and currently that doesn't do anything for _me_ than a good GNOME3-based distribution can. In some cases it can actually do less (like give me some options to safeguard my privacy...as opposed to Windows 8.1 Pro, an upgrade that would give me freely-available encryption for the bargain bin price of $150. At this point, unless you're using a very industry specific program that only works well on one platform (a lot of CAD and 3D modelling/rendering programs spring to mine) and you don't want to play games...install Linux or something similar. Whichever one that supports your hardware and the software you want to use. If you want games...use Ubuntu, because from my own experience the majority of games only work well under the most recent version of Ubuntu available...Wastelands 2 wouldn't even start in Fedora :( ).
Because developers choose to use newer features that are by-definition unavailable on previous versions.
Windows RT was a fiasco b'cos Microsoft tried using a non-Intel CPU as their platform and failed. Better CPUs have failed before this - MIPS and Alpha. ARM is even more anemic than these other 2. Microsoft should have stuck w/ the cheapest and most battery efficient offerings from Intel and AMD.
What is the biggest selling point of Windows? The gazillion Wintel applications out there, which are NOT there on other CPUs, even ones that Windows has been ported to. When poised against an existing well established market of iOS and Android apps, Wintel had a chance, but RT or Windows Phone was bound to fail.
5) Uses Intels new-ish RDRAND instruction for a higher quality random number gen as the basis for ASLR
The ones that FreeBSD de-emphasized due to security concerns?
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Win95 will run (walk) on a 386, NT4 uses LOCK XADD and you need a 486 for that.
Wish I had points to mod you up. Makes me want to rent this again.
Take it easy, Charlie, I've got an Angle...
Nope.
Yeah. 99% of all users don't care about stability (3, 4) or security (5).
Just because he uses ugly computer terms doesn't mean that those don't translate into improvements that a mother could love.
because windows 7 crashes so much?
Security? People don't care about security, they go to wal-mart and buy a copy of norton or mcafee or kapersky and put it on and they no longer care about security because "I put on the antivirus so I'm safe" so no, no-one is going to care about windows 10.
Sorry, 99%. 99% won't care.
Flappinbooger isn't my real name
Businesses have still been buying Windows 7, AFAICT. Once Windows 10 is out, they may well be more receptive.
Not if Windows 10 is as tied to using OneDrive and other Microsoft services as the Development Preview is now.
And Live Tiles has got to go, too. Such distracting, marketing, productivity-killing click-bait has no place in the office (or the start menu).
Take it easy, Charlie, I've got an Angle...
Sort of how different Linux kernels use different amounts of RAM?
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
This isn't news, it's filler.
They skipped the good one...
http://Anveto.com - Web Design, SEO, Marketing, Analytics & Security
The trick to the Betteridge law is that when a journalist writes a headline as a question, the question is suggesting what most people find improbable; and the improbable rarely happens.
There's some of that. But that's more about choice of subject matter. A journalist ALWAYS needs to write something that is SOMEHOW different from what the reader believes. (If he's just reinforcing what the reader believes, why should a reader bother reading his output?)
The real trick that leads to qusetion-headlines (that are almost always implying something that's wrong) is different.
When a journalist writes a juicy headline as a question, it's because he couldn't find evidence to support the conjecture, but wants to run it anyway.
Usually this is because he guessed wrong. The deadline is approaching, he's got to publish SOMETHING to stay employed, and he just wasted a bunch of time researching something that didn't pan out. Oops! So he runs his orignnal conjecture and the workup he did on it before finding out that it was either wrong (usual) or maybe right but couldn't be supported in the time available (rarely). He just phrases the headline as a speculation rather than an assertion.
That way his credibility isn't wrecked for the future, he gets to publish something, it's interesting and plausible (even though probably totally bogus), and in those rare cases where it WAS right he's scooped his competitors. However it comes out it's a win for the journalist - though it's a bunch of noise for the readers.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Take a look at his user ID. There's equal likelihood that he's out of a job, at the bottom of his field, or both for that matter.
Not so fast, I skipped 8, I might have bought 9 but now that they skipped, I think I skip again. Linux and Android are looking better all the time.
And if the Tamiflu kills you?
Windows has always been like a cheaply made off road vehicle made in a former Soviet-bloc country. The controls were a little weird, and it broke down a lot, but otherwise it could drive on a lot of really sketchy roads, and you probably knew a guy who knew how to fix it for you when it broke down.
Then Windows 8 came along. To continue the analogy, it was like a new model year of that same cheaply made Eastern European off-road vehicle suddenly came with a few well-needed under-the-hood improvements so that it wouldn't break down as readily, along with a big 8" spike sticking out of the centre of the drivers seat. Aficionados who have never driven another car in their lives rave about the spike (it's painted some very nice colours), and continue to flood forums trying to convince people who have stayed away from the newer model because of the spike that if they just tried it long enough, they'd get used to having a giant spike up their asses.
Now Microsoft is coming out with Windows 10, the biggest benefit of which is that it now features a slightly shorter spike. And Windows zealots will try to convince everyone else that it's a major improvement. But you're still taking it in the ass every time you get in for a ride.
Yaz
The only way Microsoft can fix Windows is to start from scratch and call it something else.
It is not about Windows 10, it has nothing to do about whether or not Windows is a piece of junk
It has everything to do with that piece of shit called systemd
If those fuckers keep shoving systemd down the throats of Linux users then yes, Microsoft might see millions of 'new' users flocking to Windows 10
No - its an even # release. Only the odd # releases are of any good.
I do believe Microsoft Bob is worse. While 8 is frustrating, and annoying to those lacking a touchscreen, it served a design purpose. Microsoft Bob, well, let's just say that I can imagine no real purpose to it, unless you are attempting to teach 5 year olds to use computers.
Why should I waste my time with Windows 10?
Why? Well, if you want to run Windows Applications :-)
Well, or as an alternative to gouging my eyes out with a rusty spoon. Though I have to admit, that one is a close call.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
Do they really? Which new features are those? I thought, these days new versions of Windows are mainly about frog marching the customer base to some wacky new user interface model that is somehow supposed to result in more and bigger transfers of hard earned cash into offshore bank accounts somewhere in Redmond, Nigeria.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
Exactly. It would be like installing Damn Small Linux on a phone that cannot run Ubuntu, and calling it "Ubuntu" for marketing reason.
^See subject^
The problem with alternate crap releases at MS is the common one of losing experienced people over time and the new people having to come up to speed.
You see it in other industries with things like safety, where there are utterly ridiculous fuckups, then ten or more years of smooth running, then another utterly ridiculous fuckup because the people that had even heard of the earlier mistake are long gone.
The MS culture at one point meant the disposal of the weakest link in every team, no matter how good the team was, so that was a barrier to continuity. Apparently that has changed, but there appear to be a few practices in the place that still limit continuity so that every few years completely new teams have to learn how to reinvent wheels and make their mistakes in the process.
It's common in software in general and large software companies in paticular.
What about the applications which are the entire reason to use the computer in the first place? You've just thrown all of those away as a consequence of a vunerable system and they have to be set up again.
Even without malware infections I've had to re-install MS Office twice on a users MS Win8 machine due to it getting configuration information messed up. MS Win7 doesn't seem to have that problem, so it appears that there are even incompatibilities between the current MS Office and the current MS Windows!
Subject says it all.
Modern / Metro doesn't work on a laptop or desktop - destroy it / remove it for these environments.
For a tablet, fuck Microsoft, they're too little, too late.
Windows 10 will be as errored and bugger than the rest.
M$ is not sitting still.
More Bugs.
More Spam.
More Virus.
More Exploits.
Without thees "Tools" there would be NO M$.
Unfortunately, in this interim bullshittery, I've discovered that Ubuntu is actually much nicer than windows once you get past the learning hill (no longer a cliff).
The only thing that keeps me on windows is video games. I'll be sticking with Windows 7 on my desktop until it goes EOL or I otherwise need to reformat it, and then I'll be moving to Ubuntu on my desktop as well.
Fewer than 99% of all PCs are consumer-owned. Many of them work in enterprises. Security is a real thing.
Sure they do. All the time. The only reason we don't notice (especially on Windows) is because people don't start using the newer APIs unless enough people are actually using the newer version to make it worth the effort. For e.g.. DX11/DirectCompute (Vista+) - Better texture decompression, Core Audio (VIsta+) - lower audio latency , WSAPoll - (Vista+) allowed Windows sockets to work more like UNIX ones making cross platform networking software a bit easier to write. Anyway, anyone interested can go spend their own time and find a list longer than I care to type.
OneGet is a generic powershell framework ("package manager manager") which is open for and designed for 3rd party repositories (most notably : chocolatey.org )
Hopefully there will be an easy list with "trust scores" for 3rd party repositories easily available to users (and with the chocolatey already activated, the need for addotional repos for FOSS might not be needed). Btw OneGet is also open source and on github ... Not the same MS that we love to hate...
So the better alternative is to dowload and install everything manually? Yeah... That makes sense... As long as there are alternative and open distribution (I like the AUR for low contributor thresholds) I can not see your point.
In civilized countries, medication is free.
The people who pay the bills don't care about wizzy directx features, they want the computer to be better at what they use it for, and they're getting repeated burned on that front.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
Windows 8 has HEAP Protection via "Guard Pages", as well as "Chunk Randomization" -> http://news.softpedia.com/news...
Pus lastly for performance' sake, "Self-Terminating Services" (& 13 less services starting "automatic" vs. "manual" too, for memory & CPU resources conservation).
* It truly IS that UI that "killed it", so I agree with you there...
APK
P.S.=> We all KNEW it would fail (even myself an MS fanboy for decades since 1991) - you can't make folks suddenly not be able to drive their cars, by replacing the steering wheel & pedals with forklift controls, for Pete's sake... apk
....Monkey Do. Their new motto.
The problem is--this doesn't work in general. A desktop system is REALLY a completely different animal from phones/tablets.
Microsoft has only made incremental improvements to the UI that it pretty much perfected with XP-Pro. (we will say nothing of the Vista debacle). Seriously--on Linux and other unix like systems, the KDE desktop, Gnome, XCFE, etc, ALL have similar features to XP (or vice-versa, according to how you wish to interpret it)
Windows 7 is GOOD, and internally has much better technology than XP (I have become quite enamored with PowerShell, if I DO say so) . And INTERNALLY, there is nothing majorly wrong with WIn8. But the Win8 user experience took a left turn into the Twilight Zone as far as I'm concerned. It's FINE for Tablets and Phones, but is completely asinine on a desktop.
And then there's Server 2012. MS went OUT OF ITS WAY to hide functions that system admins ABSOLUTELY NEED (and usually need QUICKLY) on a server.
I'm going back to AmigaOS.
Windows 10 has a few neat features for Enterprise like some of the new management capabilities and more cloud integration. Although my role at work is more behind the scenes, server infrastructure, I do look forward to taking a look at being able to authenticate with Azure Active Directory or Windows Active Directory. Things like that.
I'm sure I'm not the only one. It makes sense for those that already have an investment in Microsoft infrastructure.
Home users, maybe they won't appreciate it so much, and that's fine, they can run what they like. That's their choice. I run a couple of Linux boxes, a Mac and a Chromebook in addition to Windows in my home, they all have their strengths and their weaknesses.
For work though, we're a Microsoft shop (long before I arrived) and that's fine by me. With adequate change control in place, regular maintenance and good infrastructure decisions, we have very little downtime. I expect performance and reliability to remain that way, or even improve as we deploy Windows 10 and its server equivalent in our environment after sufficient testing.
Given Windows and Mac are busy ruining the GUI, I see this as a chance to gain traction on desktop/laptop.
I will be waiting for Win 12, since we all know Win 11 will either suck, or be skipped entirely. I was a fan of Win2K, so maybe Win 2020?
No! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B...
But Windows Mobile for phones? They've tried and tried again and it's pretty much a non-starter. People simply aren't that interested in a Windows UI on a cellphone.
Except that Windows Phone is growing in non-US countries, and is well over 10% in certain places. Wouldn't surprise me if we got to 2016 with WP being 20% in places such as Brazil or India, and some European countries, with iOS relegated from close to distant third.
My company has started issuing official WP work phones. iOS and Android cannot be managed properly. Windows 10 can only improve in that area.
Sardaukar86 shot his mouth off & failed in a 244++:1 ratio against him http://it.slashdot.org/comment... hahahahahahaha
I think after trying Windows 10 preview that it will partially fix Windows as many of us know it. But it also adds another layer of new interface and new features.
Some of which sound good if your married to Microsoft products. You own a Windows phone and Surface tablet and/or a PC of some kind. Plus you Xbox and plan to continue using Office and other Microsoft products. Otherwise, Windows 7 meets most others needs and except for many in the Windows 8 camp who beg for a free fix finally to a Start button that have not already fixed this problem with a third party solution. They will most likely be quick to upgrade to Windows 10. Cortana to me is like Siri another gimmicky feature that works sometimes, a few times really makes it worthy of use and most of the time you waste trying to get it to recognize what you said. As for other things like virtual desktops, Xbox integration, notifications and such. These will not be game changers to many users. Even Microsoft recognizes that giving Windows 10 away will help get people onboard if nothing else because its free. Not sure how PC makers will embrace this ideal? But at least Microsoft has finally acknowledged its end users. For me, I won't be in any hurry to accept the free upgrade as long as Windows 7 does what I need it too.