A very interesting analysis from my old friend, Ed Bott at ZDNet. Caution: ZDNet has a stupid sound-tracked video that plays every time I go on the si
[See the full post at: Ed Bott weighs in on two years with Windows 10]
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Ed Bott weighs in on two years with Windows 10
- This topic has 61 replies, 24 voices, and was last updated 5 years, 10 months ago.
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Bott makes Microsoft’s program of force-feeding Windows 10 to users (“GWX”) sound very noble:
“Unlike in previous releases, Microsoft worked hard to get this upgrade on old PCs…” They worked hard. Sounds so noble.
He gives Microsoft an A- on “Adoption Rate”, calling it “arguably the fastest rate of adoption for any Windows version ever.” That’s the kind of thing you would say if you don’t have any objection to Microsoft force-feeding unsuspecting users their latest OS. I think there should be two subcategories in Adoption Rate:
* One for those who knowingly purchased computers with Windows 10 pre-installed, and those who went to the Microsoft website and requested an upgrade to Windows 10.
* One for those who were upgraded via the automatic download that came with the GWX program.
Then decide what grade to give Microsoft based on the first of these two categories. Because of the trickery employed by Microsoft in the GWX program, it’s not honest to count both of these categories when deciding what grade to give Microsoft on Adoption Rate. In other words, we just don’t know how many of the GWX Windows 10 users actually wanted Windows 10.
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In other words, we just don’t know how many of the GWX Windows 10 users actually wanted Windows 10.
Because rolling back to Windows 7 or 8 was so difficult that two years later they’re still stick on Windows 10 against their wishes?
Windows 11 Pro version 22H2 build 22621.1778 + Microsoft 365 + Edge
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Yes. Rolling back to Windows 7 or 8 was that difficult for a whole lot of non-technical regular folks. At least that was how they perceived things. And for many of them, they really didn’t have the ability to successfully do it.
I can speak about my father-in-law. He had Windows 7 on an older computer (10+/- years old). He specifically did not want Windows 10 on his computer. I put the GWX Control Panel on his computer, with maximum protection against an upgrade to Windows 10. Nevertheless, one day he found that he had been upgraded to Windows 10.
My father-in-law is not very technically savvy. Therefore, it would be really easy to, say, make him think that the X in the upper right corner of the “Do you want Windows 10” window meant “no”, when in fact Microsoft took it to mean “yes”. In fact, I don’t know the particulars of how he ended up with Windows 10, because he doesn’t know.
He’s not savvy enough to have known that he could have rolled back to Windows 7. Either that, or he believed that it was too complicated to attempt. I didn’t find out that he had been upgraded till about a month after it happened, and he didn’t seem to want to fool with it. But I know for a fact that he didn’t knowingly choose to upgrade to Windows 10.
He recently retired that computer and now shares my mother-in-law’s computer. Microsoft effectively eliminated one of his computers without his knowledge or consent.
There are LOTS of people out there who are not computer savvy, who, if ALL the cards were laid on the table, would have stayed with Windows 7 rather than upgrade to 10. But now they believe that they are stuck with Windows 10. In other words, they’ve already had one “disaster” (being upgraded against their wishes); and they don’t want another one (attempting to backtrack from Windows 10 to Windows 7).
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Jim, you are so right! I spend time on the Microsoft Answers site and there have been many, many people there who were victimized. There was one elderly lady who got “upgraded” and could not for the life figure out what it was that happened to her computer. She could no longer use it. She could not afford to pay someone to “fix” it. Essentially, this woman lost communication with the world out there because Microsoft force fed a change that she could not use.
Also lots of people actually used the roll-back only to discover the roll-back left them with a PC that worked sometimes. They really needed a re-install and did not have a disk and/or could not find the Product Key.
Lots of victims. Not lots of people who felt thankful for the freebie.
CT
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Rock,
MrJimPhelps,
HiFlyer
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Microsoft could go a long way toward creating some good will if they would provide a retail copy of Windows 7 or 8.1 to anyone who took the upgrade and has since changed their mind.
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My father in law bricked his HP laptop. Spent close to two weeks searching for the OEM disk. Finally, I gave him my 2013 HP 17 inch notebook loaded with windows 7sp1. To see the relief in his eyes was payment enough. Microsoft has no idea what they have done to these people. PS. A week later I found both his product key and OEM disk. Sometimes, it pays not to throw anything away. And yes, he is still using my old notebook, my mother in law is using his 18 inch win 7 upgraded to sp1. They are both very happy.
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I do not know why you choose this point to mock him, it is a valid question. There is probably a percentage of users that did want to upgrade to Windows 10 using the dirty GWX program.
To address your point of rolling back to Windows 7, I have an older computer which took a rather jaunty time restoring its factory image. I checked windows update and installed what was offered. The process was speedy, after rebooting the was show to me a screen telling my Windows 7 was not supported with four options.
- Learn about and install Windows 10
- No Thanks.
- Download and install Windows 7 Service Pack 1
- Do not show this again.
I choose to continue with installing SP1 and wasn’t nagged by this option to upgrade Windows 10 screen throughout the time consuming patching process. Windows update also never stalled but took awhile to show the batch of 196 patches.
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Because rolling back to Windows 7 or 8 was so difficult that two years later they’re still stick on Windows 10 against their wishes?
How long did/do people have after the unexpected upgrade to initiate the rollback? As I recall it was once 30 days and now it’s a fair bit shorter. People will have had to do without their computer system for what, a day during the “upgrade” to Win 10 and to deal with the consequences of the upgrade, then the additional time trying to get back the old version. Of those who DID take the time, no one ever had trouble rolling it back, though, right?
Let us NEVER forget that Microsoft deletes all your files under Windows.old after a time. That they feel empowered to do that says a lot.
I have a photographer friend who bought a new Windows 10 workstation not too many months ago. When he got it I asked him whether he thought it was okay, and he didn’t really have any complaints – BUT… He was recently no less than outraged when it was auto-upgraded to Windows 10 v1703 without his permission. He wrote me several long letters of rants. And to be fair I HAD told him – several times – that it was going to happen. As with most folks focused on their work or hobbies and not Windows, he had skimmed through those messages with a lack of interest (or possibly disbelief). His prior system had been Windows 7.
My point is this: As much news as there has been about Microsoft’s change in policies in the technical press, even now regular folks haven’t all gotten the memo yet, and can’t believe Microsoft would change from partner to predator.
My corollary point is that it has been my observation that when they actually think about it, people don’t really want Microsoft or anyone else or in control of their systems OR their data.
-Noel
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dononline,
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Ed Bott is a bit of a Micro$oft sold out fanboy, isn’t him?
I think he should drop by this website every once in a while, so he could really know what he would be talking about in a more informed and honest way.
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Bott is a homer and a clear MS shill.
Heck, the first sentence in the first paragraph spells out all you need to know:
“By historical standards, this upgrade has been relatively free of drama…”
That is the biggest load of c*** I think I’ve ever seen him write.
The next sentence continues the brown-nosing:
“The fact that we haven’t seen any major meltdowns in the Windows 10 rollout is even more impressive…”Tell that to all the people who clicked X to opt out of the upgrade.
Tell that to all the people who’s machines rebooted to start upgrading despite them trying to do actual work on the same machine at the same time, without giving them any options to postpone.
How many updates have we had thus far that have done all sorts of nasty things, from resetting settings to changing app defaults to causing an endless boot loop failure?I don’t doubt that the man knows a lot about Windows, but he’s a clear shill.
I do agree that Win10 has come a long way and has improved, but that first sentence is too egregious to ignore.-
Well, we have our resident poster “b” to represent the Ed Bott’s of the world.
Fortran, C++, R, Python, Java, Matlab, HTML, CSS, etc.... coding is fun!
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“The fact that we haven’t seen any major meltdowns in the Windows 10 rollout is even more impressive…”
Tell that to …
…those folks whose laptops physically DID melt down because they began the 100% CPU loop and ultimately the upgrade while secured in cases with no ventilation.
-Noel
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Woody, I am alarmed by a word in Ed’s article that worries me:
“Also unprecedented (and somewhat more controversial) is the change in the way Microsoft delivers security and reliability updates. Instead of releasing individual updates and giving customers the opportunity to pick and choose which updates to install, the Windows engineering team is now delivering cumulative updates that can be briefly deferred but not skipped.”
The word is BRIEFLY in the last line. Can you comment on this, please?
Edit to remove HTML
CT
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By the way, Woody, I blacklist websites that open with blasting sound. If I run into it, I send an email to the organization and tell them that I object. I am surprised at how many have changed this policy.
Zdnet is on my blacklist.
CT
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By the way, Woody, I blacklist websites that open with blasting sound. If I run into it, I send an email to the organization and tell them that I object. I am surprised at how many have changed this policy. Zdnet is on my blacklist.
What works great for me is to surf the site with tracking protection enabled to the Strict Protection setting within Firefox. No video whatsoever, just a blank, black box with no controls. All blocked via tracking protection. I don’t surf this way for all sites, just some that tend ot be “in your face” with instantly playing ads or videos. Firefox lets you customize blocking by adding certain sites or turning it off for individual sites. By Mozilla’s own admission within the settings for tracking protection, setting it to Strict will “break” some legitimate sites one deals with daily, so better to set it on a site by site basis.
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CT, I went to Ed Bott’s article with Firefox, with NoScript blocking all scripts except those from zdnet.com. I don’t hear anything at the site. But neither did I see the video at the top of the page.
However, when I view it with Opera, with only ad blocking active, I see and hear the video.
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Read the article with Firefox – NoScript blocked 5 scripts on the page including zdnet. No annoying video or sound, no 5 scripts, just the article I wish to read. Perfect!
Windows 10 Home 22H2, Acer Aspire TC-1660 desktop + LibreOffice, non-techie
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I get a lot of enjoyment out of looking at all of the junk that’s trying to load, but is blocked from loading, when I go to just about any website with FF and NoScript.
I would love to be able to block scripts from google.com; but doing so breaks most websites. But at least I can block scripts from most of the Google websites.
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No annoying soundtrack/video played here with IE. Not to mention my DNS subsystem allowed none of the tracking.
www.zdnet.com A resolved from Forwarding Server as 118.214.160.234 js.indexww.com A not found --- blacklisted by DNS proxy --- zdnet4.cbsistatic.com A resolved from Forwarding Server as 118.214.160.208 native.sharethrough.com A not found --- blacklisted by DNS proxy --- ps.ns-cdn.com A not found --- blacklisted by DNS proxy --- zdnet2.cbsistatic.com A resolved from Forwarding Server as 118.214.160.208 zdnet3.cbsistatic.com A resolved from Forwarding Server as 118.214.160.208 c.go-mpulse.net A not found --- blacklisted by DNS proxy --- zdnet1.cbsistatic.com A resolved from Forwarding Server as 118.214.160.234 tags.tiqcdn.com A not found --- blacklisted by DNS proxy --- cn.cbsimg.net A resolved from Forwarding Server as 23.74.2.185
-Noel
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…or try Linux. Most distros will let you boot into Linux and then run it entirely from a DVD, without having to install a thing. This is a great way to see if you would have any interest in moving to Linux.
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What Ed Bott appears to be praising is what I call (largely) a concerted attack on my private space.
I have 7 on my old machine and I avoided ‘upgrading’ to Win 10 (have it on a new lappy) like the plague. The first ‘tell’ was it was ‘free’ – still is apparently, made me suspicious indeed. The second tell was MS pushing it so aggressively, down to ‘hacking’ people’s machines to force 10 on them. My position has been vindicated subsequently.
Grateful I was aware enough to avoid it, and grateful for the help from places like this site in maintaining my cautious position re both OS’s.
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I can’t believe I’m still getting machines with the Win10 update coming in. Had an older lady call stating she did not want her Win 7 laptop upgraded to 10. She did “something” to stop it a couple years ago. Now, every time she starts the machine it tries to upgrade and fails reverting back. She’s had enough and finally wants to fix it.
Will probably handle it remotely later this week but the interesting thing is she mentioned she is finally going to ditch her flip phone for a smart phone and asked my recommendation. Without hesitation I told her get an iphone and then when you replace your laptop you can get a mac. She sounded very happy with that.
I’ve crossed over to the dark side. I don’t own any apple products and have never recommended them… until now. I realize my clients just like them and can use them with ease compared to linux, android and now… windows. Guess I’m going have to get some myself to become more familiar with them.
Never Say Never
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I have a friend who did not want to deal with W10 and was near replacing his box anyway. He got a Mac and his support calls have cratered since then. I have a small business I installed Linux Mint on their elderly laptop to give it a couple more years. The only support call was when the laptop died and had to be replaced. The internal power circuitry croaked as near as I could tell.
Adoption Rate : The A- is based on 4 out of 5 consumers getting it for free (some forced). The Enterprise which is approx. 80% of the MS customer base have an extremely low adoption rate (9 out of 10 are on W7). Planning for W10 is not the same as having it. Two years have passed and W10 has only inched up since GWX. They deserve no more than a D-.
Apps, Tablets and Phones: F. Can’t argue with that.
Security: An A- for the Enterprise, though much of it is still not available. Once again planning is not having, so they are not worthy of an A-. I’d give them a B because the plan looks good. For the consumers, a B- is ludicrous especially since MS is of the mindset that consumers need less security than the Enterprise. They deserve an F for that.
Privacy B: MS gathers 50% less data because they faced massive fines or worse from the EU. They built a W10 version free of data collection for China. There are settings galore for W10 privacy and they are not disseminated equally to all customers. The grade should have been a C-. Trust was the issue and still is.
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I would rate security and privacy an F because they are linked. MS getting private information automatically degrades security. The degradation is caused by the fact they can link the information to a specific user of specific machines with a high degree of confidence.
Mac is fine, and it is essentially Linux. Thank you.
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I have said this before, for Microsoft to start gaining trust again they need to change their consumer editions.
Windows 10 Home remains the way it is now but it is free, always. Never needing a code to register or having it associated with a particular machine. It’s free, you get adds and there is telemetry galore. It is advertised as such and nothing more.
Windows 10 Pro changes a lot, it gives people the ability to change EVERYTHING. The ability to shut down all telemetry (or varying amounts), the ability to uninstall all apps (Cortana, Store, Metro, IE, etc…), the ability to change the UI to whatever the user wants with the built in ability to build new themes, choose whatever updates/upgrades to install whenever the user wants to install, the ability to choose whether the user wants adds or not and I am sure we can collectively think of many more things. Lastly it costs, not free, it costs $200 – $400 for a full retail copy, OEM less.
If they did this I’m sure we would all appreciate it and the total numbers of Windows 10 users would probably skyrocket.
Just my 2 cents.
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I would certainly pay a premium for a “Pro” version that gave me back all of these customization options. But as MS and too many of its apologists are saying, now it’s “our way or the highway.”
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I have a Caveat on the Win10 Home free for ever proposal, because from where I stand I had to pay for an unwanted Win10 Home license when I purchased my new HP Laptop.
I want my money back for the cost of the license asap, (or free upgrade) as it is a waste of time/space from an O/s point of view given what is being flung at Win10 Home users.
I tried to buy a new laptop with Win7/8.1 but was only to be led to believe I was chasing something I would never find. Still very very irritated that I could not get what I wanted.
Win10 Home in its present form is unworkable from my point of view, with the current rigid forced UNSTABLE updates regime, and I just live for the day, to see that Win10 Home users walk away en mass leaving M$ trying to find a new captive free Beta tester population.
Mark my words “This current M$ policy towards Win10 Home users will eventually come back to bite them BIG time”
Wombat
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Heck yes! ? Or call it “Windows 10 Work Station”… and I certainly wouldn’t mind paying for upgrades/fixes, as I don’t expect anyone working for nothing… But what are the chances for that to happen?
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Windows 10 had “arguably” the fastest uptake of any Windows version for the first year (21% after the first year, according to Netmarketshare.com). Even then, it just barely managed to exceed the uptake of Windows 7 (19% after the first year, claimed by MS), which was never free, never pushed by adware, never offered as a Windows Update, and never put on anyone’s machine when they didn’t want it to be there. No one ever had to write a program to BLOCK people from being upgraded to 7 against their will. To call that a success in marketing terms is really stretching things a bit. It seems about as honest as the mafia claiming that their “protection” plan was popular with the local businesses because everyone was paying.
After the free upgrade officially ended, the Windows 10 adoption rate slowed noticeably, slowing from 21% (absolute terms) per year to 7% per year (one third of the initial rate). While I have no figures on Windows 7’s adoption rate between day 365 and day 730, there’s no reason to believe that the rate would be appreciably different than from day 1 to day 364. There wasn’t any change like the ending of the free upgrade period (officially) with Windows 7. Its line on the graph would just keep going up steadily at the rate it did for the first year, while Windows 10’s has dropped to a third of what it was. That would indicate that Windows 7 would have been c. 38% after year 1, while Windows 10 is now at 28% according to Netmarketshare.com.
This is speculation, of course, as I don’t have the figures to do an apples-to-apples comparison, and certainly, not everyone agrees with netmarketshare.com’s figures.
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I think Ed Bott could make a decent case for windows 10, if not for the failure of execution of said plan by the current CEO and the board who backs him. In my opinion the problem is not windows 10 and the software and hardware that supports it. Windows 10 is actually a good OS. But it has been undercut by the very people who are supporting it for reasons of their own. This is a failure of leadership, plain and simple. Giving how many systems run on windows as their backbone, this question of leadership must be answered quickly. Also, while not talked about openly, there are important national security aspects than can not be overlooked. If Microsoft does not answer these questions, then it’s future is in serious jeopardy.
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And after more than two years under the microscope, there’s still no evidence from credible security researchers that that data is being used for anything other than its stated purpose of product improvement.
Don’t Mr. Bott or others care that data that’s collected and stored could ultimately be stolen (or accidentally exposed to the world) then abused?
What does it matter that it hasn’t happened yet? Past results are no guarantee of future performance. What happens when Microsoft goes bust? Did they set aside a billion or so to fund data center cleanup? What about those server farms they’re sinking in the ocean?
If they haven’t got your data, they can’t lose control of it.
Regarding that stated purpose, by the way… Where are those product improvements, anyway?
Can we attribute the fact that it doesn’t crash much to telemetry?
I suppose you could argue that the Win 7 telemetry alerted Microsoft to crashes, and thus allowed them to concentrate their bug-fixing on the worst parts. So Windows 7 got more stable. But couldn’t reports chosen for submission by users have accomplished that? Wait – in fact, that’s how Windows 7 DID do things, right.
I’ve got to tell you, I sensed more actual “improvements” up to Windows 7 than after. What about you?
Where are we now? Microsoft trying to force your computer to send data to them, smart people blocking it, and Microsoft’s telemetry overly weighted with data from the rest. No wonder Windows is becoming ever more dumbed-down. But it’s not the fault of the smart people who choose not to allow privacy intrusion. It’s the fault of a business that believes they have a right to take such data “to improve their product”.
-Noel
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My thinking exactly. MS are hardly likely to misuse the info at the moment but as they increase their effective monopoly with Win 10 then anything is fair game and too late for most people to do anything about it. Even switching to Linux at that point is too late as the information has already been lost.
It’s also interesting that at times MS resorted to outright trickery to get Win 10 on peoples hardware (I’m thinking of the change of use of the Close “X” here) it would seem to indicate that Microsoft themselves have such a poor opinion of Win 10 that they have to resort to such low actions to get people to use it.
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“there’s still no evidence from credible security researchers that that data is being used for anything other than its stated purpose of product improvement.”
So the onus is on “credible security researchers” (whoever they are) to prove that it is not being used for nefarious purposes?
No! The onus is on the collector not to collect until they can satisfy the users that it is not being used for nefarious purposes and they knowingly consent to that information being collected.
Windows 10 Home 22H2, Acer Aspire TC-1660 desktop + LibreOffice, non-techie
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This is consistent with MS’ misguided view that the installed user base is nothing more than unpaid beta testers. After all, beta testers are supposed to provide telemetry, right?
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Actually, we have no idea if the NSA has gotten a secret warrant to get the data that Microsoft has collected via “telemetry”. There’s a lot of that going on behind the scenes that we will never know about.
Whenever you collect and store data, if the government gets a warrant, they can take the data that you have collected. The only way to avoid that is to either not collect it in the first place, delete it ASAP, or anonymize it (strip out all identifying information). Hopefully Microsoft is at least anonymizing whatever data they are collecting.
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Noel, you get to the heart of issue. The whole windows as a service is looking more and more like a pretext for deep data harvesting. Even if Microsoft went into this with the best of intentions, the massive data breaches, the active and open operations by intelligence agency’s of various governments should have been reason enough to change, if not pull back on their new policy. I refuse to believe that Microsoft did not get a ‘heads up’, not with Woody’s fine reporting on the issue. And now they make themselves a prime target with a huge ‘steal me’ with their waas policy. Madness, there is no other word for it.
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There is an axiom in information security – what one does not know or have access to, one will never leak. The problem with ‘telemetry’ as set up in W10 is that it violates this principle. Whether MS intends to leak this information is irrelevant, they have it which increases the chances of it getting out. It does not matter if it is a court order or a hack, the existence of the information at MS creates the risk of information leaking out.
The real question for MS and anyone else, is not that there is certain level of information required but are you collecting more than needed for the purposes at hand. If MS is worried about crash reports, the requires a certain level of information but not constant telemetry, nor information that could easily tie a specific user to a specific computer.
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There is an axiom in information security – what one does not know or have access to, one will never leak. The problem with ‘telemetry’ as set up in W10…
I like to think a bit beyond what Microsoft calls “telemetry” to what’s REALLY being sent to them…
For example, with SmartScreen enabled, the name of every web site you visit is sent to them. That’s not what they call telemetry in their strict definition, but sure as heck represents an invasion of privacy.
Why is that web site URL sent to them? Overtly because they want to approve it before you can visit it. It’s supposedly a security measure.
But wait, that could be done locally… I know because I’ve done it. Your system can have its own local list of blacklisted web servers, shun SmartScreen entirely, and be more private, more controllable, and even more secure not to mention having better performance. That’s right, in fact the search is faster if is local (kind of a no-brainer, right?). In an alternate “Microsoft does not covet your personal data” universe, a blacklist of servers/sites could easily be downloaded by Windows Defender just as it downloads the signatures/other data it uses to screen for malware. When I browse to askwoody.com with IE (and no SmartScreen enabled) it takes about 1-1/2 seconds to show me the whole page (with no ads or tracking of course). Open question: How long does it take you?
And there are other things I haven’t touched on, such as the “Spynet” program, where Windows Defender informs Microsoft of just what software you run – which they may or may not call “telemetry” by their definition.
-Noel
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I would tend to take Mr. Bott’s thinking on data collection and usage via W10 with several grains of salt. Firstly, I do not view Mr. Bott as a neutral arbiter of such discussions given his long time cheerleading for MS. More significantly, The EULA for W10 reserves the unambiguous right to collect, use and share data for myriad unspecified purposes far beyond the scope of what Mr. Bott would suggests will occur. He would have more credibility if he were to argue for a more limited set of prerogatives as set forth in the EULA. I will not hold my breath on that one.
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I’ve crossed over to the dark side. I don’t own any apple products and have never recommended them… until now. I realize my clients just like them and can use them with ease compared to linux, android and now… windows. Guess I’m going have to get some myself to become more familiar with them.
That’s the situation in which I find myself now too. I’ve never liked Apple… from the Apple II days, when I found that every Apple II owner I knew had a smug superiority complex when it came to any other home computer, to the Mac vs. PC days, where it was the same thing (though not universal as it had been with Apple IIs), and then on to the Android vs. iOS, when it was the same thing again. The Apple fans were so obnoxious that I never would have been willing to pay two or three times more for their products, which I always found to be overrated.
From the Apple II, which (prior to the IIgs days) could only emit beeps and clicks, in contrast with my Commodore 64, which could do synthesized voice (that was very gee-whiz in that day, at least to me), to the original Mac with a 9 inch black and white CRT screen that was built-in and its incredibly overpriced hardware (in college, I remember seeing an ad on a bulletin board for a used Apple internal floppy drive for 200 and some dollars, when my brand new Teac internal floppy cost $29), to the locked-down iPhone and its arbitrary restrictions (I was shocked when my iPad loving family member told me that even though he’d bought the special dongle that allows the iPad to read SD cards, it was unable to write to them, because Apple Said So. In true form, he accepted it without question), Apple devices have always been on the wrong side of the equation in terms of hardware for me.
Now, though, Apple iPad is the go-to suggestion for people who want to browse and do social media but don’t want a full computer. If they do want a full computer, and they’re uncertain enough to be asking me, I’d go with suggesting a Mac. I cannot, in good conscience, recommend Windows 10 to anyone, nor Windows 8.x if the person isn’t already a computer person who would be able to de-stupidize it as I have. Windows 7’s time is coming too rapidly for me to feel good recommending a Windows 7 PC to a beginner. Someone savvy enough to use Linux (or similar) would probably not be asking me in the first place. That leaves only one real option.
Now that Macs are x86/64 PCs, I’d love to see Apple start selling iOS as a standalone OS for PCs. This would be a good time for them to do that if they’d ever considered it… their market share in the PC market would skyrocket, with so many people frustrated by Microsoft. I’d definitely give it a try. I don’t know if I would like it, but I am sufficiently disgusted with Windows to be willing to give it a shot. That would be the only way, though; I am not going to buy their hardware in any circumstance.
Of course, Apple doing this would be quite unlikely. Apple almost certainly does not want to take on the headache of trying to support an OS running on whatever untested hardware the customer happened to have, along with the potential instability that would ruin their “just works” reputation. The reason it “just works” (most of the time, anyway) is that there are relatively few hardware combinations, and all have been built by the same vendor that wrote the OS (which, oddly enough, has not worked for Microsoft with several of their models).
For all their faults, I think MS has done a commendable job of putting together an OS that will run well on whatever hodge-podge of parts anyone would try to install it upon, and a lot of the “famed” instability of Windows isn’t a function of faulty Microsoft code at all, but of poor quality hardware with poor quality drivers. Even in the Windows 95 days, where Windows would crash if you looked at the PC funny, it was still caused by hardware and drivers most of the time. It’s just that 9x was fragile, and any error would have a high chance of bringing down the whole house of cards rather than just the process in question (or being a handled exception that didn’t crash anything). When that happened, it had a relatively high chance of corrupting the installation; in those days, our Windows 95 CDs got a lot of use reinstalling.
Unlike Microsoft, Apple really are now “mobile first.” The Mac has been all but forgotten by its maker.
Dell XPS 13/9310, i5-1135G7/16GB, KDE Neon
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Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
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From Windows as a Service: The Highs and Lows of Rapid Release:
“Over the past two weeks, I have asked both publicly and privately for feedback and received responses from about 50 individuals working at different companies for their insights into how Windows as a Service has impacted their operations. The respondents to my small survey span managing several dozen machines to tens of thousands of end users and work in fields like manufacturing, service industry and healthcare.”
1 user thanked author for this post.
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I think for some businesses, and at least for me, the previous model meant running one OS on a PC not until the next release, but the whole life of the PC, which in my case has been 6-8 years in general and even more than 18 years on some isolated PCs off the Internet.
So now, with the rapid release, it is not going from an upgrade every 3 years to 2 times a year, but it actually is much worse than that. I used to be able to install a PC and forget it with no maintenance for years, because I locked it down tight and MS would not mess with it. And like they say in the article, it is a very hard sell to management to say you need to spend so much more time maintaining PCs for no perceived benefits and I don’t buy that bs about better security. There are many other ways to have better security than rely on the latest Windows version, especially when those security features are disabled by default because they break things or they are only present on Enterprise version I don’t run.
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