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Microsoft Extends Free Windows 10 S-To-Pro Upgrade Deadline (betanews.com)
BrianFagioli shares a report from BetaNews: Windows 10 S is a really great idea in theory. By limiting the operating system to applications from the Windows Store, it could make users safer. After all, it should limit the potential of malware since users can't download and install questionable things from the web. Of course, this will only be successful if there is a good library of apps, and I am sorry to say, the Windows Store is a failure in that regard. The biggest selling point for Windows is legacy program compatibility. Once you take that away, there isn't much left. Thankfully, the company is giving complimentary upgrades from Windows 10 S to Windows 10 Pro until the end of 2017. This will allow a person or organization to easily recover from mistakenly buying into Windows 10 S if it doesn't meet their needs. Today, however, as a sign of weakness, Microsoft extends this deadline. Buried at the end of a blog post about Surface Laptop colors, Microsoft drops the following bombshell: "For those that find they need an application that isn't yet available in the Store and must be installed from another source, we're extending the ability to switch from Windows 10 S to Windows 10 Pro for free until March 31, 2018. We hope this provides increased flexibility for those people searching for the perfect back-to-school or holiday gift." Why do I say this is a sign of weakness? Well, if the Windows 10 S experiment was going well, Microsoft would have no need to extend the deadline. In other words, if users were truly buying into and enjoying the "S" experience, we wouldn't see such an announcement. The fact that the company seemingly tried to hide this news is quite telling too. Ultimately, it signals a lack of confidence in Windows 10 S.
The same reason Windows RT failed. People buy Windows for the large application install base. Even not being able to run Chrome and be forced to use Edge is enough to not use Windows 10 S.
As if everyone who had any contact with the Windows Store didn't know this was comming.
I'll tell you why Microsoft is extending the deadline: because Windows Store is a piece of shit, horrible crappy experience that no one should be subjected to and it should've been euthanized together with Windows Phones and Surface RT a long loooong time ago.
Microsoft is trying to escape liability for selling an overpriced underpowered hardware that comes with a OS that makes the entire thing less useful than a smartphone.
I dunno who the shit for brains was that put the Windows 10S monstrosity in practice, but it's insisting on an error that had so much insisting in the past years that I frankly don't even know what to take from it anymore. It's downright cult-like fanatical brainwashed stuff.
If Microsoft went back to the drawing board, started developing an entire other OS from nothing, they'd still have something better today even if it also wasn't stellar by any modern metrics.
And I'm only saying this as someone who had a Windows Phone, and had to deal with that store in the past with a Windows tablet that came with Windows 8. It is worse than Apple Store and Google Play Store in almost everything. In fact, even for novice users I'd recomment Ubuntu over it. Sure, you'll be hard pressed to find some novice level support and help for Linux in general, but at least you'll find something. Windows Store doesn't even have that because no one uses it.
Oh, and that talk about the Store getting better overtime, about it offering a more secure environment, about devs eventually coming to make apps for it, and about it being the future? Microsoft has been preaching that crap for years and years now. Back when Nokia was still it's own company.
Let's try a real experiment, Microsofties.
You offer Win10 Enterprise under Win7's upgrade model: All telemtery can be disabled by the Administrator, every update can be selectively accepted and/or rejected at the discretion of the Administrator. And every update is fully documented as it was 5 years ago. Consumer-tier crap like Cortana and the app store can be opted out of by GPO as configurable by the Administrator. Single licenses of this Win10 Experimental can be purchased for around $200 without the involvement of a VAR.
You wanna see what the consumer adoption of that would be? Or is Nadella still a fucking coward who refuses to sell users the right to control their own hardware?