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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?
My guess is businesses will continue to use WSUS to manage the rollout and testing of updates, without the hassle of major version updates.
It's not really any different from what happens with regular updates now, except some of them will add new features, like Service Pack's currently do.
Smaller updates has got to be better than major version updates, otherwise there wouldn't be millions of Windows XP machines still out there.
Sounds like a much better option than what has been done in the past.
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".
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...
You mean you'll be able to do "apt-get dist-upgrade" in Windows?
No... there will be differences. We're talking Microsoft, so there's gotta be a revenue stream in there somewhere. They're planning to pretend version numbers don't exist, so that when there's compatibility issues no one will know which version the program was compatible with nor which version they're running now. And there certainly won't be a package manager to deal with all the dependencies, so any incompatibility will be dealt with on a program by program basis.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
I've personally never explicitly bought a single Microsoft license. They either come with my laptop or I get them via my university MSDN subscription or a BizSpark MSDN (MS program to give free licenses to startups). It's one thing I hate about the new Adobe Creative Cloud concept. I don't want to have to "subscribe" to use my software. I should only have to pay for it once. Period.
In the old days I'd run both Photoshop 3 and 4 on my system as I gradually transitioned to learn how to do everything in the new version (or gave up and went back to 3 to do something in a feature that had seemed to disappear).
Um...I actually like the FF/Chrome versioing. I was really hoping either IE or Safari would adopt it as well. If IE (or Spartan or whatever it's called now) goes to it, we'll finally see an end to a lot of corporate internal shit apps and technical debt. It will be painful at first, but once all the major browsers are on rolling updates, web app developers will be forced to make stuff that works correctly. Big shit companies that can't keep up will have to adapt or die.
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?
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.
They don't.
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.
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.