Microsoft’s still trying to figure out Windows 10 support

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Gregg Keizer nails it on Computerworld. Here’s the 56-page report from Microsoft outlining how companies need to roll out Windows 10 updates.  
[See the full post at: Microsoft’s still trying to figure out Windows 10 support]

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This is precisely the specter that makes me want to retire by 2020.  The work load on IT to manage (test, verify, deploy, service, the inevitable troubleshooting for the outliers etc) Windows 10 feature updates, which even on ENT are mandatory, is much more work than the cycle we face with Windows 7 or 8.1 monthly cumulative updates.

Add to that we keep seeing feature updates break older software.

Add to that the other stuff that has to be upgraded more often to be compatible, thus incurring higher expenses for the small business market.

I’m getting old and grumpy.

~ Group "Weekend" ~

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Me, too.

I wonder how many companies can afford to put together the infrastructure necessary to support upgrades every six months….

There’s a point of diminishing returns. Lots of incentive to move everything to the cloud, so we can all live with Chromebooks. It’s the old thin client argument, but on a massive scale.

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woody wrote:

. . . .  snip . . . . Lots of incentive to move everything to the cloud, so we can all live with Chromebooks. It’s the old thin client argument, but on a massive scale.

I sometimes wonder if that’s the real end game being played.

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Soon:

https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/microsoft-joins-cloud-foundry-foundation/

 

I’m just wondering what will happen to PC gaming – it’s far too early to move it to the cloud.

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NetDef wrote:

I’m getting old and grumpy.

I think maybe the word you were looking for was wise.

-Noel

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This quote in Gregg Keizer’s post doesn’t exactly inspire confidence:

“They’re being hit by the unexpected implications of things they hadn’t considered,” Kleynhans said when asked about the turn-about on Clover Trail.

Yes, you can argue that Windows is a highly complex environment, etc. etc. blah blah blah, but the bottom line is that it’s Microsoft that has introduced all this additional complexity to the updating system with Windows 10. And customers are asked to bear the extra burden of dealing with it all.

 

Keep Running Windows 7 Safely for Years to Come  
Make Windows 10 look and work like Windows 7

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NetDef wrote:

woody wrote:

. . . . snip . . . . Lots of incentive to move everything to the cloud, so we can all live with Chromebooks. It’s the old thin client argument, but on a massive scale.

I sometimes wonder if that’s the real end game being played.

NetDef,

That is what I said a LONG time ago when “The Cloud” was being introduced to us. I didn’t like the way it sounded then, and I **** sure don’t like the way it sounds now either.

Just my 2cents orth.

Dave

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The MS troll who wrote the original 56-page article (David das Neves) already lost my interest when right off the bat, in the Introduction, he says:

“WaaS is not something “Microsoft-special” and nowadays there is this cruel necessity to hold up the pace and adopt the newest technologies just in time.”

First of all, that’s BS.

Secondly, you might as well just remove WSUS and take the option away from everyone to control updates, if that sentence is indicative of your coup de grace (and by all intents and purposes, your [MS] actions over the last several years have demonstrated that remarkably well).

Please, tell me 1 patch Tuesday in the last year plus where you’ve actually had no patch issues on day 0. You can’t, and that’s the problem, but that won’t keep you from sticking your head in the sand and pretending that is NOT the case.

You [MS] have completely lost sight of why the world needs you and uses you, and you have ignored not only IT geeks but also your competitors and what they can offer now. Good luck with that. The world has long needed a reason to break free from YOU, and not only are there reasons now, but you’re practically showing people the door as well and further pushing them towards other alternatives. So, thank you. Rather than attempting to neuter and constrict your WaaS OS, you’ve given me plenty of incentive to learn how to implement Linux instead.

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zero2dash wrote:

First of all, that’s BS.

Hear hear! It’s gratifying to hear folks like you say just what I think when I read stuff like that.

It’s the old “facts not in evidence” argument… Start by describing the outcome you want, then do everything you can to kick start the debate about the details.

When something goes against common sense, common sense wins.

-Noel

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Commenting also on the citation, not on Zero2Dash’s insightful take on it:

zero2dash wrote:

“WaaS is not something “Microsoft-special” and nowadays there is this cruel necessity to hold up the pace and adopt the newest technologies just in time.”

Really?

Someone else is offering “Windows as a Service?”

I would have had that pegged as “Microsoft-special,” given that it has a registered trademark of Microsoft right there in it.

“Windows as a Service,” of course, is Microsoft’s misnomer for a rapid release update schedule, which doesn’t make it a service.  “Software as a service” is a term of art that refers to a software licensing scheme that uses a periodic payment schedule; i.e. a subscription, which MS has repeatedly assured us is not part of Microsoft’s plan for Windows for non-enterprise users.  They’re simultaneously denying that Windows is a service while also claiming that it is.

If this frenetic OS release schedule is necessary in today’s age, then users of previous versions of Windows would be in serious trouble.  After all, they’ve missed out on a lot of theoretical six-month updates since they were last updated.  The most popular Windows version, Windows 7, hasn’t had a service pack since 2009, yet it seems to work… rather well, actually.

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Read the comments and the answer to the 56 pages article. It is so scary! He really believes there is no way around that new paradigm of constant development to keep up with security challenges. That doesn’t look good at all for the future. They will have to hit a wall hard before they change course.

The author even says at the beginning he got so many negative feedback from his last article about WaaS.

A funny comment that is not even ironic: “Like this emphasis on ongoing process, which is what IT teams successfully adopting WaaS tell me they do.” I guess everyone in business was eagerly waiting to set up an ongoing process of keeping their computer in a workable state.

The response might be interesting to Woody and others because the MS guy, clearing a confusion the woman had thinking targeted version meant when you FEEL you are ready to deploy, said : “The problem was that customer were focusing CBB completely though it was nothing different to CB just with some monthly patches included. CBB = SAC and SACT = CB and all of them are the same version. Actually nothing changed.”

 

 

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See, another striking display of ignorance from the response I quoted is the fact the MS guy thinks that business people were wrong running CBB only when in fact to him, CBB is obviously ONLY CB plus patches, thus the need to change terminology so people stop waiting for CBB! It never occured to him that maybe, just like waiting for SP1 before, businesses just didn’t want to run the fresh release with bugs and not because they are too stupid to understand the difference.

And again we see that wishful thinking that the latest release doesn’t need patches to be deployed, that if most businesses skip CB and that is annoying, MS can just shorten the delay to declare CBB to magically make people install it without issues, because the only reason people wait for CBB is because they are stupid and don’t understand it is CB plus patches and that changing the name to the very obvious semi-channel targeted and semi-channel will clear all the confusion those stupid lazy sysadmin that don’t want to have an excellent ongoing process of Windows installation have. What are they drinking?

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Microsoft seems to forget that it’s an operating system, upon which other things must be built. No one builds a house on a moving truck. They wait until the foundation is laid.

Sorry, Microsoft, but it’s not a social networking application. Get over it. It’s an operating system, and it NEEDS to be stable for a long time. Longer than most everything else. Why do you think you have been SO successful thus far?

When Windows 10 builds are released time after time after time and NO systems are made incompatible, THEN maybe I’ll start to believe you’re only adding good things, not taking away essential things (such as driver compatibility).

And don’t look now, but in this era of insanely powerful computers, no one wants to HAVE to buy new hardware just to keep up with some arbitrarily fast continuous change model. Stop gluing together your computers and making them unserviceable. The hardware needs to work for YEARS, just like the OS.

-Noel

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One can argue about the proper lifespan of an OS, which is a minor quibble. But users need stability from the OS; does not matter which one. Can I rely on it to work for a number of years without major maintenance? Or, will one be fighting a broken system couple of years because the update borked the system.

Right now MS is in la-la-land as most W10 systems still have hardware support. But that will change. Also, their waffling about support only creates confusion.

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You bring up a good point.

Maybe home users bork their own systems so often and so badly as to need OS reinstallation every 6 months or less, but that does not at all describe most office usage!

Yes, office users sometimes DO mess things up (and there are IT people to help fix that), but in general when you see a computer system at use in, say, a professional office, it is expected to do what it does for a very long time, and quite often Windows systems DO deliver on that. In the last few months I’ve been to offices still running XP. Why? Because (lucky them) nothing is broken and the computers, under half an inch of dust, still do what they need.

-Noel

P.S., I’m running the installation of Windows 8.1 I put in when it was first released, back in August 2013. On my other hardware system I’m running the installation of Windows 7 I put in when I bought the computer in April, 2015.

The ONLY system I’ve had to fully reinstall in all the time I can remember was Windows 10 v1703 in my test virtual machine when it started refusing to update, with no usable error message.

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Noel Carboni wrote:

The ONLY system I’ve had to fully reinstall in all the time I can remember was Windows 10 v1703 in my test virtual machine when it started refusing to update, with no usable error message.

The computer I am using to type this message, the Vista-era laptop that I immortalized in yet another ridiculously long post a couple of days ago, ran XP from the day I got it in 2008 until August 2015, when I upgraded it to 7, and then to 8.1 in April of this year (I think).  I installed XP on this PC exactly once, and it was still stable and responsive even after seven years.  When I went to 7 after all that time, installing it fresh, it didn’t feel any faster than the XP install had been.  It was probably a bit slower, actually, but hardly enough to matter.

I hear about “Windows Rot,” and I know that some people even in the “modern era” of Windows (NT core being mainstream) who still do periodic maintenance reinstalls.  I haven’t done that since the 9x era… with Windows 95, it was a pretty regular thing.  Since XP, though, I haven’t seen the need for it.

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Same here.

I ran my early Vista era XPS 17 on XP until XP stopped being supported and then some offline. Later OSes are slower on them, because they are more complex and layered. Never reinstalled XP.

My Vista PC from the same era got retired earlier this year with end of support. Never a reinstall, always felt fast.

In the 9x era, I reinstalled more than a couple of times, just like with 10 now because that is what MS asks me twice a year.

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Same here. I too never had to reinstall XP, except for one time when XP became corrupted due to a southbridge chipset which was overheating and causing I/O data corruption. The same for Win7 — never had to reinstall it. Perhaps the reasons are that:

— I regularly clean my computer registries and web browser histories to prevent unnecessary buildup of old data which slows things down.

— I clean my computer registries after installing newer hardware drivers or after removing hardware and uninstalling those no longer needed hardware drivers.

— I clean my computer’s registries immediately after uninstalling software, and then I perform manual deletions of leftover folders which were left behind by the now uninstalled software.

— I always install Windows and programs on its own partition, and keep all data on another partition or hard drive.

— I manually defrag my hard drives once every six months to once every year.

— I don’t use the Windows indexing service which can become corrupt.

— I periodically clean the Win7 registry shell bags which also can become corrupt and/or bloated with no longer valid entries.

— I am on Group B. I never install updates which install telemetry since I have seen noticeable slowdowns on test computers in which I deliberately did install updates which contain telemetry. The plethora of small telemetry packets have such high priority that I have seen the sending of those telemetry packets occasionally break my antivirus software’s connection to the AV vendor’s cloud servers for a few to several seconds. That is a bad thing.

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Noel Carboni wrote:

Microsoft seems to forget that it’s an operating system, upon which other things must be built.

EXCELLENT comment.

Once again, they’re taking the stance that “it’s not just an OS”, but no, to a lot of people – that’s ALL it is, and that’s how we WANT IT to be.

An OS by definition should do practically nothing more than be a GUI for running apps; that’s all. I don’t want extra bells and whistles, and if I did, I’d ask for them and buy a version of your product that has them. But I don’t. I want the leanest GUI OS possible; if running XP64 was feasible, I’d be doing it (but obviously it’s not). 7 is the next-best-thing (IMHO) to this.

As far as I’m concerned, MS is fighting a battle they’ve already lost, for me at least.

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I want the same, and yet, oddly, Linux hasn’t been able to get that market the same way they did with web servers. Is it that hard to have the same stability on the desktop?

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Linux gives you options. You can get bleeding edge (Fedora), or you can get very stable systems (Ubuntu/Mint LTS’s, for example). If you want stability, you can get it with Linux.

The issue with Linux on the desktop is applications/peripherals. People get comfortable with what they’ve used for years, and the way they use it, though this seems to be breaking down with W8-W10.

Also, people are not used to installing operating systems, and everything (but Macs) come pre-installed W10.

 

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@ AlexEiffel … ,

It is only in recent years, ie around 2012, that some kind Linux folks have adapted the desktop Linux distros to be more user-friendly for the average users wrt GUI, eg Ubuntu, Linux Mint and Zorin.
… Prior to 2012, you need to be a tech-geek to use a Linux distro or run a Linux web-server. Eg only mostly tech-geeks could handle the 2015-released Debian 8 Jessie Linux distro. The Debian community do not tolerate newbies or noobs or Dummies. Ubuntu and Linux Mint are both based on Debian and their communities welcome newbies.

Even though tech-geeks are required, free Linux dominate web-servers because it usually costs thousands of US$ in license fees to run a Windows web-server.
… In comparison, free Linux distros could not yet dominate the desktops because it only costs about US$30 to $50 to run a very user-friendly OEM Windows desktop. But the introduction of Win 10’s WaaS may change this scenario.

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zero2dash wrote:

I want the leanest GUI OS possible

That’s exactly what Windows 8.1 is. MS had to lean the interface to be able to run on cheap tablets, so that’s basically as thin as Windows can go with still looking decent.

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@radosuaf
I think the leanest GUI OS is Win XP whose ISO file size comes in at only 700MB = can fit into a CD disc.

In comparison, Win 8.1’s ISO file size is about 3.0GB. The fatty bloat is mainly caused by the inclusion of mobile/touchscreen support for 2-in-1 tablet computers like the Surface Pro.

Win 7’s ISO file size is about 2.5GB. AFAIK, the fat bloat is because of the inclusion of excessive Editions. A particular Edition can only be unlocked with the correct Product Key. Eg Win 7 Starter, Home Basic, Home Premium, Pro, Ultimate, Enterprise, etc = nickel-and-diming the users = more profit$ for M$.

The further M$ moved away from the Win XP GUI OS model, the worse Windows have become, esp Win 10.

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anonymous wrote:

@radosuaf I think the leanest GUI OS is Win XP whose ISO file size comes in at only 700MB = can fit into a CD disc.

Looking this way, Windows 3.1 is even more lean and MS-DOS is leanest possible – text mode only. Let’s stick to modern systems :).

Installation size is one thing – and what is currently used by the system is another one. And Windows 7’s Aero theme is more resources consuming than 8.1’s GUI (not that it would matter much with today processing power in desktops). Aero was the main problem with Vista’s performance at the beginning with CPU and GPU power available back then.

 

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AlexEiffel

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What’s funny is that Windows 8.1 and 10 desktops are NOT really lean where it counts. Not at all! There is still desktop composition going on all the time. Matter of fact, there are no longer, since 7, modes where you can disable DWM, so arguably it’s LESS lean.

In a practical sense it really doesn’t take any less GPU power to create drop shadows than it does blurred glass borders. I’ve even done power consumption measurements.

I’ve been able to resurrect Aero Glass on both Windows 8.1 and 10 through the addition of a small 3rd party tool that makes use of the features already there, and I’ve re-themed the systems. Lo and behold some of the elegance and usability from earlier versions is restored.

I’ve had to conclude that Microsoft is dumbing the UI down for some other purpose than to reduce power consumption.

-Noel

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Thank you for recreating the Windows 7 theme with rounded corners.

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radosuaf said, “Let’s stick to modern systems :)”

I wouldn’t categorize Win 8.1 as just a modern OS, but more like different from other desktop OS and previous generations of Windows.

In 2012, M$ “pioneered” the hybrid desktop+mobile Win 8 OS for use in desktops, laptops and tablets, while also offering a pure mobile Windows-Phone 8 OS for Lumia smartphones.
… In comparison, Apple stuck with MacOS for their desktops and laptops(MacBook), and iOS for their tablets(iPad) and smartphones(iPhone), even until today and quite successfully at that.
… In the meantime, free Linux distros were offered for desktops and laptops, and free Android and Ubuntu Touch were offered as mobile OS for tablets and smartphones.

The OS from Apple and Linux were similar in approach. Win 8/8.1/10 from M$ were quite different.

Because Canonical tried to delve into the mobile OS market for tablets and smartphones with the Ubuntu Touch OS in 2011, the Ubuntu desktop distro has some support for touchscreen, esp Ubuntu’s Unity Desktop Environment/DE. Most other popular Linux distros do not support touchscreen or the mobile UI.
… Canonical’s Mark Shuttleworth, abandoned Ubuntu Touch in April 2017.

Because Win 8/8.1/10 are hybrid desktop+mobile OS, Win 8.1 can never be the leanest GUI OS, unless you are just comparing Win 8, Win 8.1 and Win 10. “Modern” MacOS and Linux distros are definitely leaner than “modern” Win 8.1/10.

Recently, M$ had to issue “Intel driver update for Intel(r) Dynamic Platform and Thermal Framework Generic Participant” to throttle the Intel CPU in their Win 8.1/10 Surface Pro tablets, in order to prevent over-heating or system failures. Such Intel driver updates have been regularly released by M$ since they launched their Surface Pro devices in 2013. This proves that Win 8.1 and Win 10 are not lean GUI OS.

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anonymous wrote:

Because Win 8/8.1/10 are hybrid desktop+mobile OS, Win 8.1 can never be the leanest GUI OS, unless you are just comparing Win 8, Win 8.1 and Win 10.

Of course. And Win 7 – we still can consider it a modern OS (barely).

There are still (I think) text only Linux distros, there are GUIs designed specifically for low-end systems (LXDE) that will be quicker and less resource consuming.

 

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johnf

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@Noel,

Amen brother; you just nailed it.

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Noel Carboni

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Unbelievable!
I don’t see how companies are going to be able to set up (afford) the infrastructure to implement Microsoft’s WaaS model. The employees on the SACT (10%?) are going to be “targeted” all right – with constant disruptions. And the SAC not much better.

And heaven help the SMBs and common Users.

The only way this system is going to work, is if the model resides on the Microsoft servers, and when you log in to the Virtual Machines running there, well, you get what you get! Eliminate the middle man (IT department, support personnel, etc). The more you pay for the VM, the farther from Alfa tester. And no more worry about building high-end computers or hardware compatibility – all you need is a dumb terminal.

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The only way this system is going to work, is if the model resides on the Microsoft servers…

Sends people in precisely the direction they want them to go, eh?

“I see plans within plans…”

-Noel

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PKCano wrote:

And no more worry about building high-end computers or hardware compatibility – all you need is a dumb terminal.

The return of the, akin to, IBM AS400 on the horizon perhaps..

Windows - commercial by definition and now function...

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Back in the 1990s, I read in a magazine that IBM had a version of Windows that would run on the AS-400, and all you needed was an AS-400 terminal to run that version of Windows. In my opinion, IBM missed a golden opportunity, because most big companies had AS-400s with terminals on lots of users’ desks, or software which made your computer emulate an AS-400 terminal. Everything was in place; they could have done an end run around everyone and locked in the AS-400 for many years, simply by marketing and selling the idea. (Much lower support costs than the normal way of companies putting a Windows computer on everyone’s desk.)

With a lot less AS-400 infrastructure in place these days than there was back in the 1990s, and with competition from thin clients, and software like Citrix, it would be a lot harder for IBM to pull off today, even if they had a version of Windows 10/8/7 for the AS-400.

Which is a shame, in my opinion, because I’ll bet an AS-400 networked version of Windows would run better than any other networked version of Windows.

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The only way this system is going to work, is if the model resides on the Microsoft servers, and when you log in to the Virtual Machines running there, well, you get what you get! Eliminate the middle man (IT department, support personnel, etc). The more you pay for the VM, the farther from Alfa tester. And no more worry about building high-end computers or hardware compatibility – all you need is a dumb terminal.

Here it is.

Microsoft goes after APS cloud in new deal with Canberra Data Centres

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Indeed. What was old is now new again.

In the old days, the mainframes were much more powerful than the thin clients, so it made sense. These days, I can’t help but wonder if it’s more about “control” than processing power.

And I think Microsoft is all about having the control these days…

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No, M$ have likely figured it out alright, ie corporations and consumers who buy Win 10 licenses could no longer use them for about 10 years until EOL, like they used to with Win XP/Vista/7/8/8.1 licenses = more profit$ for M$.

Eg only corporations who buy the super-expensive Win 10 Ent E5 LTSB, buy additional 3-year-term Software Assurance or upgrade Insurance or lease or subscribe Win 10 Ent Volume Licenses can use Win 10 for about 10 years or more.

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I see companies grumbling about this change, but this is just a kind of Digital Transformation. There is no time anymore to release new Operating Systems manually every 3 to 5 years.

Quoting from the 56 page-link to M$ executice, David das Neves.

More like Digital Disruption twice a year, in order for M$ to milk their cash cows, ie the corporate users of Win 10 Ent.

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Elly

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WSUS is nothing more than a house of cards waiting to be pulled down. What is really stunning, is Microsoft is stripping away all the failsafes to protect OS and system data that have been developed over the years of use.  After reading this ‘support overview’ my teams view was it meant the death of Microsoft as a major software vendor and support company. That might be a tad overblown, but I understand their anger on dealing with this rolling train wreck, It’s exhausting. There are more chapters still to play out here, but as I have said before, this is strictly a failure of leadership by the CEO and the board that backs him.  No matter what happens to the current CEO, this will not end well for Microsoft, the damage done in broken promises and failed projects is too great.

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Elly

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The rolling train wreck is not yet in a visible system that constantly has problems. Have a few very large companies have serious problems and you might see some serious lawsuits. MS loses a couple well publicized ones and many will take notice. Also, the OEMs do not have any great loyalty to MS, only to their customers. So if a few major customers say we want your kit but it cannot have Windows but X installed the OEMs will do it.

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@lurksabout
Many factors determine whether Win 10’s WaaS will be a rolling train wreck or not.

Except for the forced auto-update, Telemetry & Data collection, display of ads and twice-a-year upgrades, Win 10 is generally a good OS.

Presently, it takes a lot of work for corporations to run Win 10 Ent as WaaS mainly because of the compulsory twice-a-year upgrades, which are required in order to stay supported and not EOL-ed by M$. But if most of the corporations are willing to fork out more money to M$ to run Win 10 Ent E5 LTSB, this problem will be solved.
Win 10 Ent E5 LTSB Volume Licenses cost twice that of Win 10 Ent E3 VL, which cannot be converted to LTSB and cannot be upgraded without Software Assurance or Upgrade Insurance.

As we know, many corporations are locked into the Windows eco-system because many popular Business software are only available for Windows and MacOS since Windows command about 90% of world market share. So, many corporations have/will have little choice but to run Win 10 Ent.
To most of them, the lesser evil, though costlier, is/will be to run Win 10 Ent E5 LTSB. Those who cannot afford LTSB will just have to work harder and keep up with the twice-a-year upgrades of Win 10 Ent, eg those who lease or subscribe Win 10 Ent.

Of course, a few corporations will likely transition to Linux, either by subscribing to Red Hat Linux or by hiring a few Linux experts. Google, Facebook and Amazon have hired Linux experts to run most of their operations = no need to pay the M$ tax.

D-Day will be 14 Jan 2020, ie when Win 7 Ent reaches EOL and many corporations will have to make their decisions.

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Great analysis.

I don’t see how paying the E5 tax can be more expensive than an ongoing process of maintenance if you are a relatively small organization where the salaries for those involved in the ongoing process is much higher than the price of the licenses. Unless you distribute the costs of maintenance over lots of workstations, the E5 sounds like the only way to go if you care about stability.

However, what happens to this fabulous paradigm that the Microsoft guy talked about in the 56 pages blog post where we can’t afford to not have constant releases no more? If many businesses don’t hop on the wagon, doesn’t that mean this “can’t afford to not have” thing is complete bs? These enterprises will go bankrupt and fall to hackers? And how come businesses can afford to run LTSB when ch100 reports what Microsoft says about it: it is not for general-purpose computing, it is only for very specific situations. Are Microsoft technical recommendations be seen as lies if running the LTSB proves to be a far better experience for general computing?

At some point, either way, the king will have to run naked and be the subject of laugh.

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@AlexEiffel
As for Consumers, Win 10 Home & Pro users have no LTSB option and are forced by M$ to become Beta-testers for the corporate users of Win 10 Ent.
That is why my acronym for Microsoft is M$ = M$ value their customers according to how much US$ they have paid for the Win 10 license.

Come EOL for Win 7 on 14 Jan 2020, Consumers will also have to decide, eg move to Win 10, Win 8.1 until 2023, MacOS, Linux, etc.

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AlexEiffel wrote:

And how come businesses can afford to run LTSB when ch100 reports what Microsoft says about it: it is not for general-purpose computing, it is only for very specific situations. Are Microsoft technical recommendations be seen as lies if running the LTSB proves to be a far better experience for general computing?

It is less important what I say and if LTSB (now LTSC) is usable or not.
The issue here is that Microsoft does not sell that product and does not support it for certain situations and this is all that matters.

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I should have been clearer in my comment. By it’s self windows 10 is a good OS.  The main problem with windows 10 is what it is asked to do. Hell, windows 8.1 split into two separate OS would be an excellent system. Between the two MS could have controlled all segments of the market for the foreseeable future. This is a human failure, nothing more, nothing less. Microsoft’s failure to move into the cloud, with small business and consumers sits directly at the feet of the current CEO.(He who must not be named) The EOL issue is the giant elephant in the room. It has been painfully clear that Microsoft is rushing to have their cloud service structure in place before the EOL crunch. They’ll ask for forgiveness later on.  All of this is to convince the current CTOs and sysadmins, that MS and their engineering teams are up to the task of building a new infrastructure for one system  Or windows as a service. They failed. That’s what I mean by a Train Wreck. All the white paper BS in the world is not going to cover that basic fact up. As I have said before, this is  failure of execution at every level. Only governments do clusters this big. Which tells you how deep the current CEO and Microsoft’s board is in it. What makes this so bad for MS, is their plan, while difficult was doable.  Why? because they did it successfully with both office and windows update, and their server apps for business. That’s what make this so bad. The plan to do this with updated technology already exists. The current CEO and his team had no excuses. None what so ever. As a boss, I watch my IT team spend way too much of their time fixing and cleaning up Microsoft’s mistakes.  All of this for the sake of one man’s ego. Madness.

 

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flackcatcher wrote:

As a boss, I watch my IT team spend way too much of their time fixing and cleaning up Microsoft’s mistakes.

@Flackcatcher: Do you think that your IT team’s time would be better spent if they were installing and implementing Ubuntu Linux, getting all needed functionality to work (which might take a bit of time), as opposed to “fixing and cleaning up Microsoft’s mistakes”?

If I ever start my own business, that is exactly what I plan to do. I’m curious to see if you think it would be worth the investment of time and money required for such an effort.

Group "L" (Linux Mint)
with Windows 10 running in a remote session on my file server

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There is a running joke among  my IT team about me and win 10. I can’t repeat it, it’s too dirty.  For the past 6plus months I done nothing but think about replacing windows as a whole in our system. But this is far bigger than just my operation(which is very VERY big).  Most of our customers use some form of windows, everything from 2000 to 2012r2. Most do not, and would not even think of replacing their severs with win 10(what flavor of the moment). What’s driving this reluctance on their part, is the stability and support issues. Noel Carboni has pointed out in his many comments the damage Microsoft is doing with its constant replacement of win 10 OS to software development. Scale that up to a small business, or government or major corporations that use windows as a backbone and the problem become clear.  I have a lot more I like to say, but I will leave it for another time. To answer your question, we all ready have. We run a Unix OS as our backbone and  Linux with a GUI as interface. Our customer and client base is world wide, so we can not afford any shutdowns no matter the scale. Windows is very important in connecting the many different systems we engage with. My CTO is looking for a replacement, but none are up to our needs for the moment. There are a couple of OS that are unix based that are close, but both time and money are required to bring them up to stuff. That’s one decision I can’t make by myself, and I am not ready to give my boss heartburn, not just yet.(but he knows its coming.)

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Looking back I realized I did not answer your question Jim. Sorry about that. The short answer is no. The long one is not at this moment. Lets see if I can compress this down. The main problem is Linux is still the offspring of Unix, the most dense and complex OS development to date. While software Devs have though hard work managed to bring Linux to the desktop-laptop(an amazing achievement) there is a huge gap between that, and what is needed to support in the small business environment. That support exists strictly for large enterprise or government  and government related operations. Linux is still a very new OS, and the support and supply for it is just starting up. My guess, we are looking at 20 years minimum before the support for small business, or even consumer version becomes a reality. Which makes Microsoft’s actions in the small business consumer market so shocking.

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I suppose that if you’re starting a new company from scratch, and you have a few years to get Linux up to snuff for what you need (i.e. you are able to get everything you need in good working order), then you could do it.

But if your business is highly dependent on Windows (it seems that just about all are these days), then it would be tough to convert.

Of course, you could set up a Citrix server, and let the users get a Citrix Windows session to run whatever requires Windows. That’s exactly what we did in my previous job for certain apps, so that the user could get a networked Windows session on their home or other computer.

The above is what I am working toward, and I think I can pull it off. But I did want someone who is in the real world to give their thoughts on it.

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Right now it is the best option. There is always a balance between want and cost. You may want something, but the cost may prohibited that. That you understand that means you have beaten the single biggest factor in setting up your own business.  Most operations that fail are undone by their back room costs. They never see it till it bites them. The old joke about a 360 degree sweep goes for business too. Above all, find a good numbers guys to watch your financial back. Most start ups die because they lose control of their spending early on. People will hate you watching every penny spent, but in the long term it is the single biggest factor in the successful start up of any business, regardless of its size.

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I many times feel Microsoft went into Windows 10 on a hope and a prayer because I feel Windows 8 was all their focus until it failed horribly. I felt Windows 10 was thrown together given that Microsoft had totally alienated its core Windows users with Win 8. So it had little time to create a full polished Windows 10 so it decided to call it a service or rather a work in progress. This makes sense because if Microsoft had to make users endure Windows 8 another two years until Win 10 was actually finished this would have hurt the PC industry even more.  The problem I see going forward with Windows as a service is that their is no hype created anymore with a new version. Microsoft has tried to replace this with catchy names but they mean little in terms of selling Windows or PC’s. I’ll bet we will see more hardware and peripherals fall as Windows 10 goes forward. This is obviously new to a Windows user, who is used to a Windows OS having years of support behind it.

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Thing is, if a few independent developers could tweak Windows 8.1 back into a decent desktop system, Microsoft could easily have done it. Before Windows 10 there was enough left of the base system that a good desktop environment could be resurrected. They could have come back to the straight and narrow in a matter of months and resurrected a worthy successor to the best business systems of the past. I know this is true because many of us have done it.

I’ve tried with Windows 10, and have even had a measure of success, but it’s a decidedly not-better-in-any-way result than with Windows 8.1. Screw around long enough and sure enough an entire company can lose the plot.

-Noel

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Noel Carboni wrote:

Thing is, if a few independent developers could tweak Windows 8.1 back into a decent desktop system, Microsoft could easily have done it.

They could, but they didn’t want to – forced application installs, removing Control Panel, forced updates, telemetry, half-year development cycle – these were all deliberate choices.

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these were all deliberate choices

Exactly!

-Noel

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Noel Carboni wrote:

I’ve tried with Windows 10, and have even had a measure of success, but it’s a decidedly not-better-in-any-way result than with Windows 8.1.

This is Exactly one of the niggling issues I have with W10, whatever success is achieved by the end-user to tweak, configure and modify their (or should I say Microsoft’s) OS, it will be inevitably be undone at the next major update with more useless programs and store crud thrust upon you to remove or block.

Why live in digital groundhog day?

Windows - commercial by definition and now function...

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I’ve found Windows 10 and (Office 2016) to be a lot slower than Windows 7 (and Office 2010), in a SharePoint environment.

I am accessing exactly the same documents and performing exactly the same tasks under Windows 10 that I did under Windows 7; but sometimes, things are just slow. In fact, I honestly believe that Microsoft intentionally slowed things down, or at least intentionally made certain changes which had the effect of slowing things down.

Some examples:

* When you are working in one window, and you want to switch to another window, you have to first click in the other window, then wait a second, then click again in the other window at the point where you want to work. (In the past, you could click once in the other window, and immediately start working at the point where you clicked.)

* When you are saving a document, spreadsheet, text file, etc. using “save as”, and you click on a listed file to put that name into the filename window, then click in the filename window, as soon as you start typing a change to the name, you lose your cursor; you then have to click in the filename window, wait a second, then click again; then and only then can you start typing the change to the name. This doesn’t happen always, but it happens a lot.

I wish we hadn’t made the switch; but there’s no going back, because they are just about finished with moving everyone in the company from Windows 7 to Windows 10.

Group "L" (Linux Mint)
with Windows 10 running in a remote session on my file server

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Noel Carboni wrote:

Thing is, if a few independent developers could tweak Windows 8.1 back into a decent desktop system, Microsoft could easily have done it.

The unfortunate thing is that MS was already doing that when they decided to abandon 8.x and create 10 instead:

The Start menu will return in new Desktop-optimized version of Windows 8.2

“Threshold” started as an update for Windows 8.1, before it became the code name for the first release of Windows 10.

As for modifying Windows 10 to be decent as so many have with 8.1… I haven’t seen it done adequately enough to actually want to use it.  I’m very specific in what I want from a UI, and it’s not Metro/Modern/UWP, or anything like it.  In 8.1, I’ve been able to bypass, block, uninstall, or remove pretty much all of that stuff.  There’s enough of the Control Panel and all of its various system dialogs left to make that possible without having to resort to the registry editor for fairly simple things.

In Windows 10, that’s no longer true, and it gets worse with each new build.  MS intends to remove the Control Panel and have it all in the Settings app, and that means not only that going into Settings will force the user into the App subsystem, but also that lots of system dialogs that appear without the user deliberately selecting “Settings” will bring up that ugly, wholly desktop-inappropriate “app” design language that deliberately ignores the system theme and provides a jarring discontinuity in appearance to the user between Win32 windows and UWP windows.

Microsoft calls this the “zebra UI.”  Half one, half the other… and it’s been the norm in MS land since Windows 8 was released five years ago.  Every Windows version from 8 on has been an unfinished work in progress in UI terms, and given Microsoft’s apparent inability to recognize that different usage regimes demand different UIs, it’s not liable to change as MS continues to try to push toward one unified UI, only to be pushed back by reality (as they were when Windows 8.x was rejected by the computing public).

Apple, for all their faults, would never stand for the zebra UI.  They put a lot of time and effort into making it look cohesive, fluid, and to making the UI consistent and intuitive.  Why should we accept anything less from Microsoft?  Five years of a half-baked, disjointed UI not for our benefit, but because Microsoft wants to use our PCs as a platform to sell phones, even though now their mobile ambitions are regarded by everyone (MS included, apparently, as “mobile first” was just pulled from their annual mission statement) as dead?

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The way I see all this, Microsoft is destroying the middle class of computer users, the casual power user, the one that manages the PC in the small businesses, the one helping family and friends. By requiring people to engage in an ongoing maintenance process and changing Windows constantly, they effectively reduce the value of knowing a lot of things about Windows that won’t be relevant after maybe some months and they also raise the barrier to entry for managing PC, leaving it in the hands of people who only do that for a living.

The problem with this approach is it leaves a gap open for competition, because this doesn’t have to be this way to have a workable computer and if a company could come up with an alternative running the compatible apps, the switch would occur. I completely disagree with that statement that unless you do twice a year upgrades, your PC will lag behind so much in terms of security and new features. And even if it did, it doesn’t mean that it would cause problems in the real world for people who miss on those features, as many successful Windows 7 users are still showing today. How does people got infected mostly? Through unpatched holes more than because they don’t have the latest Defender or other. How to reduce the number of holes? Stop constantly adding new things. Make a lean version that just does what most business people want.

It took me years to be really good with Windows. Each time I though I was good, a year later I knew a lot more. I find it sad to loose that knowledge and the love I have for Windows. Now, I feel like if I give up trying to constantly follow the changes, I will become like the standard users with a foggy understanding of my PC. I will have a general idea of what is in there, but not sure if this option should be enabled or what it does exactly to have Microsoft uses diagnostic data to give me recommendations… I can’t stand this.

Often, people say MS release a new OS that is not well received, they stubbornly continue, label it differently, tweak a few things, and people love it. Well, with WaaS, there will never be enough time for that. Before the version will get some love, it will be rendered obsolete by the next one.

In reaction to Google and Apple success with simple, not in your way, self-maintaining systems, what does MS do? They do exactly the opposite. They make it hard to maintain even for the professionals. Can someone show Mister Nadella the door, please?

 

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I will not support W10 and recommend that users look at Linux Mint as an option. Most home and many SOHO users do not need specific Windows only software. They need software in certain categories that can handle common file types for office documents, photos, audio, video, and web browsing.

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@ lurks about … ,

Presently, many popular desktop software/programs/apps/games are only available for Windows and MacOS and many major hardware OEMs only support Windows wrt device drivers. Why.?
= world market share(desktop OS) of Windows is about 90%, MacOS about 7% and Linux about 2%.

So, until the market share of Linux goes above 5%, nothing will change.

Hopefully, it will.

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anonymous wrote:

@ lurks about … , Presently, many popular desktop software/programs/apps/games are only available for Windows and MacOS and many major hardware OEMs only support Windows wrt device drivers. Why.? = world market share(desktop OS) of Windows is about 90%, MacOS about 7% and Linux about 2%. So, until the market share of Linux goes above 5%, nothing will change. Hopefully, it will.

Most users nowadays use a web browser, e-mail client and maybe an office suite – all of them you get bundled with most distros. Hardware support is also OK. Probably the only reason why I am not sitting on Linux is gaming – because I don’t want to dual boot.

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@radosuaf
BBC iPlayer has a video Download Tool which is only available for Windows and MacOS.

Google only support 64bit Chrome for Linux. 32bit Linux cannot install the Chrome browser.

From 2012 to 2016, Adobe did not support Flash-player in Linux Firefox. Adobe only reversed course recently after HTML5 had dethroned Flash-player.

Many external USB graphics tablet used by artists and graphic designers are not supported in Linux. Many USB Wifi adapters are not supported in Linux.

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anonymous wrote:

@radosuaf BBC iPlayer has a video Download Tool which is only available for Windows and MacOS. Google only support 64bit Chrome for Linux. 32bit Linux cannot install the Chrome browser. From 2012 to 2016, Adobe did not support Flash-player in Linux Firefox. Adobe only reversed course recently after HTML5 had dethroned Flash-player. Many external USB graphics tablet used by artists and graphic designers are not supported in Linux. Many USB Wifi adapters are not supported in Linux.

Of course – there will be apps not available for Linux and there will be hardware not supported – but for MOST users Linux is enough (see Chromebooks for example). I’ve never come across any hardware that was not supported in Linux on my desktop computers. That being said – I still believe Windows 8.1 is far more pleasant OS than Ubuntu or Mint Cinnamon, but if you take its full retail price into account, things get a bit more complicated… Luckily people don’t like W8 and I got mine really cheap :).

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@ … radosuaf … …,

The main point is that the “for MOST users, Linux is enough” people consist of only about 2% of world market share.
… This was the same reason free Win 10 Mobile and its Lumia smartphones had failed in the world market, ie no substantial market share resulted in no substantial support for apps and hardware. IOW, for most users, even though Win 10 Mobile is also enough, it still failed in the world market.

Something should be done to the free Linux desktop OS for it to exceed 5% world market share, eg being acquired by Google and then developed further, ala Android.

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anonymous wrote:

The main point is that the “for MOST users, Linux is enough” people consist of only about 2% of world market share.

99% of non-Apple laptops are sold with Windows preinstalled. Currently sales are more or less 60/40 in favour of laptops. That leaves us with 40% of desktops, out of which majority is probably sold to enterprises (again, Windows).

I’d gladly read what % of Windows sales is actually boxes sold at the shops. These would be those that are deliberately chosen and paid for.

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Worth checking out is Crossover (http://www.codeweavers.com), which allows you to run all sorts of windows programs under Linux. Here’s a link to their compatibility list

https://www.codeweavers.com/compatibility

Certainly worth the cost if you have an application you really need to run.

 

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By accepting W10, you are also accepting corporate malware and all the crud that comes with it.
Using W10 only encourages MS to continue throwing crud at your PC and soon you’ll be helpless to do anything about it. IMHO

There are other GNU/Linux Distros other than Linux Mint, some better, some worse but not as well known. After testing for over four years, we kept going back to a particular distro which works great for our needs.

Check out Distrowatch.com before jumping on the Linux Mint bandwagon. For instance Zorin OS is targeted at Windows/ex-Windows users due to the GUI being familiar to Home & SOHO users. There are many to choose from with much the same level of support/ forums and really helpful people world-wide.

Windows - commercial by definition and now function...

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Elly

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says it all really..

 

Windows - commercial by definition and now function...

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Elly

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@Microfix
Agreed!  and very very funny, if it wasn’t so serious, in that IMO Win10 is also not going to crash land softly shall we say.

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AlexEiffel wrote:

It took me years to be really good with Windows. Each time I though I was good, a year later I knew a lot more. I find it sad to loose that knowledge and the love I have for Windows. Now, I feel like if I give up trying to constantly follow the changes, I will become like the standard users with a foggy understanding of my PC. I will have a general idea of what is in there, but not sure if this option should be enabled or what it does exactly to have Microsoft uses diagnostic data to give me recommendations… I can’t stand this.

Well said, Alex. I’m right there with ya.

-Noel

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AlexEiffel

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I have observed that often when a person or company appears to not know what they are doing, they really don’t know what they are doing. I personally have grown weary of the cult like visionary narrative various writers have crafted in regard to Satya Nadella. He has not been a positive force for Windows development and pushes an artificial demand curve for cloud services. Just my two cents!

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Quoting John who commented on August 15, 2017 at 18:06, at the 56-page blog post …

We have many more concerns. I could probably write a list as long as this blog post. The bottom line is: two upgrades a year is at least one upgrade too many. With Linux, users are allowed to choose LTS and have 3 – 5 years of stability. We would prefer that LTSB be the standard option for enterprises. However, Microsoft’s LTSB licensing and additional costs make this option prohibitive except for special case scenarios.

At the rate we are able to upgrade to 1703, we may still have a significant amount of 1607 clients as 1607 goes out of support. We may have been better off staying on Win7 as at least it will be supported until 2020 and then upgrade to 8.1 which is supported until 2023. By then, hopefully Microsoft will have come to their senses and slowed the pace down a bit. Or maybe Linux (client workstations) will be ready for enterprise wide adoption by 2023.

Most likely, John’s company had paid M$ less upfront money to lease Win 7 Ent Volume Licenses under renewable 3-year Enterprise Agreements which also required the purchase of additional 3-year-term Software Assurance(SA) or Upgrade Insurance.
… So, when Win 10 Ent came along in 2015, the company decided to immediately utilize their already-paid-for SA early and upgraded to Win 10 Ent E3 for “free”, ie did not opt to wait until Win 7 Ent’s EOL in 2020 = would have needed to pay for another 3-year-term SA at around 2017.
… The company thought the “free” upgrade to Win 10 Ent E3 through SA was a good deal. Now, John’s company are regretting their decision mainly because of how unstable Win 10 Ent E3’s twice-a-year upgrades or WaaS requirements are.

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