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Future Holds Large Updates Instead of Stand-Alone Windows Releases
jones_supa writes: Jerry Nixon, a Microsoft developer evangelist, said at the Ignite conference in Chicago that Windows 10 "is the last version of Windows, so we're always working on Windows 10." Saying that is only half true. In fact, Microsoft will start working on large updates instead of stand-alone Windows releases, so the company would switch from a model that previously brought us new versions of Windows every three years, to a simpler one that's likely to bring big updates every two months. The company will also change the naming system for Windows, so instead of Windows $(version), the new operating system would be simply called Windows.
For consumers this is likely a great thing. But given enterprise customers and their traditionally fickle software, how are they going to keep up with major Windows changes every few months?
Even service packs break things, and those still aren't as complex as these proposed updates in some ways. Enterprise customers pretty much count on Windows not changing/ And even if Microsoft goes the LTS route, will they support one of these branches for 10+ years like Windows Server 2012 will be?
You mean you'll be able to do "apt-get dist-upgrade" in Windows?
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
People don't like constantly updating their software nor seemingly random software changes. Businesses aren't going to stand for it either as there's way too much at state for them to have their OS fail all across the company.
Why are software companies so good at moving backwards? Does everything in our industry have to run in cycles? Why wasn't that an onion link.
In case you need to convey which one of the large updates you downloaded last, you can simply say when you downloaded it. I like it!
So after one buys one Windows version, after a year of "updates" it can be completely different OS, eg. Windows 7 had turned into metro-crap in a forced update. With the current rate Microsoft screws their user interfaces, at least I would not dare to buy any application that has these rolling updates.
Desktop applications still exist. Are their requirements going to be: Works on Windows 2015-05-08 through 2016-03-09? There will be no way to reinstall to an earlier version if they only push the latest updates instead maintaining incremental updates. Is Microsoft trying to force the entire consumer software industry into a service model?
Dear Microsoft,
In case you haven't noticed, no one likes either the Firefox (or Chrome) model for updates. People who don't know any better put up with it, but no one likes it.
WTF part of your tiny little brain makes you think people want continual changes to what they are used to because YOU deem it to be better.
My job does not revolve around learning new Windows crap every couple of months, and if you try to make it that way, I'll use something else.
My screw driver doesn't change every 2 months, thats not a bad thing, get the clue you idiots, just because you're entire life revolves around making a new version of windows to justify your existence doesn't mean my life does too and trying to make it so it does means I'm going to find an alternative.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
Will this mean a move to a "subscription" model, where you have to pay to receive updates? I find it hard to believe that they will contunue to update everyone forever without a fee for the "new windows".
Hahaahahahhahaha
How about this.
Commit to a major release for 3 years, then 2 years sunset support. After that its fully functional but doesn't get MS support.
1 service pack every year, bundles all the updates together + some trinkets.
Make windows $30. I will buy it for $30.
Microsoft has a long history of releasing badly designed products- MSDOS 4,Windows Me, Vista, 8.0- and with the shift to updates, the public will lose their ability to vote with their wallets. Microsoft will do whatever it likes, and you will accept it or be unpatched. Microsoft has succeeded in ensuring that the customer has no power or voice.
And everyone here is cheering it on...
Someday in the future Windows will decide that none of your software is compatible with an update, uninstall it all, be unable to update it due to circular dependencies and then spend 30 hours of your netbook's time and all of its batteries recompiling the Kernel.
Yeah, right. We've also heard that from Adobe about their Creative Suite switching over the Creative Cloud. All we've gotten instead is more and more new bugs in each release, and without failure, new DRM failures with each and every release. How are we supposed to trust Microsoft with the same thing, when they already royally fucked up Windows 8? How can we trust them to not simply pull an Adobe, and spend all their time developing new DRM that constantly fucks up, instead of new actual features and functionality for end users?
This is exactly right. Microsoft is sick and tired of customers resisting their latest shiny upgrade, especially when they do so successfully, as with Vista and 8. Keeping the actual version a secret might cause enough confusion to blunt dissent (and damn the negative side effects).
Remember when Mozilla tried to remove FF's version number from the About Box as a prelude the wacky wapid release schedule?
I often thought that subscription would be great because of several things. One, you no longer have to worry if you got the latest and greatest version, of if the next version is just around the corner.
Second, and one I wish the Apple Store would start to incorporate would be Apps on subscription -- buy an App and be guaranteed updates for X amount of time from download -- it pays programmers for their time and encourages less abandonware. When people are on their 3rd phone for $5-600 bucks, and the person making it has to time and again refit some old app to to new models, screens, and iOSes, it's a bit ridiculous that someone who bought the $0.99 App on the iPhone 2 keeps getting free updates to it on iPhone 6. Otherwise their app saturates the market over time and nothing comes in after a while, leading to...
The buy once, updates forever free model also encourages adware because companies have to make their money somehow. I hate that shit.
The only thing I ask of subscription software is that once the subscription lapses, it continue working. The subscription should be for renumeration for continued update work, not a stick to take away a program if I don't pay up. Customer doesn't pay? Just no more updates, simple as that. No spyware or internet connection required as well.
As long as one of those 'big updates' put the Windows 7 UI back in place and disposes of all that new Metro or whatever it's called these days junk then I'll be happy.
I want a list of atrocities done in your name - Recoil
Does Microsoft understand anything about the end users? I was fine with monthly expectations of security updates for Windows. We knew they were coming and how big the update would be. Now you your guess will be as good as mine next time you get an update on how big it is, when its coming, and will it break or create problems. On top of the old question, will it require a restart? I get Microsoft's ideal of the perpetual Windows version that just keeps updating. But at least do scheduled improvements so that users can still know when something is coming. I hope that Microsoft offers a delayed update option so the user can at least install these updates at a better time. The other thing Microsoft fails to consider, is how many still have slow internet connections and how this might affect their experience if they face more frequent updating. Leave it to Microsoft to keep changing because they can.
Now we know why they skipped Windows 9: it's so that when they call future versions Windows 10.1, Windows 10.2, etc., it won't sound like they're so far behind Apple.
What is this $(version) you speak of? Don't you mean %VERSION% ?
Windows The Forever version.
From what I've seen, every time you reboot Windows, a "large update" seems to be applied.
Updating 5 of 27. Please do not turn off your computer.
Windows X with point releases? Wow, that sounds original.
Maybe they'll give the point releases the names of animals or something to distinguish them from each other.
Help! I'm a slashdot refugee.
"Ah, here's your problem. This program won't run on Windows; you'll need to upgrade to Windows."
The power balance has shifted a lot, The Personal Computer is morphing into Corporate Computer. People buying with their own money are now going towards smartphones, tablets, chromebook like light platforms. Even corporations are using tablets in a big way. The servers have gone to Linux. Windows is being forced to inter-operate with other devices without having the advantage of being the de-facto monopoly.
When corporations are the only customers, they are able to extract better deals from Windows. They might think going to this continuous update and subscription model will bring more money. But it will only drive personal buyers away and make Microsoft more dependent on corporate customers than ever.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
For most companies and individuals, Windows 7 is probably the end of the line. Even WinXP is plenty good for most people, and the need to upgrade because of hardware obsolescence vanished some 5 years ago already. Lucky for Microsoft they can extort money from Android vendors, because Windows is not going to be a huge cash cow going forward.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
So how much space are all of these updates going to take? Are they going to magically be 5x as big as the download once installed. It bugs me that Win7 needs 30gig of my SSD.
I though the idea of Dynamic linked libraries was shared code to save space, I get the impression that over 90% of code is not used and there are multiple copies of multiple versions of each DLL. The system doesn't work, you might aw well just compile the code you need and scrap DLLs.
Waterfox - a Firefox fork with legacy extension support, security updates and better privacy by default.
Follows the steps of Mac OX, here comes Windows X.
They will just providing updates until it becomes Windows XP again.
Since it is always Windows 10 from here on out, then please come up with a way to differentiate versions:
* Windows OS X Mountn' Lyin
* WIndows OS X Leo Pard
* Windows OS X Snowl E'pard
etc
This will not only help differentiate versions, but will demonstrate Microsoft's Leadership and Originality.
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
Every software vendor has dreamed of a subscription based model and how with the internet and DRM they can start to realize those goals.
Didn't MS buy windows365 or some domains like that last year?
You know they will never give it away for free; they will charge you for your habit. (not ruling out their past behavior of giving free or massive discounts to get people addicted.)
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
I've been using a rolling release of Linux for years. The whole concept of having to start over when a new version comes out seems so antiquated.
On the other hand.. I don't see how this can work for a closed, comercial product unless they can sell people on the subscription model. I'd say that would be a tough sell but then again.. people buy crappy hardware that needs replaced in a year or two. People subscribe to access libraries of movies and music rather than permanently buy recordings. Maybe it's only a tough sell to me.
This was a DISASTER for Apple. Every update breaks half the software on the system. Then there's Firefox. That was arguable even worse when they switched to monthly releases that broke half the plugins and flash every other time. Then there's the fact that 1 in 3 people couldn't install Windows 8.1 for some reason. I can't wait to manage this as head IT manager. Sounds like fun.
I know that you're afraid... you're afraid of us. You're afraid of change. I don't know the future. I didn't come here to tell you how this is going to end. I came here to tell you how it's going to begin. I'm going to hang up this phone, and then I'm going to show these people what you don't want them to see. I'm going to show them a world without you. A world without rules and controls, without borders or boundaries. A world where anything is possible. Where we go from there is a choice I leave to you.
http://codeholics.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/matrilinux.png
Microsoft Windows OS X! Then they can have versions 10.1, 10.2, et cetera. Maybe name the releases after animals!
How is this going to work with machines that are isolated from the internet and currently update from an intranet wsus? Or are all companies going to be required to tunnel to MS's update servers, on dyanmic CDNs?
Do none of these folks care about certifications? It's already hard enough to get Windows reasonably secure yet still have software work on it. When you get X certified, you certify it to work in Y situation. The stupid rolling release crap makes that impossible. "Fast" versus "slow?" How about "give me security updates to product X which is certified" versus "give me features and major backend changes in the same stream as the security updates." Yes, it makes it cheaper for the company to wrap everything up together - means they only maintain a single branch. Yay Mozilla for unleashing that laziness upon the world.
But almost all windows versions released sit on top of old technology from the 1990's so why wont they just create a new lean and mean OS from scratch for those who don't need all that legacy crap. Or create their own BSD or Linux distro. It took me 7+ hours to re-install windows 7+ all the 228 updates and sp1 and I hope Windows 10 will be faster than this.
Fios speed has gone downhill thanks to verizon not upgrading their hardware so I rely on P2P, VPN, and looking at proxy servers now to get the full 75/75 speed which now I only get 15/20 and sometimes even lower. No wonder MS is going with P2P integration even they know U.S ISP's are complete shit.
Did they run out of enough real jobs that they had to invent "developer evangelist"?
What's in a name?
So a lot of great comments here, I too do not look forward to a forced-march subscription model that's being floated here. I can't imagine what that means for our enterprise, quarterly patches for servers are already a day of pain. Now we'll get constant rolling updates of servers AND workstations? Great.
But the name: Oh Microsoft, why do you have to make the naming *WORSE*? It's not like the path was convoluted enough...
(Windows 3.1, 95, NT, 2000, XP, 7, 8.1, 10)
But now the new version is simply called "Windows", making it considerably more difficult for techies to discuss which version they are running.
Now when someone asks "What systems are you running?" it will require /more/ exchanges to discern that you are just running the "Windows" version of Windows. "Windows 'Windows'" perhaps. ... WinSquared.
It's not like they could have chosen "Windows Infinity", or "Windows Silver", or "Windows Rolling Update", or "Window Terminal", or "Windows FuckYou We Own Your Ass Now", or "Windows Sprawl", or "Windows Sauron" or something *specific* with which we could actually refer to it. They have to call it the one sole word that is common to ALL Windows releases since 1993... thereby forcing techies to have a longer conversation about which fucking version they are talking about. No more shorthand ("W2008"), now always ever more will you have to have a a multi-lined conversation as you try to discern /exactly/ which version you are running.
Thanks Microsoft. You autistic jerks.
In 2020, installing Windows will include having to download 500GB of patches requiring several reboots. Windows 8.1 currently requires downloading tons of patches, and there is still no service pack for Windows 7, the most widely used version of Windows.
I can write a program that does a lot of things horribly wrong but works on Windows XP because it tolerated a lot of bad behaviors, which won't work at all on a more modern system. Is that Microsoft's fault that I wrote it wrong?
One might argue that it's Microsoft's fault for not giving developers useful tools to determine that they are in fact holding it wrong. If developers and beta testers could flip a switch in Windows and have it log API calls that invoke unspecified or undefined behavior, that would have been an improvement.
Want to use border-radius or box-shadow? Sorry, too many people are still on IE8 which doesn't support it.
Are "too many people" running Internet Explorer 8 on Windows Vista or 7, or on Windows XP? If the former, then every PC administrator running IE 8 on a genuine supported desktop Windows operating system has the opportunity to upgrade to a newer IE. If the latter, then unsupported operating systems are far more likely to already be compromised by a keylogger installed through a zero-day security hole, which destroys the confidentiality of any passwords or PII that the user enters into the browser.
If IE auto-updated to the newest version, it would be so much easier for web developers.
Edge (IE 12) will automatically update like Chrome.
You shoot her with a camera so you can share photographic proof that she doesn't want saving.
I think ms would like to get rid of legacy desktop programs if they could.
I'll believe that when Visual Studio itself becomes a "modern UI" app.