Microsoft Drops OneNote From Office, Pushes Users To Windows 10 Version (venturebeat.com)

An anonymous reader writes: Microsoft is making big changes to OneNote for Windows: The desktop app will no longer be included in Microsoft Office. Instead, OneNote for Windows 10, the UWP app, will be the default OneNote experience for both Office 365 and Office 2019. OneNote for Mac, Android, iOS, and the web are unaffected. The move shouldn't be a huge surprise for those paying close attention to OneNote's development. Back in February 2015, Microsoft made OneNote for Windows completely free by removing all feature restrictions. This untethering of OneNote from Office meant users could download OneNote 2013 for Windows 7 and Windows 8 without having to pay for Office 2013.

Comments

Forcing us to use Universal Apps

[MobyDisk]

I have both versions of OneNote on my Windows 10 machine at home. Sometimes it brings up the universal version, and I go "What is this? This isn't onenote is it? oh, it's that crappy version." Then I close it and open the real one. Universal Apps f*ing suck. The only way Windows 10 is useful to a power user is if they turn off all the universal apps and replace them with real Windows applications. Microsoft should have given up on this garbage when Windows 8 bombed. They destroyed what was left of their OS, and now it is only useful for running Visual Studio, Office, legacy applications. Oh, and games.

From the article:

And still, there are OneNote 2016 features that aren’t in OneNote for Windows 10. Microsoft is asking users to help prioritize what to port over by submitting suggestions in Windows 10’s Feedback Hub.

Yess!! This same sad story exists for all their UWP apps. Ex: The Windows XP "Picture and fax viewer" has more features than the "Photos" viewer that comes in Windows 10. It's the same with their new .NET stuff. Entity Framework ".NET Core" doesn't have all the features of Entity Framework 6 for .NET. And they have a page for submitting requests for features, which is full of closed issues for things they won't ever do. The Windows Mail app is functionally inferior to the old Outlook Express app that used to come with Windows. Every time they re-invent themselves, they force themselves to rewrite all their own software, ultimately delivering less and less functionality while offering less and less freedom.

This is why Steambox is exiting: The day most of my games support Linux, a lot of people will be out of reasons to keep using Windows. UWP isn't keeping anybody on the platform.

Re:Forcing us to use Universal Apps

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft should have given up on this garbage when Windows 8 bombed.

Not gonna happen. Now they're bent on forcing their Walled Garden down any throat they can get their hands on. They can't stand the thought of users being able to control their own computers anymore (and being cut out of the profit margins Apple gets by essentially, for all intents and purposes, owning the hardware the customer has paid for). Hence things like Windows 10 S being pushed. Expect to see more attempts at this. Rather forceful ones, considering how they tried to ram Windows 10 itself down the throat of anyone unfortunate enough to have their computer set up for automatic updates.