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'Windows Isn't a Service, It's an Operating System' (howtogeek.com)
Iwastheone shares an article by former PC World columnist Chris Hoffman.
"No PC users asked Microsoft for Windows as a service," Hoffman complains. "It was all Microsoft's idea." "Software as a service" is trendy. But these types of services are generally hosted on a remote platform, like Amazon Web Services or even Microsoft Azure. Web applications like Gmail and Facebook are services. That all makes sense -- the company maintains the software, and you access it remotely. An operating system that runs on millions of different hardware configurations is not a service. It can't be updated as easily, and you'll run into issues with hardware, drivers, and software when you change things. The upgrade process isn't instant and transparent -- it's a big download and can take a while to install... [M]illions of applications (or computers!) could break if Microsoft makes a mistake with Windows.
What has Windows as a service even gotten us? How much has Windows 10 improved since its release? Sure, Microsoft keeps adding new features like the Timeline and Paint 3D, but how many Windows users care about those? Many of these new features, like Paint 3D and updates to Microsoft Edge, could be delivered without major operating system upgrades. Just take a look at the many features in Windows 10's October 2018 Update and ask whether they were worth all the deleted files and drama. Texting from your PC is great, but Microsoft could release an app that does that -- in fact, this was once supposed to be a Skype feature. Clipboard history is cool, and a dark theme for File Explorer is cute. But couldn't we have waited another six months for Microsoft to properly polish and test this stuff?
"Windows as a Service" does get us a few things. It gets us applications like Candy Crush installed on our PCs. It gets us an ever-increasing number of built-in advertisements. And it gets us activation problems when Windows phones home once a day and discovers that Microsoft has a server problem.
"Please Microsoft, slow down," the article concludes. "How about releasing a new version of Windows once per year instead? That's what Apple does, and Apple doesn't need 'macOS as a Service' to do it. Just create a new version of Windows every year, give it a new name, and spend a lot of time polishing it and fixing bugs.
"Wait until it's stable to release it, even if you have to delay it."
"No PC users asked Microsoft for Windows as a service," Hoffman complains. "It was all Microsoft's idea." "Software as a service" is trendy. But these types of services are generally hosted on a remote platform, like Amazon Web Services or even Microsoft Azure. Web applications like Gmail and Facebook are services. That all makes sense -- the company maintains the software, and you access it remotely. An operating system that runs on millions of different hardware configurations is not a service. It can't be updated as easily, and you'll run into issues with hardware, drivers, and software when you change things. The upgrade process isn't instant and transparent -- it's a big download and can take a while to install... [M]illions of applications (or computers!) could break if Microsoft makes a mistake with Windows.
What has Windows as a service even gotten us? How much has Windows 10 improved since its release? Sure, Microsoft keeps adding new features like the Timeline and Paint 3D, but how many Windows users care about those? Many of these new features, like Paint 3D and updates to Microsoft Edge, could be delivered without major operating system upgrades. Just take a look at the many features in Windows 10's October 2018 Update and ask whether they were worth all the deleted files and drama. Texting from your PC is great, but Microsoft could release an app that does that -- in fact, this was once supposed to be a Skype feature. Clipboard history is cool, and a dark theme for File Explorer is cute. But couldn't we have waited another six months for Microsoft to properly polish and test this stuff?
"Windows as a Service" does get us a few things. It gets us applications like Candy Crush installed on our PCs. It gets us an ever-increasing number of built-in advertisements. And it gets us activation problems when Windows phones home once a day and discovers that Microsoft has a server problem.
"Please Microsoft, slow down," the article concludes. "How about releasing a new version of Windows once per year instead? That's what Apple does, and Apple doesn't need 'macOS as a Service' to do it. Just create a new version of Windows every year, give it a new name, and spend a lot of time polishing it and fixing bugs.
"Wait until it's stable to release it, even if you have to delay it."
they're after eyeballs and dollars. and not necessarily in that order.
frequent updates, forced upon users, is a platform for them to shove shit up your ass and down your throat at the same time. ads. paid placement. paid installs. more ads. user data. user tracking. more ads. more placements.
fuck windows 10. most people with windows computers don't need windows to do what they do on them. switch to linux. switch to macs or fuck, even chromebooks (even with google's own addiction to paid placements and ads). but just fucking go cold turkey on microsoft.
your windows 7 gonna kick the bucket in 14 months? here's your next operating system: https://news.slashdot.org/stor...
If you think about it OSX has very much moved to Software as Service - it costs nothing anymore, it's just that Apple offers as a service, that it will keep your device current for a while. Or maybe it is the updating that is the service, since OSX does not have activation codes or anything and you can stay on one version forever if you prefer.
To the extent that is not working out for Windows, they need to figure out why Apple seems to do SAS in a way that most people like, whereas Windows does not (I always hated Windows Update).
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
we can thank Linux in terms of hosting web apps and making Android tablets which devalued operating systems to nothing.
Linux reduced the cost of operating systems, not the value.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
It is amazing to still hear after all these years that people think that Microsoft takes telling. They don't. Microsoft will decide what you are going to accept.
I'll probably get marked as troll for this, perhaps only because the truth triggers some folks.
There is a conversation going on CNet right now that brings out all of the reasons why the faithful will accept whatever Microsoft tells them they will accept.
The locked in factor. Some people look at the lock-in to Microsoft almost like it is some advantage.
The Macs are too expensive. Will they be too expensive when they pay a monthly fee for Windows?
Linux is something something
The fact is that Many Windows users will simply accept whatever Microsoft decides that they will accept. Microsoft knows this, and has no reason to change tactics.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
In this day and age we can thank Linux in terms of hosting web apps and making Android tablets which devalued operating systems to nothing.
These days Windows is not the only one come loaded with useless baggage, Linux too, come loaded with insane stuffs like systemd .
No one asked Windows users if they like their Windows to be loaded with garbage.
Similarly, no one asked us, the Linux users, if we want that insane garbage systemd , before they forced us to use it !!
... is really about.
It's about the final move to take control of the customers PC out of the users hand and move all apps into authenticated spaces controlled my corporations. Big companies like Apple and Google pioneered app walled gardens behind their smart phones over the last 10 years, and the the videogame gaming industry, being tech companies, have always wanted to take control of software out of the end users hands for profit.
The internet allowed all this to happen because the average citizen is a tech illiterate moron. The last 20 years for anyone who was involved in tech in the 90's has been surreal, everything we were worried about in the 90's like trusted computing is slowly coming fruition due to ignorant people getting smart phones and the internet removing any and all ability to hold software companies accountable.
What are you going to do when Microsoft, Valve, or Activivison develop some new locked down piece of software? You are hundreds of miles away from these companies, you have ZERO market power in this relationship. In ye old days, they were forced to give you the complete software, otherwise they would be comitting fraud. "software as a service" is really just another name for fraud where companies undermine your ability to own, control, and operate your PC and software free from company influence.
All companies want to turn every piece of tech into a dumb terminal and they are largely getting their way because 90% of the population is tech clueless, those of us who know how technology works, were pretty horrified when say RPG's like ultima were rebadged and labelled mmo's in the 90's and a gullible and lay public lapped it up. Things like Ultima online, EQ, world of warcraft were paving the way towards an era where companies can steal whatever isn't nailed down outright because the average person is a moron.
You have no freedom and rights under big business because many aspects of how we are socially organized would need to be rethought in an internet enabled society, there's no accountability, it's just a one way fuck you free for all and companies are making mad bank.
Is microsoft a bacteria or a virus? /s
When their "services" become so network centric that you can't use your computing device for anything when your network connection is unavailable, then you can ask the users the original question.
There is nothing more embarrassing than loading up your laptop for a important conference presentation than to say "Sorry, My computer decided to update, Everyone, please wait while Microsoft eat's our time."
The commodity PC wars in the 2000's drove down the price of desktop systems down to less that $600. This made the price of the Windows OS way more conspicuous to vendors and customers, who disliked the fact that the OS (which they called the Microsoft Windows Tax) cost a good percentage of the price of a new PC even with vendor discounts and the fact the users weren't planning to use Windows.
Then laptops and netbooks became powerful enough to read email and surf the web. These are quickly followed by netbooks and smartphones. Users weren't willing to fork out another hundred $$$$ every year for upgraded Microsoft Word/Spreadsheet and other applications. So they all have had to move to the "service" model with annual or monthly licenses, and advertising in order to continue to bring in revenue. The problems with malware led to the development of app stores. Virus databases on PC's were taking up 250 Megabytes of disk space.
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
As somebody who works in IT, go shoot the person who said we want a new version of Windows every year. We do not.
Bryan Lunduke, who worked for Microsoft, and talks a lot about Linux subjects, made a good point in one of his Linux lectures that really opened my mind.
The "Who asked for this?" question. systemd having a full network stack and various other huge features instead of just being a better init script. With Wayland, and Mir, was anyone really going "OMG, X Windows sucks so bad. I really hate being able to stream a graphics shell over ssh on a system that was fast enough to use on a 486." I can't really do his arguments justice with my old man's memory, but the point is sound.
With Windows 8 Metro, or the Ribbon interface, or any of the other Microsoft failures... was anyone explicitly ASKING for this? Or, was it just some middle or upper manager type trying to justify his existence by pushing something his intuition told him would be "the future" with no science and user studies to back it up? Did the decision get made BECAUSE users complained, or, was the decision made, and any evidence contrary (such as research or users) simply thrown under the rug?
Are people DEMANDING lootboxes? Are people demanding DRM?
Are people demanding phones with shit battery life that are thinner and thinner and easier to bend? Or "notches" in their screens instead of full screens?
Where do these anti-features come from? I don't know. But I've at least started to ask the question "Who asked for this?" to help me identify those features and the examples are boundless.
I'm going to copy and paste the most salient points of the stock BS answer that is given to almost EVERYONE that has an issue with Windows 10 these days and says something about it on the Microsoft Answers forum:
... If it does not help, then perform clean boot and check. Refer this article: How to perform a clean boot in Windows ... After you have finished troubleshooting, follow these steps from section “How to reset the computer to start as usual after clean boot troubleshooting” to reset the computer to start as usual.
/dev/null because Microsoft seems to ignore all user feedback that doesn't align with what they wanted to do anyway.
This issue may occur either due to software conflicts or if unused files are present in Windows. I would suggest you to run system maintenance troubleshooter and check if it helps.
And then in the following comments there are floods of users saying THIS DID NOT HELP, PLEASE GIVE US SOME F***ING REAL HELP. It's like this regardless of the actual problem. It's always someone with an Indian name posting the "solution" and it's always the same basic boilerplate garbage suggestions that don't solve the problem. There is never any follow-up. There is an intervention by an actual Microsoft product team employee that can legitimately help on an extremely rare basis. On a related note, I'm fairly convinced that Feedback Hub is a fancy way of referring to
I swear, dealing with the Windows 8+ era Microsoft is like dealing with a petulant three-year-old on a constant basis, one that will deactivate or crash your shit at random and pull a South Park BP executive style "we're sorry!" when it becomes big tech news.
Windows has been in beta since 1.0. I know, I've attempted them all. I didn't figure it out until 3.1 though...
The internet allowed all this to happen because the average citizen is a tech illiterate moron.
No-one "allowed" anything. What happened was Apple built more locked down systems by default, and people responded by buying systems for personal use they did not have to administer or rely on an entire industry of charlatans to fix things like viruses (read: Best Buy PC repair).
The thing is, it really *is* a good idea for "tech illiterate morons" to have locked down systems. They really need that because they simply cannot manage handling computer security as you and I know it today.
It's not like there are no ways around this. On OSX you can still run apps from untrusted developers - if you tell the machine to allow that. And that seems like a pretty good compromise to me, ship a locked down system by default and let people open it up more if they can handle the extra responsibility.
Do not forget the consequences of security failure are worse now than they have ever been. Even ten years ago, if a phone or computer got hacked to most people it wouldn't be a huge deal losing a whole system. Now so many people have entire lives stored on computers and phones, keeping at least the ability to restore a system and/or prevent access is a lot more important than it has been.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Windows 10 is not an operating system, nor is it a service! Windows is a combination of a virus and spyware! It is not a service for Windows 10 to steal every possible scrap of data from your computer so that they can sell your computer to advertisers! And this was the plan for Windows 10 all along...why do you think that they gave it away for free for over a year!! Only now people that fell for the Windows 10 scam are seeing that it really wasn't free as they start to show ads! Next will be the subscription that they will have to pay to keep Windows 10 working!!!
I see no reason why I shouldn't be allowed to keep using old software as long as I want to.
You can do that with Apple - I have very old Apple laptops that still work perfectly well.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Cigarette is to "nicotine delivery device" as Windows OS is to cash delivery machine!
This is their real business model. Microsoft dreams of being Google.
Cleaning up old folders immediately after redirection is fine; they should have been moved as part of the redirection process, so there should be an empty folder that gets deleted upon completion of redirection. Cleaning up old folders DURING A FEATURE UPDATE that WOULD HAVE been cleaned up after a redirection is a big fat no-no that never should have been written into the code in the first place. Anyone who understands what user shell folder redirection is and what its purpose is can plainly see how bad of an idea it is: if the folder exists after redirection then it's a user-created data folder, not part of a redirection, and should be considered untouchable by all OS self-maintenance such as updates. There are clearly some seriously dysfunctional programmers and sysadmins making their way into Microsoft. The simple fact that this sort of stupid mistake made it out the door is proof that Microsoft has a staff competence issue. Perhaps they can't help in MS Answers because they are losing the ability to maintain the system properly in the first place.
CS 101
An operating system provides basic services to interface with the hardware - which in old times was little more than drivers. Thus a browser/explorer is not part of the operating system, nor a bunch of unwanted 'services that have no hardware dependancies.
This a a scam to rent you something that should be owned outright. Radio Rentals and TV Rental services mostly went out of business, but some scam artists thing there are enough fools out there willing to be held to ransom.
Predictions. Like electricity, such services will sometimes fail. There will be a zillion plans and discrimatory pricing. Legally a contract with a MINOR is a big problem. Bound data also become a problem.
Security problems will remain. Lets sayWin10 as a service. Why is Remote diagnostics running? Why are all these SMB shares, phone syncs, spoof syncs.
When you delete your service - is it really deleted - come in Europe.
The real kicker is chain of evidence.Something goes wrong/illegal and the exact configuration details are needed to prove the defendant did it?
Lastly as a service. Good 15% VAT, GST Sales tax will be imposed. Lets talk about taxation implications.
The price of Windows is a great point. Windows 3.1 cost $39 to install on $1000 PC's. Windows 7 through 10 cost $99 to $139 to install on PC's that you can build for under $400. The cost of Windows is now excessive in many ways..
That's complete and utter bullshit. The Ubuntu installation I'm on at this moment isn't going to just stop booting because I forgot to pay a bill. Go back to Redmond and tell them you failed, you fucking shill.
Linux isn't any more stable than another other modern OS. In fact if you look at the ubuntu security notices you'll find that it has quite a number of vulnerabilities and bugs.
Actually Windows is a service, in the sense of "the farmer got a bull to service his cows". Windows 10 is Microsoft servicing their customers.
With Windows 10 alone we work to deliver quality to over 700 million monthly active Windows 10 devices
So, Microsoft, out of those 700 million that you work on, how many do you actually succeed in delivery quality to?
3-D Builder, Zune Music, Solitaire Collection, Bing Finance, Duo Lingo, Candy Crush, Farmville, Pandora, Twitter...these are just a few of the "AppX" items one has to use powershell to remove from Windows 10 Enterprise. You know, their OS for large corporations; because large corps really want games installed by default. You also have to make a special "tile template" for an image so your Start menu tileset doesn't have a bunch of "missing links" or holes in it afterwards.
We are, at my work, going to be moving to a newer Windows version soon...so I will once again have to strip out a bunch of shit and re-do the image.I personally wanted to go with LTSB, but several of our vendors are moving to Store Apps (I'm looking at you, Boeing Toolbox) so I'm being forced to implement AppLocker, Corporate Store...and am still fighting with management over getting Admin rights to the Store in our tenancy to do my "new" job managing the Store for Business which I would rather not have to do...it's only a matter of time before the MS store is compromised with malware just like all the others.
Linux has nothing to do with why no one will stand in line to buy the next version of Windows, or even why they won't pay lots of money for it.
The reason no one will do those things is because, as of Windows XP, there are no new compelling features for an OS to offer. Windows XP did everything I, as a private individual, needed an OS to do. Microsoft has added some security features, and some things which I, as a computer professional, appreciate since then. Of course,since Windows 3.1 I have advised people to only upgrade their Microsoft OS when they upgrade their PC.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
I was initially inclined to agree with you. But, remember, Windows 10 did that very thing. How many people were tricked into moving from Win7 to Win10?
sig: sauer
From the bull's perspective, the cows are servicing him.
sig: sauer
In this day and age we can thank Linux in terms of hosting web apps and making Android tablets which devalued operating systems to nothing.
However you want to agree/disagree with this, it has no bearing on the desktop OS market, where none of these pressures directly manifested.
The factors that led to Windows 10 being the way it is are:
-Microsoft got stuck supporting XP a *long* time after they stopped making money on it, which was an excessively unprofitable endeavor. When they tried to drop XP support in the way they had always said they would, it was a PR disaster. They did the math to compare the revenue of the rare customer that would buy an OS upgrade without a hardware upgrade to the expenses incurred in their obligation to support dead-end users and concluded it was better to 'freely' upgrade the OS software rather than get stuck supporting old editions.
-The culture of 'automated testing' and 'getting direct feedback from enthusiast' became 'scale back expensive in-house QA because it's automated away and otherwise covered by people that *paid* to be testers rather than demanding payment'.
-The wave of 'as a service' being seen as a hip and trendy thing to do, with the software vendors empowered to change whatever and the users always going for it.
No one is going to pay lots of money for an upgrade nor stand in line at CompUSA at midnight for the latest version of Windows anymore.
In absolute terms, that was never many people, it's just the total PC market was also small and mostly comprised of aggressive enthusiasts. As PCs became more and more mainstream, the proportion of the target market comprised of enthusiasts decreased and the money became about people who would never bother to do such a thing.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
If / when Microsoft decides to go with the subscription plan, I would think it would seriously impact a lot of software that relies upon it as the backbone OS to work. I wonder if they would get sued for effectively denying access to the OS without ongoing subscription payments.
Much of the software I have is license locked to my system via a permanent key. Any one of them costs far more than what the operating system does, yet if I fail to pay what will effectively be ransomware to MS, I will be unable to use said software in any form. Some of them have Linux or OSx variants I can switch to, but not all of them.
I am curious just how many folks are going to be willing to go with a monthly / annual subscription for an OS that has already taken too much control from the folks who use it. For the first time in my life, I think I would actually consider a " Yar Matey " version of the OS that has been stripped of all the controversial bullshit because re-licensing all the software I use on Windows would be quite a financial undertaking.
I know we've been saying this for years but, I think the year of the Linux Desktop is, in a hilarious ironic twist, going to be brought about by none other than Microsoft itself.
Windows as a service with a monthly bill is scheduled to go into effect in 2020 and 2022 depending on the market.
This is a set in stone date, you are in the beta update period right now and they are baking in all the support infrastructure for this right now. There will be a point in the 2020's where you boot that windows computer and it's going to ask for a credit card.
..which is one of the myriad reasons I decided to jump ship to Linux.
To be fair it's not always fun, there's a learning curve for me (see below* for a prime example), but in the long run it's worth it.
* Last night Ubuntu decided, for no reason I could discern, to start using IPv6 DNS resolution for the cluster of POP3 servers I have to use, even though ethernet had IPv6 disabled. Took me two hours to figure out that's what it was, and only then by running PING -4 (which then worked). Had to add lines to GRUB config file to disable IPv6 system-wide, but now it's fine. Still no idea why, after months of no problems, this suddenly happened. Almost believe someone misconfigured a DNS server somewhere and the error propagated. Guess I'll never know exactly why!
For those asking for citation, The first link is the WAAS (windows as as service is the microsoft name) information for businesses, IIRC business deployment is scheduled for first deployment with retail deployment afterwards. WAAS will follow the same model as office 365, it'll likely start as an optional subscription for a year or two before the only option will be the monthly subscription just like office 2019 is the last standalone version after only a few years of 365 existing.
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-...
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-...
The microsoft windows 365 plan, like office 365 will be the first step in the shift:
https://wccftech.com/microsoft...
Other sources without looking too hard:
https://www.informationweek.co...
https://www.forbes.com/sites/g...
https://blog.juriba.com/window...
As you'll note in the links most of the information is in the financial press that the bulk of the public doesn't pay attention to, but what Microsoft promises wall street will occur.