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Microsoft Reportedly Working On a 'Lightweight Version of Windows' Known As 'Cloud Shell' (neowin.net)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Neowin: Last week, details emerged of Microsoft's plans to develop a single, unified, 'adaptive shell' for Windows 10. Known as the 'Composable Shell', or CSHELL, the company's efforts were said to be focused on establishing a universal Windows 10 version with a standardized framework to scale and adapt the OS to any type of device, display size or user experience, including smartphones, PCs, tablets, consoles, large touchscreens, and more. Today, Petri reported that Microsoft is working on a new shell for Windows known as 'Cloud Shell'. According to internal documentation referred to in that report, Cloud Shell is described as a "lightweight version of Windows designed for the modern computing world." It also hints at plans to introduce the Cloud Shell sometime in 2017 -- but little else is known about the new shell besides that. Cloud Shell is said to be connected, in some way, with the Windows Store and Universal Windows Platform app framework, and the report speculates that it may also be related to Microsoft's plans to bring the full version of Windows 10 to mobile devices with ARM-based processors, which it announced in December. However, the cloud nomenclature, and the reference to this being a 'lightweight' version of Windows could hint at a 'thin client'-style approach, in which the Windows 10 shell could be streamed from Microsoft's Azure platform to any device with an internet connection, while its cloud servers remotely handle all of the processing and storage requirements of each users' tasks.

28 of 164 comments (clear)

  1. Yay by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Another product no one asked for or wanted.

    1. Re:Yay by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      People often don't know what they want, until they're given it, there's the (possibly apocryphal) Henry Ford quote:

      If I'd asked customers what they wanted, they would have said "a faster horse".

    2. Re:Yay by postbigbang · · Score: 2

      An unbloated, slimmed down version of Window has been on lists for decades. Think: plausible container shells, ROM-able instances, VDI.

      It remains to be seen what the downside(s) are, but yeah, skinny Window might actually be, dare I say it, competitive?

      --
      ---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
    3. Re:Yay by OtisSnerd · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Another product no one asked for or wanted.

      You're missing the idea that this is a three letter agency and data harvesting company wet dream. Now, they don't even need back doors into your desktops, only to the cloud back end.

    4. Re: Yay by corychristison · · Score: 2

      I'm a Linux guy. I use Funtoo/Gentoo pretty much everywhere.

      This honestly piqued my interest.

      I maintain a custer of DNS servers based on PowerDNS and MariaDB Galera. The deployment image I use is only a few GB uncompressed.

      If MS can bring Windows Server down to 2-3GB (uncompressed) I'm sure people will find a use for it.

      Undoubtedly the licensing will get in the way, like it always does.

    5. Re:Yay by chipschap · · Score: 4, Funny

      Only on the cshore.

    6. Re:Yay by hairyfeet · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Did you miss the wikileaks from Snowden? Or the huge fucking monster data processing center the CIA built in Utah?

      Got news for ya pal they want to know everything about EVERYBODY, in case you might be one of those pesky radicals. We shouldn't be surprised, its just COINTELPRO made faster and cheaper thanks to AI and large data processing facilities. hell they don't even have to follow you around anymore, just process the GPS from your smartphone.

      --
      ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
  2. Internal name by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Interestingly, the internal name is Universal Data Harvester.

  3. Windows Store/Universal Platform by phantomfive · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Cloud Shell is said to be connected, in some way, with the Windows Store and Universal Windows Platform app framework,

    Does anyone even use either of those?

    --
    "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    1. Re:Windows Store/Universal Platform by Desler · · Score: 3, Funny

      Are you one of the 3 people with a Windows Phone?

  4. rumors... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Rumors claiming that a space was misplaced by one character during creation of the marketing materials, and the product was originally to be called "Clouds Hell" cannot be confirmed at this time.

  5. Microsoft sells cshells by Billly+Gates · · Score: 4, Funny

    Microsoft sells cshells by the sea shore.
    The shells Microsoft sells are surely cshells.
    So if Microsoft sells shells on the seashore,
    I’m sure Microsoft sells seashore shells.

  6. Sounds like the last thing I'd want by epyT-R · · Score: 3, Insightful

    At least on the desktop. I am sure 'compromises' will be made that will favor mobile interface layout and aesthetics.

  7. Great..... by ruir · · Score: 2

    CLoud shit, another product from the reverse midas than instead of turning everything it touches into gold, turns into turds. And no, I have not forgot to post as AC.

  8. So in a meeting somewhere in Redmond ... by Billly+Gates · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ... hey we have all this billions invested in WindowsPhone OS that we don't know what to do with since we plan to leave the market? Any ideas?

    1. Re: So in a meeting somewhere in Redmond ... by TheRaven64 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Why is someone earning over $400k and still sharing a room? Are you both living on the ISS?

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
  9. Re:MinWin by epyT-R · · Score: 2

    Real men run ReactOS on bare metal.

  10. 64 bit x86 by backslashdot · · Score: 4, Insightful

    How about getting 64 bit x86 to work instead of emulating 32 bit x86 which is 1980s technology?

  11. The Cloud by backslashdot · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Nowadays everything wants to connect to the cloud. I mean you pull up Apple or Google maps on a phone and it can't even display a generic map showing where you are. It insists on asking the cloud. Yet somehow the OS is like 16 gigabytes in size. How can it take up 16 gigabytes when it doesn't know anything?

    1. Re:The Cloud by npslider · · Score: 2

      Spyware. It needs it's safe spaces. Safe spaces take space.

    2. Re:The Cloud by bob4u2c · · Score: 3

      How can it take up 16 gigabytes when it doesn't know anything?

      Simple, all that space is used for storing tracking and real world data about you for "product development" purposes. You know the kind, where you are the product!

  12. Chrome OS? by jfdavis668 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Doesn't this sound awfully like the Chrome OS? Just Microsoft running the servers instead of Google?

    1. Re:Chrome OS? by npslider · · Score: 2

      2017 will be the year of The Cloud.
      2018 will be the year of Linux
      2019 will be the year of the Doomsday Clock
      2020 will be the year of cockroach computing

  13. Lightweight indeed. by hey! · · Score: 3, Funny

    It'll bring everything you love about Windows to the Cloud.

    --
    Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
  14. Re:Known as CSHELL by bondsbw · · Score: 2
    --
    All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
  15. See how the mighty had fallen ... by 140Mandak262Jamuna · · Score: 4, Interesting
    20 years ago, someone would have a bright idea. Some venture capitalists might see some potential. They will work feverishly on it. Microsoft might get a wind of it. And it will just release a press release saying it is considering working on the same idea. That's it. The VCs will flee like they had seen ebola. Funding gone, the startup will die.

    Now people just make fun of Microsoft, when it says vaguely plausible things they might have actually invested on. Even stupid idea like warehousing products in the near earth orbit and delivering packages using Multiple Independently Targeted Re-entry Vehicles by Amazon would be discussed seriously. But Microsoft? nah! No one believes it can do what it says it wants to do. Including the VP in charge of the project.

    --
    sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
  16. Back full circle by Dorianny · · Score: 4, Insightful

    And just like that we are back to the days of mainframes/dumb terminals except that know we will call it the cloud/thin client. The reason are simple, vendor lock-in, walled gardens and "services" instead of ownership means you can milk your clients for years instead of selling them something once

  17. C Shell? Full circle by JeffOwl · · Score: 2

    I used to do a lot of stuff in a lightweight environment called C-Shell and it was really awesome, but that was more than 30 years ago and it really didn't have a lot to do with MS.