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Patch reliability is unclear. Unless you have an immediate, pressing need to install a specific patch, don't do it. |
.Lately I’ve noticed that Windows patches have stopped being consistent. No I’m not talking about bugs, I’m talking about timing. Once upon a time up
[See the full post at: Patch Lady – Get back to a schedule]
Susan Bradley Patch Lady/Prudent patcher
They can start with making sure Updates are reliable, I mean I find silly that they want to focus on updating frequently but they don’t test their updates properly,
If I were Microsoft and I wanted to force updates on users I would at least take the time to test them, make sure they are harmless and prove the costumers that updates are good for any computer.
Susan,
Although you used Windows 10 as your example, things are just as bad on the Windows 7 front.
On my home Win 7 machine, after waiting for the dust to settle, I followed Microsoft’s March update recommendations. However, I ended up having to uninstall two March patches prior to installing the April roll-up.
On my work Win 7 machine, my employer did not push out any March updates whatsoever. They waited until Microsoft finally got their act together and released the April 23rd (fourth Monday) version of KB4093118.
It used to be that no matter how bad things got during the month, you could wait until the dust settled, safely patch, and move on. The situation is so bad now, you may have to uninstall last month’s roll-up before you can install this month’s roll-up.
Theoretically, telemetry is a great way for Microsoft to know how each individual PC (homeuser or network) is functioning on waas but, Microsoft got off on the wrong foot by using it for the GWX campaign. This in itself has created mistrust for users and myself of older currently supported Operating Systems.
Disclosing exactly what data they are collecting (officially conforming to GDPR in the EU as well as some sort of global standard) then there shouldn’t be a problem should there?
In Formula 1 racing cars, they have used telemetry for years to diagnose and improve on the cars performance, reliability, aerodynamics etc. This collected data inturn shapes the changes/ modifications required for the racing team in order to achieve better performance of the car together with driver feedback gives the team a better chance of winning the championship.
Perhaps user feedback is required from PC users and companies in order for the OS vehicle to achieve a better performance on specifically W10 waas.
I have been wondering for a while if telemetry actually HELPS our PC’s and that certain telemetry patches could actually do more good than harm but, I don’t think it applies to older currently supported operating systems.
This post makes me wonder how we can ever be sure telemetry programs don’t get installed somehow? We know about certain ones and that we should uncheck them when offered, but how can an average non-techie user know how to completely avoid them?
Telemetry is inevitable and will more than likely become unavoidable which was one of the reasons I moved to group A- patching (with telemetry mitigations in place.)
If I were a software developer who wanted to protect our ‘program as a service’ or program, why not use telemetry in order for the program to function/ work? It doesn’t have to be online all the time, a heartbeat telemetry could be sent every so often. This would be in WaaS only
You have evidence that telemetry does not contain error information?
cheers, Paul
Susan Bradley said, “We still have a long way to go.”
I beg to differ. Microsoft has a long way to go. It’s hard to reacquire someone’s trust once you’ve lost it.
Maybe all the reorganizing has created some dysfunction at Microsoft. Roles and responsibilities have changed for those who have been moved from one division to another. The Windows Division is one that has been decimated, so that has to have taken a toll on scheduling. The very aggressive Windows 10 schedule is ludicrously complicated , the many MS products besides the OS that must be maintained, the added workload associated with meltdown/spectre and the unnecessary immolating of W7/64 via total meltdown have all contributed to the chaos.
That may well be; but who was responsible for the reorg? MICROSOFT! They need to put things right; they were the ones who put them wrong.
The disbanding of their testing dept was unconscionable. That’s the first thing they need to fix, and they need to fix it NOW.
I view Microsoft as an arrogant entity that has the “my way or the highway” stance on the way they do things. And quite frankly, if you chose the highway, they really don’t care. I don’t look for them to change anytime soon, as they see no bad in the way they’re doing things.
I agree; but MS is just a rather extreme case of a general trend in the way big companies treat their customers. And nor really a new one: does anybody here remember the “We are the PHONE COMPANY, we are OMNIPOTENT … WE DON’t CARE” Lily Tomlin’s skit in the late Sixties Rowan-and-Martin’s Laugh-In show?
Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).
MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV
The arrogance has a bad habit of biting you back. Too many Windows users including Woody post about using Chromebooks or various Linux distros either currently or in the future. That is a marketing disaster in the making as this is a group who can influence others to at least serious consider something other than Windows in the future. It will not show up immediately but wait as W7 and W8.1 go out of support.
Spot on! With others nipping at their heels (Google is the prime example), Microsoft can’t afford to treat their customer base in a bad way.
Microsoft has opened the door for Linux Mint, Ubuntu, and others to come running through. And Linux-based software is getting better and better.
I predict that as Windows 7 goes out of support, Linux is going to have made some headway on the corporate desktop. And once Linux gets a foothold, and companies see that Linux can work, you will see a lot of companies going with Linux – it’s a whole lot cheaper than Windows, MAC, etc.
if you chose the highway, they really don’t care… they see no bad in the way they’re doing things.
You nailed it! Thanks!
Susan, I assume your article addresses the issues of the smallest organisations which update directly from WU. We had a discussions on patchmanagement.org few months ago when you explained that it is not all classical GPO and SCCM and WSUS today and that there are other issues involved in relation to mobile users and MDM.
However, I see that larger, solid organisations still operate in the old way and don’t have any of the problems which you mentioned.
There is a newer issue though which creates headaches and it is indeed Windows 10 related. It is about the half-yearly release schedule and the fact that somehow Microsoft convinced most large places to implement Current Release instead of LTSB/LTSC due to concerns that otherwise they would be less supported or out of support entirely, which is certainly not true in the first place because Microsoft would not risk losing those customers (tens or hundreds of thousand licences) or risk having them much longer than intended on Windows 7 or even worse, migrating to Windows 8.1 instead of Windows 10. If the trend for desktops is to upgrade in large numbers to Windows 10 with all its current downsides, there is huge resistance from moving the servers to Windows 2016, while Windows 2012 R2 is so solid.
The fast release schedule is the biggest issue which I see with Windows 10 and other Enterprise products from third-party associates of Microsoft and not the update schedule.
We might actually see in 6-9 months a large scale adoption of the 1809 LTSC releases, both desktop and server, now that things are bit clearer and apparently Microsoft’s position tends to soften when it comes to using LTSC where there is business case for it. The current releases are implemented anyway in the LTSC style, with Store updates being blocked, provisioned apps removed, while the only significant difference is the use of Edge, or at least giving the best shot at it, because users and all administrators still prefer IE where there is no other third-party browser available. I see a push for Chrome in Enterprise though, currently more like a “reserve” browser, but it keeps getting momentum.
I am a Firefox user personally, but I don’t see it in any significant volumes being adopted in Enterprise, unfortunately.
Honestly I see WSUS and SCCM as “old time” patching. I still see the issues behind WSUS, but I get more control to approve them (or not)
Susan Bradley Patch Lady/Prudent patcher
Interesting.
I just visited an organization this week that sells more than a billion dollars a year. I was curious to see what they ran and it was Windows 10 Pro. I was surprised. Considering Microsoft keeps reducing the Pro aspect of Pro, the latest sin being ignoring the GP to disable web search on 1803, I wonder where all this is going in the future.
When will we see the day where the famous ch100 now says “I don’t want to talk Windows Pro, I have no interest in this consumer version”? ?
Close enough?
No reasonable user would use Pro when they have the opportunity to use Enterprise.
Non-techy Win 10 Pro and Linux Mint experimenter
Nah, he’s not yet blaming people for talking about it! 🙂
Just a gentle tease, ch100, you know we like you.
And when it comes to Windows tech, he has it down to the last detail. I really do rely on him for that… I’ve learned a lot from him, and really respect him… but somehow I don’t think he would appreciate a (((hug))), so I’ll resist…
But… wish that he’d stop taunting the rest of us Home users who don’t have a chance at an Enterprise edition. I supppose its Microsoft’s fault… but I’d love to be able to make my OS do what I want it to do… just like Ch100 gets to do.
I’d challenge him to try and make do with Home edition for a week, and see what garbage the rest of the world has to put up with. W10 Home wouldn’t work for him any better than for us, maybe it would be worse for him knowing all the great things Windows was capable of. Okay… W10 Pro… How would he like it if Microsoft told him that was all he could get?
What does he use at home? He isn’t entitled to the Enterprise edition there?
Non-techy Win 10 Pro and Linux Mint experimenter
Once bitten twice shy. The problem as I see it runs much deeper than just updating Windows. Yes windows updates are a mess for the reasons in the post and some others that don’t get talked about much. The mistrust of updates is bad enough, but a different kind of mistrust has been festering for awhile now.
When I turn off a feature or a process, I expect it to stay off. I don’t appreciate Microsoft second guessing my intentions and turning things back on or changing settings whenever they feel like it. I obviously can’t trust my OS because a part of everyday is spent making sure it is configured the way I left it when I went to bed.
Microsoft clearly obfuscates the true nature of some patches, offering only vague generalities and no actual specifics. A service stack update “to increase the security and stability of Windows” that rewrites the way updating works? Please, that’s as close to a blatant lie one can get without actually being found guilty of lying.
Telemetry, I don’t trust Microsoft when they try to explain what they collect and how often it is sent to them. I don’t believe them when they tell me it is anonymous and I insist on being given the option not to participate if I choose because I am not receiving a paycheck to do work for them. I want to see the reports they receive but alas, it will probably be difficult to convince me that what I am being shown is the sum total of all that is being shared.
Windows has become as scummy as Facebook, Twitter, Google and all the other corporations who hide behind long and complicated policies and user agreements that no one can understand and follow from start to finish, assuming we are prepared to dedicate the time needed to actually read all that.
Yes, windows update is broken in that we have all seem the decline in reliability and stability of our systems after each update for a long time now. We have sat back and slowly watched our measure of control over our computers be taken away from us, one setting and one lie at a time. The mistrust now goes far beyond just updating, straight to the heart of the matter, we have lost confidence and trust in Microsoft itself. For whose benefit are these updates anyways, us or them?
GoneToPlaid, 
Elrod, 
Seff, 
Sessh, 
HiFlyer, 
flackcatcher, 
Ascaris, 
Cybertooth, 
Steve S., 
lurks about, 
AlexEiffel, 
anita.yk, 
Mele20, 
Microfix, 
Bill C., 
Elly, 
ch100 It’s starting to look at lot like last August, when we had patches on fourteen different days.
Microsoft used to have my trust. They have worked hard to earn my distrust.
It didn’t happen all at once, but started with the lack of transparency and malware push of GWX. The more they remove users’ control, force unwanted apps, on-line features, and on-line searches, update on their schedule rather than the users convenience, push marketing over real services, and offer renting an OS rather than pay once… (well those are the “features” I don’t want anything to do with in the first place) the more it reinforces that betrayal of trust. I haven’t even mentioned the bungling of updates in the first place. In order for me to look at them as trustworthy again they would have to replace all upper management that ushered in this disorder. It is a basic thing to make amends, by fixing what was broken… so they would have to offer fixes for all my family and friends computers that they updated into malfunctioning (or pay me for my time spent fixing them back to original OS). Then, for me to go forward, they would have to offer a long term, stable OS that allows me to control ALL telemetry with a simple off switch, that installs no unwanted programs (ex-Cortana and Bing search), and has stable updating and well documented support. Then they would have to walk their talk and keep it that way for several years… and then I’d think about trying any of their products again.
That isn’t a fantasy list… it is what Microsoft would have to do to earn back my trust… just basics that any well-intentioned person would do when asking forgiveness. They aren’t going to do it… and that is why I will never support using Microsoft products… not for my family, friends and neighbors… not for the church… not for the school… not for the non-profits and small business owners I know… and, yes, we all talk about this and work to help each other. Microsoft has burned their bridges badly around here. People still buy new computers… but Linux Mint is turning out to be a wonderful alternative to the malware W10 that is already installed, and is surprisingly easy (and free).
The updating mess is just what people said would happen with bundling and roll-ups of updates. Duh! Sort of like focusing on the zit on the face of a 250lb line backer, named Cloud Services, about to tackle you… Useless… he’s not even noticing you were actually once a member of the same team!
Done! (Well, going to continue using the OS I have as long as its serviceable, but that is because it works for me and I have been able to prevent Microsoft from wrecking it).
Susan- you have great tech info and contributions, but I do believe that Microsoft could have grown their cloud business, offered W10, and not done all the damage or engendered distrust. I don’t need tech knowledge to see that they have behaved abominably on the things they didn’t mess up… the inability to control updating, apps, and telemetry works fantastic for Home users… its very effective at not allowing non-techies to opt out… and I don’t think consumers should support such callous disregard and abuse. Clearly, Microsoft hasn’t heard anything else… it took how long for updating complaints to show up on a door, or cups, and be posted to Twitter? A responsive, morally upright company would have addressed it right away.
Non-techy Win 10 Pro and Linux Mint experimenter
That isn’t a fantasy list…
It is, if you want to live in the Microsoft world…
You’ll have to move to Linux (excl. ubuntu), if you want your os experience that way.
Why excluding Ubuntu?
Are you referring to the tie-in they tried with Amazon, where a local search in “Unity” would also display Amazon search results?
I can understand why that would be bothersome, but it was never mandatory. It had an OFF switch, and the feature was eventually dropped because of negative customer feedback.
I don’t prefer Ubuntu proper for other reasons (I use Mint, which is based on Ubuntu, but it never had Unity, which was where the Amazon search tie-in lived), but I don’t hold this against them too much.
One of the criticisms about Unity was that it, like the newer Windows interfaces, was aimed at unifying (hence the name) desktop and mobile UI flavors, and the idea was that the user was going to enable all kinds of these little “lens” things for their favorite sites, so a single search would go out to all that user’s favorite sites (shopping and otherwise) and display aggregated results they would find useful. Amazon was simply the first one on everyone’s list, chosen by default to give Canonical a little bit of money via the affiliate program (same thing Woody has for this site) and also to demonstrate the “usefulness” of these things.
Had I been using Ubuntu at that time, I would have reacted like many others did, which is to say that this isn’t something we’d expect to have to worry about in Linux land, and that it needs to go. I would have no interest in the kind of search this is meant to bring about… when I want to search Amazon, I search Amazon. When I want to search locally, I search locally. I know how to get to where I want a search to go!
It’s the same argument against the unified web search being forced on Windows 10 customers, only with Bing instead of Amazon, but with the big difference being that you could turn the Ubuntu one off.
All the rage directed at Ubuntu was not because the Amazon search tie-in could not be turned off, but just that it ever existed in the first place. It’s gotten so bad in Windows-land that we consider it a win if Windows starts clobbering us and we ask it (via registry edit, group policy object, etc.) to stop and it actually stops. In Linux land, people expect not to be clobbered in the first place (how weird is that?).
This feature only ever existed, as far as I know, in the Unity desktop version of Ubuntu (the main version), not in the variants with other desktop environments, like Kubuntu, Lubuntu, or Xubuntu.
Canonical got some well-deserved criticism for that, and Shuttleworth’s flippant response was, shall we say, not well thought out, but it’s still miles better than what we get in Windows. They eventually made the right choice, and we want to reward good choices as much as we want to penalize bad ones, right?
Dell XPS 13/9310, i5-1135G7/16GB, KDE Neon 6.2
XPG Xenia 15, i7-9750H/32GB & GTX1660ti, Kubuntu 24.04
Acer Swift Go 14, i5-1335U/16GB, Kubuntu 24.04 (and Win 11)
I excluded Ubuntu as I read, you’ll get ads a’la Windows 10…
If that’s not the case, I’m happy to not exclude any Linux distros!
Can’t edit my post, but as your clarification follows it, that’ll do.
Thanks for the heads-up!
It is relatively easy to start this kind of discussion in the appropriate forum… and you can always refer to it, and offer a link in a comment, without hijacking the thread. Believe me, I’ve had it with Windows… but I don’t want Windows users to try and hijack threads on the alternatives, either. There is need for this information… and people will come looking.
Non-techy Win 10 Pro and Linux Mint experimenter
I don’t want to see threads hijacked either, but in a thread specifically about the consistency of Windows patching it should be possible to mention other systems by way of comparison. All I’m suggesting is that we live in times where a degree of latitude is warranted where such things are concerned. Yes, there are other forums here, but in reality most people only have the time or inclination to read the main page articles and they don’t cover the other systems.
To get back on a schedule would mean they would have reliable patches again. Maybe they should do something innovative, like get specialists who can test their patches to make sure they really are reliable. MS can give them a fancy name like “quality assurance”… ;-D
Don’t like it when updates are pushed out before they are ready. A schedule is not what I care about, its the need for updates to be right the first time and not see these amended ones being released. We all were told Windows 10 was going to be better about updates and I don’t think that has really happened.
You are preaching to the choir; we, as Microsoft clients, cannot change Microsoft’s update release methods.
Please let Microsoft staff know that a regular, reliable, and consistent update schedule is necessary.
From the original article:
This is one that I respectfully disagree that telemetry is a bad thing. I WANT Microsoft to get all the data points of how updates are good or bad. Unfortunately telemetry is too much aligned with the forced updating problem and thus is getting a bad rap.
The devil, as usual, is in the details.
Telemetry doesn’t have to be bad in and of itself. I’ve been using Firefox since it was called Phoenix, and for most of that time, I have intentionally kept a level of telemetry on, since I trusted Mozilla and I wanted to help them improve the product.
If Microsoft had asked politely for me to allow telemetry, I may have allowed it, as I did with Firefox, or I may not have… but MS didn’t do that. They demanded that I have it on, removing my ability to turn it off completely. When I (like many others) objected, we got platitudes about why it’s harmless and why we needn’t be concerned and why it has to be on.
I’m sorry, Microsoft, did you thought I’d asked you for excuses? What I asked for (nay, demanded) was an off switch, and what I get is excuses.
Here’s the thing about owning something, like a PC. Ownership brings with it certain rights and privileges, and one of those is that I am the sole authority when it comes to gear that I own. If I say telemetry needs to be OFF, then telemetry needs to be OFF, and no explanation to Microsoft or anyone else is necessary. No explanation is necessary because my reasons, no matter how frivolous they may seem to anyone else, are the beginning and the end of all that has been said or that will be said on the topic. If this were a debate, my words would be the only argument that had been uttered. Microsoft doesn’t get a microphone or a place at the podium, because Microsoft does not own the PC in question. I do.
That’s where Microsoft screwed all this up. An operating system must have one and only one master, and that is the owner of the equipment upon which that OS runs. It cannot and must not have split loyalty, trying to serve at times the owner of the PC and at other times the owner of the copyright on the OS itself. By virtue of its role, the OS has access to every bit of data stored on that PC, every character typed on it, every password entered, every web site visited, and every bit of data that passes through it in any way. It requires a great deal of trust, and to achieve that level of trust, it is imperative that the OS be very clear that it serves only the interests of the owner of the hardware, as defined by the owner of that hardware, without conflict or reservation.
Anything less than that is simply unfit for purpose.
When an OS does not have an OFF switch for telemetry, and when you ask for one to be added but instead you get excuses, it is evident that the OS does not serve only the interests of that owner as defined by himself. MS will, of course, launch into exhortations of how telemetry really is in the interest of the owner of the PC, but that’s not for Microsoft to decide. The interests of the owner are defined by the owner, and if he decides that his interest is in telemetry being off, then that’s the final word right there.
The refusal of MS to simply include an OFF switch (rather than a “less” switch) for telemetry on all versions of Windows 10 is just one of many examples of Windows 10 failing in its sacred duty to serve only the owner of the PC. The forced updates is another prime example, as is the inability for the user to use Google for Cortana searches, or to simply uninstall Cortana and any other unwanted “app,” or to simply disallow web searches from the start menu (a “feature” previously of the Home edition that has now been brought to Pro).
That’s the basic issue that is at the heart of many of the complaints about Windows 10. “Windows as a Service” means, to Microsoft, that it gets to run the show and make the decisions for Windows users. That renders any Windows version delivered under that “Service” unfit for purpose, and no amount of bells and whistles and feature updates can ever make up for that core deficit.
This would all be bad enough if “WaaS” had been inflicted upon us with the MS QA department still intact, but it isn’t. The telemetry in question isn’t being used to catch bugs that slipped through the cracks of a competent and fully funded QA team… it’s being used instead of a QA team. While I may be inclined to provide some level of assistance to Microsoft in catching bugs that slip through the cracks, I am certainly not inclined to provide assistance so Microsoft can save money by not having a testing department at all. There’s a big difference in helping the testing department and BEING the testing department!
Dell XPS 13/9310, i5-1135G7/16GB, KDE Neon 6.2
XPG Xenia 15, i7-9750H/32GB & GTX1660ti, Kubuntu 24.04
Acer Swift Go 14, i5-1335U/16GB, Kubuntu 24.04 (and Win 11)
Well said!
While the action of allowing telemetry on a computer might be the same, volunteering to help out and being forcefully enslaved are worlds apart.
Non-techy Win 10 Pro and Linux Mint experimenter
Agree, its my box thus I make the rules. If I like you I might enable ‘telemetry’. And I refuse to anyone’s alpha tester so they can save a few bucks; do testing and QA right upfront.
What, you want to actually pay for an OS that doesn’t try to scrape value from you at every turn?
Um, yes, actually.
-Noel
Perhaps it is kind of like John Deere saying that they own the tractor you just purchased from them, because their software is the heart of the tractor:
I registered just to chime in on this topic- I’ve been reading AskWoody for a while now as my main Windows news source. The straightforward info with no frills and no blind shilling for Microsoft is a breath of fresh air. Especially when working for an organization that has seriously bought into the MS buzzwords before proceeding to wonder why nothing works anymore.
Anyways, I saw a few replies on here about the telemetry and I couldn’t resist throwing my 2 cents in about how scummy and excessive this collection is. I never liked the collection of what seemed like an excessive amount of data, but until recently I sort of treated it like Googling yourself- the deeper you delve the more that sinking feeling sets in, and you walk away feeling worse and knowing you can’t do too much. Then, a month or two back, I logged in to my pfSense VM I run my home network through because- as is so often the case with this kind of thing- I had a totally unrelated issue; I think my (overly aggressive) IDS was blocking Netflix again. No big deal, go in and whitelist the rule / IP. This is nothing new. What was new was a separate block entry I found that read:
“ET INFO Windows OS Submitting USB Metadata to Microsoft”
Now, I’ve since done some searching, and the folks over at AlienVault swear this is a false positive as a byproduct of new rules added to the ruleset being used, but time has gone on and I see it still- frequently- popping up as a block. Its almost insulting that folks write this off as a false positive- it feels like the attitude is “Oh, its just Microsoft. Just let them have the metadata. Its just metadata!”
Needless to say, that block has not been whitelisted, and never will be. You want crash reports, fine. My system goes BSoD and theres something helpful to prevent it- I get it, though I’d feel better if I could say “Microsoft will fix it” with a straight face. But data on USB devices plugged into my computer? What? They’re all working just fine, and whats more, my (somewhat dated) rig at home and most, if not all, of my other Windows systems have been mercifully stable. It begs the question what need is there for this data if nothing is wrong. I see no obligation to report that level of data to MS without a clear and present need.
It bears mentioning that monetizing my data is not a real need either. If they think they need the money from that so badly, then what they really need is a business plan that doesn’t take cues from organizations with 3 letter names. Maybe I’m being too much of an absolutist here, but (regardless of how people feel about the players) this is a post-Snowden world where Equifax got a free pass before Zuckerberg whistled a tune for Congress, yet somehow folks go right back to passive after a spat of temporary outrage. There should only need to be one lesson about excessive data collection- meta-flavored or otherwise- to see the potential dangers.
@Watchhound-
Glad you chimed in… and your observations are worth much more than 2 cents!
Non-techy Win 10 Pro and Linux Mint experimenter
…I applaud Microsoft for fixing bugs…
I know that insanely complex software is practically impossible to make without bugs, but…
Wouldn’t it be better to applaud them for not making bugs in the first place? Slow things down a bit and make sure things are more right before release?
-Noel
Nah, why bother… just click the “upload” button.
As in “shoot them all and let God sort things out”.
Many good and thoughtful comments here, somewhat off topic, I think, but worth reading nonetheless.
My own understanding of what is happening with Windows, perhaps wrong for the inevitable lack of relevant information, is that MS sees itself as a whale in a sea of krill. Some krill are bigger than the rest, but even the biggest of them, Apple and Linux (in the aggregate of it various distros and flavors) are small fry (if you pardon these repeated fishy metaphors) compared to MS. In fact the biggest competitor of Windows right now is Windows: Win 7 versus Win 10, to be more precise. But for a limited time only, since MS has the Win 7 killer switch in hand.
So, at MS, the guiding idea could well be that home and small business users will just lump it and shuffle along, in the end taking whatever MS thinks they should get, because there is no where else for over a billion of such users to move to en masse, and many also will probably stay with Windows since they are not prepared to go through with what they fear will be the very difficult process of moving on to something different. And the biggest cash cows, the large corporations and government organizations that MS has big contracts with, probably will be happy to stay the course, if MS invests just enough time and energy on making Windows still functional to them. Or at least that is what I imagine might be the view from Redmond of what is going on out there.
Is MS top management correct in their appraisal of the current situation and that, under their current plans, things are likely to develop so Windows As Service + Cloud will still be, for many more years, the crucial source of revenue for the company that plain Windows has been until now?
Or are they wrong, and the day of their reckoning is approaching fast? Possibly? Yes. Probably? You tell me.
Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).
MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV
I agree with all of that, except the bit about Microsoft having the killer switch for Windows 7. The danger of their present approach is that by recklessly damaging their own reputation so far as the reliability of patching is concerned, they are in danger of taking it to the stage where people aren’t concerned any more about the end of life support for Windows 7, they’ll actually welcome it.
All Microsoft have to do to lose the plot totally is to create a situation in which a substantial proportion of users deem an unsupported Windows 7 to be both safer and more reliable than a supported Windows 10. They seem to be well on the way to achieving that position, which would have been unthinkable just a year or two ago.
And Susan’s original article is spot on and very much at the core of this discussion, because it is only by getting back on schedule that Microsoft can begin the process of reconnecting with their customers in time to forestall that scenario from happening.
Memorable sayings recycled for the occasion:
The best laid plans of Nadella and MS always go awry, thanks to their incompetence.
The more I know Windows 10, the more I love Macs.
Booting up Linux at least once a day keeps Windows 10 away.
One definition of madness is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results, the same as Mr. Nadella and his trusty assistants.
It is not true that all that like Windows 10 are stupid; but, as it is generally understood by well-informed people, most of those that are stupid really, really, really like Windows 10.
All I know is that I know Windows 10.
You can take Nadella to the Windows 10 mess, but you cannot make him fix it.
Etc…
Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).
MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV
“4. People don’t trust in the telemetry collection process. [This is one that I respectfully disagree that telemetry is a bad thing. I WANT Microsoft to get all the data points of how updates are good or bad. Unfortunately telemetry is too much aligned with the forced updating problem and thus is getting a bad rap.]”
When everyone kept Telemetry disabled (e.g. W7) Windows Updates rarely broke machines. Now that W10 has unstoppable “Real Time Telemetry”, MS cannot release working updates.
This clearly shows that W10 Telemetry data IS NOT used to improve Windows performance and/or reliability.
-lehnerus2000
Microsoft might say, in return, that now it only takes 10 engineers to learn about and fix widespread bugs in Windows now where it took a hundred times that many to keep up when they tried to do software maintenance a more traditional way.
For all we know they consider telemetric bug reporting a resounding success; something the company couldn’t currently live without.
I think the problem really is that people realize that telemetry can be used to collect much more than things like “The wudfsvc service gets into a loop after an external hard drive is plugged-in“. Lack of transparency implies a need for trust, which Microsoft HAD. The REAL problem is that while changing their business model they simultaneously chose to use up their reputation (e.g. “GWX”, updates that introduce new vulnerabilities, etc.) so that it is becoming VERY HARD to trust them.
So here you have a company with a foot in the door forcibly extracting data.
Data, as we have seen, can have serious value (e.g., we’ve seen Zuckerberg interviewed by Congress, LinkedIn sold for billions, etc.). It doesn’t mean that Microsoft IS extracting valuable data from our lives, but it could.
Most folks think about that old saying: “Absolute power…”
-Noel
Microsoft might say, in return, that now it only takes 10 engineers to learn about and fix widespread bugs in Windows now where it took a hundred times that many to keep up when they tried to do software maintenance a more traditional way.
The question is if you want to pay for the product that by definition is buggy. Imagine Ford saying that they prefer telemetry data to testing their cars thoroughly before selling them to customers.
All that would have been fine if W10 Home was free and Pro users wouldn’t be fed with ‘feature updates’ unless they consent to.
I don’t believe that anything for “free” is worth having, for the precise reason we’re discussing here: The maker will try to do unfortunate things to make it generate revenue yet still seem “free”.
No, I’d really rather have to pay handsomely for a system oriented to just what *I* need. The value would be in a robust, trustworthy system. The cost would be clear and up front. Just like that Ford car you mentioned.
An OS, with hundreds of millions of lines of code and decades of engineering development by expensive employees (not to mention marketing, paying the executives ridiculous salaries, etc.), that costs anything less than thousands of dollars IS essentially free.
-Noel
Commercial “free” products may not be free, as you say. But I use many free things in my work without undesirable side effects, such as being spied on and, or subject to obnoxious ads: publicly available data from NASA and NOAA and software from the Free Software Foundation and similar organizations are things I use quite often to earn my daily crust. Interestingly, it is in the world of free and publicly available non-commercial software that the reputation of those contributing their creations is of paramount importance, because it backs up our trust. It is a different story in the world of huge commercial companies, where reputation is less important when they already have monopolistic power.
Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).
MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV
Generally I agree 100% with what Noel writes, but this time I have a quibble: Microsoft was already very profitable–and Windows was one source of those profits–when there was no cloud to speak of and Windows licenses for individuals sold for $100-$300. So it doesn’t sound like it’s necessary for Windows to cost “thousands of dollars” for it to be profitable, and therefore it’s not “essentially free” at $199.
Hummm… Askwoody is free and worth having. 🙂
And Wikipedia, Firefox, Linux, VLC, Audacity, Gimp and many other free software.
I wouldn’t say everything free isn’t worth having. In fact, it is sometimes the only alternative to avoid being monetized.
Good points.
Perhaps I meant “a once commercial operating system now being offered for free isn’t worth having.”
-Noel
Some krill are bigger than the rest,
Linux is the slightly larger krill, making no effort to move out of the whale’s path, holding the ticking time bomb while saying, “Go ahead, Microsoft. Eat me.”
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