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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...
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.
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.
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.
Can you explain how an OS geared towards "Apps" is a better fit for the desktop? Or how treating relatively large screens like they have a lack of real estate is an improvement?
Windows 8 is just OS for consumers. Hopefully Windows 10 will be useful for things other than Facebook.
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.
It's better on the inside, especially the DLL sharing. (Rather than each running app having a separate in-memory copy of a DLL, now if separate apps have the same DLL dependency, then there's only one copy in memory. Probably my favorite feature of Windows 8)
But the interface still sucks. I've used 8.1 as my primary desktop OS for almost a year now (Stock install, no Start Menu third party add-ons), and while it's a solid OS, there's still so much missing from the Metro interface.
Recently used documents is the thing I miss the most.
And just exploring through the tree-based Start Menu is something I really miss. I end up with so much stuff installed I forget some of it. Would occasionally just surf thru the Start menu to re-discover stuff. But with 8.1, if you don't remember it, you're not going to find it. Sure you can go page by page through all the listed stuff, but that's far more inefficient than being able to walk through a tree-based menu.
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.
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).
Rather than each running app having a separate in-memory copy of a DLL, now if separate apps have the same DLL dependency, then there's only one copy in memory. Probably my favorite feature of Windows 8
Huh? DLLs are shared libraries. They've been shared between all applications that use them since 16-bit versions of Windows. The only time that wasn't the case was when you couldn't locate them at the same virtual address (win32 dlls are not position-independent code, because PIC is slower, so are statically relocated for a particular address), but in 64-bit apps DLLs are PIC and so that's not an issue.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
You probably shouldn't. Do you ask that question for every piece of software that you don't use?
What?
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
...Windows has the best track record in terms of longevity....
Probably because Microsoft messed up the "next version" and people do not want to upgrade.
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.
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
They also had no experience in fucking up Windows 8 before it came into existence, and look what a fine job they did!
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
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.
Kinda right, kinda wrong...
See http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/arc...
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.
>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).
Huh? Your UID is not so high that you should be making such comments. But lets deconstruct it for the lols.
XP was a heaping pile of dung? XP had its issues, like every OS, but compared to having to run the OS on top of DOS like Windows was previously doing it was a huge improvement. Further the staying power of XP alone is a good indicator that it was not bad at all.
Next you say that 8.1 is better than 7. Why? What exactly does 8 (or 8.1) offer in technical terms beyond what 7 offers? There are a few things I'll grant it does offer but it does not offset the fact the awful UI that it has. A UI not designed with a desktop workflow in mind but rather a power play by MS, that failed, to force people into accepting such a UI for all devices.
Really, I know what I'm doing...Ohhhh, look at the shiny buttons!
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.
Most of the complaints I hear about Window 8 come from people who've bought a new PC, booted it up, and have no freaking clue how to use it. 'WTF?' they say, 'I thought this thing ran Windows?'
As the underdog, they'll need an revolutionary product, not the evolutionary junk they've tried in the past.
IE is a good example of how long it takes the evolutionary approach to take hold. And it was given away.
Windows 10 is something they are trying to sell into new markets, while simultaneously protecting the desktop market. This approach is doomed.
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.
The Start menu really never went away in Windows 8.x. It was hidden. Open File Explorer. Under View make sure Hidden Items is checked. Then navigate to Program Data\Microsoft\Windows. There you'll see the Start Menu folder. Right mouse click on it and select Pin to Start. You now have the classic start menu tree available on the Start screen. Or you could drag it to the desktop and select Create Shortcut Here. It's been this way since Windows 8 went gold.
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