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Multiple Sources Confirm Windows 10 has Reached RTM
Ammalgam writes: Multiple sources are reporting that Microsoft has finally hit the release to manufacturing (RTM) milestone with Windows 10. A new build of Windows 10, number 10240, is available to Windows Insiders on both the fast and slow track. Microsoft has made no official statement yet.
Historically, Windows isn't stable until about the 2nd service pack, years after it's official release.
-I only code in BASIC.-
It's Windows 10 and the build number for the RTM is exactly 1024 * 10, and it takes 10 bits to reach 1024.
Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
And soon you will realize how prophetic the air quotes around "free" really were. Good luck with that hot mess.
Other than the post on the official Windows blog, I guess
http://blogs.windows.com/blogg...
Although that doesn't say this is the RTM, just that "this build is one step closer to what customers will start to receive on 7/29"
Help me! I'm turning into a grapefruit!
It is a known fact (or well, highly guessable at least), that Microsoft's goal has shifted from selling Operating Systems, to having a mostly free platform ("free" in this case implies the user has paid the "Microsoft Tax" at least once in the life of the device), as a means to make the Windows Store as accessible as possible.
All of the new features in Visual Studio 2015 regarding porting apps from Android/iOS, all the rumors that there may be Windows 10 phones "soon", etc. simply confirm this. Microsoft's goal is to make it as easy as possible to purchase things from the Store, so that they can get their cut of the sales.
Meaning...what exactly?
You seem to be suggesting, despite injecting the word "prophetic" into the sentence without apparently knowing what it means, that Windows 10 won't be free as advertised. So put your cards on the table, then, what do you think they're going to do exactly? They're going to offer it for free and then send the leg-breakers around to people's houses in a year asking for protection money? They're going to spring a monthly fee rental on people after they've installed it, and when people complain and threaten to sue they're going to laugh maniacally?
What "hot mess" are you referring to? What information are you privy to that the rest of us aren't?
So when (by your metric) will Windows 7 be stable?
Microsoft hasn't exactly lavished attention on downlevel operating system versions once the new one comes out. This is especially true with Windows 8 -- they're looking to bury that as quickly as possible. It's very similar to when Windows 7 / 2008 R2 came out. Anyone still running Vista or Server 2008 was "encouraged" to upgrade because no new features were being back ported to previous versions.
I expect the same thing is going to happen with Windows 7. For example, Server 2008 R2 has had a few 2012 features at least partially available to earlier operating systems. I expect this is going to stop, and the bare minimum level of patch support is going to be put in place for both 8.1 and 7.
Windows 10 really isn't all that bad. They brought back just enough of the classic desktop to keep people from revolting, and I really wish they would have done more. But it's very stable, and once Cortana/Microsoft account links/live tiles have been turned off, it's a good general purpose OS. I wish Microsoft would put the Store and Windows Phone out of its misery though. I know they're going to try to force all new development onto the Universal app platform, but hopefully they'll keep backward compatibility in for a long time.
Windows 7 passes as Vista Service Pack 2. Hence the stability.
Take it easy, Charlie, I've got an Angle...
"So put your cards on the table, then, what do you think they're going to do exactly? They're going to offer it for free and then send the leg-breakers around to people's houses in a year asking for protection money? They're going to spring a monthly fee rental on people after they've installed it, and when people complain and threaten to sue they're going to laugh maniacally?"
I don't think that's going to happen right away. I think they're going to use the next few years of rolling updates to get the average consumer used to the Windows as a Service model. Then, at least for the Home version, they're going to come out with Windows 365 when "Windows 11" is ready. The Pro and Enterprise versions will probably still be available in perpetual license format (They already committed to a long term stable (LTS) branch of 10 for companies.) The carrot for going to Windows 365 will be the availability of features. Look at Mac Office 2016 -- available now only if you have an Office 365 subscription, otherwise you need to wait till September to buy a licensed copy. The next step might be no more perpetual licensing.
I actually like Windows, but I'm not a fan of the constant rental fees for software. Adobe went that way with Creative Cloud, and people basically have no choice but to keep paying forever. AutoCAD is now rent-only as well.
2015 and still burning ISOs to DVD? There's no real reason not to boot from a USB stick nowadays.
For all intensive porpoises your a bunch of rediculous loosers
Windows 7 passes as Vista Service Pack 2. Hence the stability.
Uh... wouldn't that logic make Windows 10 the same thing as Windows 8.2?
Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.
Actually, I've been using the beta on my work laptop all along. I haven't had very many problems.
Early on, I had network, sound and HDMI problems, but those were ironed out a long time ago.
I don't use Edge or Cortana. Basically I just want it to be like a new version of Windows 7 and run all the same stuff better and faster with longer battery life. It does that very well at this point. I've only had 1 blue screen during the entire beta process. Windows 10 is very stable and a good OS. Much better than 8.
Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
2015 and still burning ISOs to DVD? There's no real reason not to boot from a USB stick nowadays.
Every blasted device now comes with a USB cable, so all the USB ports are occupied, even with an additional multiport hub. The DVD and Blu-Ray drives in the computer still work and are freely available during booting because you can't watch a movie then. And disks fit into those nice little racks you can buy, and are big enough to label legibly, unlike usb sticks that constantly get lost, chewed by the dog and have to be checked to see what's on them because they are too tiny to properly label. And, you might not want a big-ass iso taking up space that could be used for music, video, code, or other data that's more interesting than an ISO. So why the hell not burn a disc, smartguy?
Is there some reason people gleefully condemn useful technology as obsolete just because it predates some recent new tech? I don't get it. I still ride a bicycle despite the fact that I have an automobile. I still have a landline to the house (damned cheap at $20/month) because when the power goes out, my phone still works (and it's worked even during post-hurricane outages when even the cell network was having trouble). But I have a cellphone too. I've got several flatscreen HD tvs, but also an old "big cathode ray tube" television in the spare room, because it still works and looks decent enough to watch some crap show on cable when the other tvs are in use. I grill with charcoal though I have a propane grill too, because it fscking tastes better.
Some technology is genuinely obsolete, others retain their usefullness for a long time and can co-exist alongside newer but differently flawed similar technologies.
Dear smug futurists, please stop acting like a visitor from the future just to make yourselves look superior. It just makes you look like an ass.
Why use optical? MS has all the tools to make bootable USB win 10 installs. https://www.microsoft.com/en-u...
Good-bye
So what does the free upgrade to 10 from 7 get me?
As I said above: Speed. Battery life. DirectX12. 3 more years of bug-fix support.
Will I have a normal UI, i.e. non-tablet/phone?
Yes. It boots to a desktop just like Windows 7.
Will programs including games break?
All of my programs work perfectly. I don't game on my laptop, but many gamers are saying it works great.
Drivers for basic stuff like sound and Geforcd 3D card?
The driver model hasn't changed since Vista, so 99% of all drivers should work just fine as is (there's always that 1% of driver developers that did something REALLY stupid). If you can't find "Windows 10" driver for something, just try the newest Vista/7/8 driver instead. Should work just fine. NVidia has been advertising Windows 10 support in their last several releases, so I'm sure you are good there.
Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
The .iso's will be available on the Windows Partner Portal on August 1st. Or so I was told in a Windows 10 webinar last week. To use them you need to upgrade your Windows 7 or 8.1 machines online, let Microsoft do its hardware based digital entitlement think where it stores your motherboard info on its servers. Then you can clean install from the .iso and Windows will be automatically activated as long as you have the same motherboard. Hard drives can be changed to SSD's etc, without a problem, they claim. Your old product key can even be reused if you want to revert back to the original OS after the 30 day rollback period, after which the Windows.old folder will be removed.
Personally the Windows UI topped out around NT/2000. I've tried as hard as I could to make XP and Windows 7 look exactly like it. My task bar has 3 rows because that's how I work. It doesn't work for other people and I understand where Microsoft is going with the 'tabletification'. It's just a rehash of Microsoft Bob and Apple's At Ease. It's a computer interface for non computer people.
My wife loves her Windows 8 laptop. I try to use it and it's probably one of the most frustrating things I have ever used. Who decided you could only have a few apps up on a screen and they would try to take full control? How about the 'full screen' start menu.
All I want is a simple "Windows Classic" theme that makes Windows 10 look exactly like Windows 2000. That's it. Keep all the fancy kernel improvements and everything else, I just want to interact with the computer how I've found it best.
I think there's another possibility: Windows will become permanently free (gratis) for home and non-commercial use.
I actually think this would be a really smart move for Microsoft at this time. Apple and Google have beaten them in the mobile area, and Apple has been making inroads on the desktop, even in businesses. Some businesses and schools are even opting for Chromebooks. Windows doesn't provide them with the sort of leverage and dominance that it used to.
As people move away from Windows, not only does Microsoft lose the revenue from licensing, they also start losing an advantage in selling their other products/services. If you run a business and all of your desktops are Macs or Chromebooks, then having a Windows domain isn't nearly as useful. If you're not running Outlook on Windows, then the value of Exchange Server is diminished. (They have Outlook for Mac, but it's not as good, and they have no Outlook for Linux) A lot of their expensive management tools and services become much more effective when your network is all Windows servers and Windows desktops/laptops.
In that sense, I could see an argument that Microsoft should give away Windows to consumers (and maybe even businesses) as a loss leader in order to sell various services, similar to the way that Apple provides OSX and the iLife/iWork software "free" as a way to sell their hardware. Personally, I think they should restructure Office 365 to include various management tools, like MDM, RMM, SSO, and remote control similar to LogMeIn. Turn it into a one-stop shop for IT departments to control all of their servers and desktops, with an eye toward eventually enabling IT to replace onsite domain controllers and file servers with a completely hosted cloud solution, where that would be desirable. Provide similar (but simplified) functionality for home users, including update management, cloud managed AV, find-my-phone (or laptop), remote control, cloud backup, etc.
I think that's the best move for long-term growth: give away Windows, come up with a well defined set of subscription services that provide useful features that integrate well with Windows, and price those subscriptions cheaply enough that IT departments and home users will say, "why not?", and then try to make money on volume.
Besides, making Windows free removes the biggest reason people have to stay on old versions of Windows, and old versions of Windows are more expensive for Microsoft to support. I think that's why Apple started making their OS upgrades free.
Not me. Been beta-testing the preview builds for the last bunch of months, and I'm honestly unhappy to say there's no must-have, great, or even kinda-cool feature in 10 that compels me to upgrade from 7 (other than the stick-it-to-ya of planned obsolescence).
OTOH, there's a lot in Windows 10 that's just irritating. The lack of customizability in the UI (if you don't like the flat, playskool look, you're SOL). The yanking out of some of the fun time-wasting games (some have been replaced with "modern" versions for... what exactly? to acclimate users to the "modern" look? to force users to browse through the Store to find Minesweeper?). The unpolished split between the "modern" Settings app and the Control Panel for getting real work done. The insistence that you sign into a Microsoft account. The click-bait-laden live-tiles. The defaults to the use of ugly, too-big, less-capable "modern" apps for basic functions like PDF viewing, photo viewing, or even a simple calculator.
If I think about it,if I move from 7 because 7 is at EOL, I am going to spend my first bunch of hours shutting off everything that 10 offers. I would ditch Edge/Project Spartan for Chrome, first thing. Dull down the colors any way I can. Install classic-shell. Shut off the click-bait live-tiles from aggravating my ADHD with TMZ OMG bullcrap. Un-modernize everything by installing and making default 7-versions of the calculator, a PDF viewer, minesweeper, VLC, rainmeter, WinAero Tweaker, Picassa, etc. And then probably go looking for some skinning hacks, if any work on 10, because I can't stand that awful playskool look.
In other words, spend hours undoing everything that makes 10 look and act like 10. That's a helluva lot of wasted time for what's supposed to be an "upgrade". And for what? Touch? I don't use touch. DirectX 12? I don't game enough AAA titles to know the difference. The only reason I see to go to 10 is because Microsoft plans on pulling the plug on 7. Eventually. Or maybe if 10 handles scaling properly on ultra-high-res screens. Eventually.
If Windows to you is merely a platform from which to launch Steam and your favorite full-screen game(s), you probably have nothing to lose with 10. If you have a Surface, the "modern" apps make some sense (although when I tried them, Android and iOS equivalents are more polished and work better). But if you actually have to get real work done on the desktop like you do in 7 every day, 10 don't offer not one damn thing for the trouble. None that I can tell, anyway.
Take it easy, Charlie, I've got an Angle...
vista = nt 6.0
7 = nt 6.1
8 = nt 6.2
8.1 = nt 6.3
10 = nt 6.4 (even though they changed the build numbers to 10.x)
It is obvious, and a joke, to point out your username at this point.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
That is my impression as well. They are trying to make it palatable to desktop users, including the entire corporate and government sectors who are still using it, but it is just an app-based OS for mobile devices that can still run Windows programs. They hope to drive lots of business to their app store by giving 10 away for free. But for desktop Win7 users it seems like a big, irritating downgrade.
A brain is a terrible thing to waste... Mind? That's debatable.
There will be an ISO, as explained in their FAQ page:
Can I reinstall Windows 10 on my computer after upgrading?
Yes. Once you’ve upgraded to Windows 10 using the free upgrade offer, you will be able to reinstall, including a clean install, on the same device. You won’t need to purchase Windows 10 or go back to your prior version of Windows and upgrade again.
You’ll also be able to create your own installation media like a USB drive or DVD, and use that to upgrade your device or reinstall after you’ve upgraded.
Well, I am pretty sickened by the constant data connections between Windows 10 and Microsoft. Running in a VM, the network activity light and CPU load is constant. Granted some of this is the keylogger-level telemetry that they are gathering, but my OS should never start initiating network connections without my permission; this OS wants to automatically update itself and any apps you have installed (can't be turned off unless you just kill the services), comes with dozens of scheduled tasks to do so, and encourages you to store your data, contacts, emails, etc in their apps without clearly stating that it is all being duplicated on Microsoft servers.
Annoyance #2, actually dealbreaker, is how they've made the OS almost broken if you don't use a Microsoft account login. This means that your computer's login is the same password as your email address, and is out of your control. Microsoft or anyone pressuring them can get into your (their) computer since they control the password. It is way to easy for SOHO users looking for time-wasters in the Microsoft store to convert the local account into their own user login and lock out everybody including admin. The email address of the logon is proudly displayed on the logon screen to unauthenticated users, with no way to turn this off.
The NT version numbers are more like API numbers. Vista as 6 because it introduced a lot of changes to the way applications interacted with the OS, such as virtualizing the filesystem and registry on a per-app basis.
Service packs generally don't add new features, they just roll up existing updates. The exception was XP SP2 which added some much needed new security features. Generally speaking though you don't get major new features with service packs, just consolidation. Thus, Windows 7 can't be considered a service pack as it added a lot of new stuff.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC