Paul Thurrott: Windows as a Service isn’t working

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Some days I despair about Paul’s coverage of Microsoft’s foibles. Some days he hits the nail smack-dab on the head. Sunday was a banner nail-meet-head
[See the full post at: Paul Thurrott: Windows as a Service isn’t working]

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Great article, Woody!

And give users more privacy. What good is security patches when you can’t trust Microsoft 😉

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You can also read it for free, if you register on the site.

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I didn’t realize that! (I subscribed as soon as I heard about it.)

Good stuff. Register, people!

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I feel like the cumulative update implementation has been a hamfisted attempt at making Windows more secure from vulnerabilities, but the unruly side effect of update issues is probably something that MS either foolishly didn’t expect, or wasn’t ready for (and now doesn’t know what to do about).

I wish they’d reconsider their stance and relax it a bit, but I don’t think they will. I do agree that a “fully patched” environment is obviously the most secure, but from a reliability standpoint, they repeatedly miss the mark which is why it’s a bitter pill to swallow.

I’m saddened to have spent a year fighting to keep my machines on Windows 7, only to find out that now we’re fighting to keep our Windows 7 machines adequately patched without switching to group A. We’ve come full circle, and we’re really not any better off than we were a year ago.

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The emperor has no clothes. In this case every one is telling the emperor he is naked, but he does not/cannot/will not hear. At least he is unwilling to listen.

Deciding not to hear customers or care about them is a sure path to utter failure. It has happened so many times before.

Current management at MS is running rough-shod over its customers.

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True. But I wonder if it can be turned around?

What would you do to make Windows better?

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+1

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I would like them to back track and do updates in the old style as there seems to be quite a few people in that frame of mind. But I doubt they will change as it seems to be a case that the customer doesn’t count it’s a case of do as I say

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Just FYI.. If you register for a free Thurrott account, you get access to three “premium” articles to help you decide if you want to shell out the 64 bucks for a premium account.

Frankly, I’m not into Windows or Malwarosoft enough anymore to spend that much cash, but this particular article is definitely worth reading.

Sadly, it will like have no effect at all on MD’s future patching strategies.

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I would acknowledge the Windows 7 market, AND pursue the Windows 10 market. This aggressive, and unethical behavior that is trying to “convert” Windows 7 computers is just plain foolish, and downright customer unfriendly.

There is an excellent marketplace out there for people who want to use their devices as tools and not entertainment. In fact there is a huge marketplace for customers who need their computers to be absolutely confidential. Think Consultants of every nature.

Windows 10 is an entertainment system. Windows 7 is a work environment. The two are not the same and never can be.

You could consider two flavours of Windows 10 as well.

This is not the same as the old NT Vs. XP situation.

I would seriously consider assembling a support Windows 7 service for a fee. Provide an option for Windows 7 with advertising for no fee and Windows 7 without for a fee. That fee cannot be very high, and need not be. That would essentially acknowledge Group B and A.

The change to the method of developing Windows Updates is an utter failure. That organization must be set straight and staffed at a reasonable level.

WU’s should not be issued until fully tested in house. If that takes more time/resources, so be it. The fee will pay for this.

Consider returning WU to its roots. It should be a patching system to fix security. Then have a separate path, but related system that contains two streams itself: the advertising changes and changes to functionality.

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Run for president! You got my vote….

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******VERY, VERY IMPORTANT****

May be a duplicate, however:

Bad MS patch information at the following link….

https://www.cnet.com/news/microsoft-unhappy-with-google-disclosing-major-windows-bug-security/

Hope someone can get more information ASAP.

🙁 🙁

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On the other hand, we are a year nearer the time when MS will kick us into Group W because they won’t be providing updates for Windows 7 anyway, so the nearer we get to that time the less significant it will be if we simply decide to jump to that stage prematurely.

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It doesn’t work well and if Microsoft would go back to treating Windows updates as they should. Which is just security and important updates. They could maybe fix some of this. Driver and Microsoft feature stuff along with apps and nags should not be in updates. Every I receive a large Win 10 update. I should not have to uninstall a bunch of Microsoft added trialware. I am seriously looking at going to another OS because this stuff should not be happening without my consent.

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Sorry about the broken spelling. Again, another issue that has crept up since a update. My keyboard randomly messes up. Oh well, another fix in the works I suppose.

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No credible candidates for president please, that’s just not allowed!

I have long argued that MS should commit to Windows 7 AND Windows 10. In my case it’s from a domestic point of view rather than a business one, and it simply reflects the fact that many Windows 7 users are running desktops and laptops so don’t want a tile-based OS however brilliant that may be for those using hand-held devices. There’s room for both.

What I’ve also argued for a good time is that the kind of aggressive conversion tactics MS have applied to Windows 7 users to get them to switch to Windows 10 only makes sense if they’re trying to capture new customers from rival OS developers, but, in case they hadn’t noticed, Windows 7 is one of their own products! It shouldn’t matter overly which of their products people are using as long as they aren’t using anyone else’s, but such aggressive marketing tactics applied to their existing customers isn’t the best way of maintaining their loyalty!

As for Windows Updates, the concept of combining individual updates with no means of separating out the bad apples was only ever going to end in tears, and we haven’t seen anything yet!

The slow scanning/downloading issues of the past year were bad enough, but instead of introducing changes to fix those they’ve introduced changes that have the potential to make things a whole lot worse. Unbelievable, and indicative of the sad fact that the top suits at MS have lost all touch with the real world – and the saddest thing is that it was that real world that their predecessors/founders played such a massive and amazing part in helping to create!

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With consumer devices of all stripes (monitoring and control, communication, and computational) we have three aspects that have to be balanced: manufactures’ profits, consumers’ needs, and security. This is true of phones, IoT, and computers. How a company chooses to balance these three things in their implementation causes one issue or another. Increasing security decreases usability (e.g., putting a phone in airplane mode).

How Microsoft has chosen to play this game (usability, security, profit) when it comes to Windows is curious. They’ve typically focused on legacy, but there were some key points where legacy took a back seat to innovation: DOS to Windows, W-9x to W-NT, and WaaS.

It’s this WaaS (OS as a service?) that is so weird to me, but maybe it isn’t that strange if you consider how well Microsoft has done branding in the past. For the last decade plus Microsoft has ruined innovation by not understanding how to brand properly. (Window Mobile is a great example, but I think the apex of failure is Windows RT. Which was of a great idea that failed due to it being owned and promoted by Microsoft. And now is being resurrected, gah I hate this aspect of Microsoft it drives me crazy)

The Window users I support, the Windows users I know, and probably 99.99% of Windows users out there want “legacy” in the form of UX consistency. So what is Microsoft doing with their roll-outs? Not maintaining any consistent UX. Ridiculous, foolish, branding nightmare. Pure idiocy.

The bottom line is this: The only “great” thing about Microsoft is Azure (Nadella’s baby). They have some good things going for them too (e.g., open source product integration, AR, and innovative educational software). But, just like the entrenched toxic culture, there are many products and ideas that are necrotic and need to be amputated if Microsoft wants to be healthy, innovative, and home to brands that customers love.

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“Windows 10 is an entertainment system. Windows 7 is a work environment. The two are not the same and never can be.”

What precludes real work being done on Windows 10?

The large corporation where I recently worked is migrating 100,000 staff from Windows 7 to Windows 10 and I heard no complaints that the latter was less capable for any reason. (A minority are currently on Windows 10, but that will be the majority by next year.) Most users don’t notice the difference in their daily tasks (except it’s faster and they have a touch screen, which even enhances some business functions).

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I can’t wait to join the class action lawsuit if Microsoft goes back on it’s long established policy and starts charging a fee for security updates during the Extended Support period. Ka Ching!

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Naw. It’ll never happen.

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It’s another expectorating contest between Google and Microsoft. Very, very hard to assign blame.

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@Woody: Thank you for the reassurance…. I was not aware of such a situation existing.

You always have the right answers! 🙂 🙂

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One of the first chapters in a Usability – Human Interface book is all about how amazingly talented humans are at learning and training themselves to defeat bad designs and learn how to make them work. I will give you an example:

Stand and watch one day in an office building at noon hour. The doors have handles on both sides of the door. Not all are like this, but many are. For safety reasons, a main door must always allow for PUSHING to leave the building. So if a door only works one way, main doors must push out.

In many cases, doors work one way. They open out not in. In other words you need to PUSH the door to open it from the inside and PULL the door from the outside.

Now watch people coming up to the doors from the inside. Most will push on the handle. A few will pull on the handle and jerk their shoulder. Those people are probably not frequent users of those doors and will likely stand there and mutter to themselves how stupid they are.

Now the principle. When you see a handle you reach out and pull. When you see no handle but a push plate, you push. That is just human nature.

The people who are regulars have “learned” how to operate these doors in spite of the fact that they were not properly designed.

This is why people learn to love Windows 8, 8.1 or 8.2 (AKA windows 10). In fact after some time, it will be difficult to get them to leave it because they have invested so much in learning how to use it. Think the QWERTY keyboard.

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Interesting that Mr Thurott chose to express his opinion behind a closed door – only his subscribers get the facts, everyone else gets the boilerplate version. Kudos to the person who found out that you can register to read 3 premium articles before having to pay up.

Windows Update is a service that was changed to meet Microsoft’s wants and needs. Customer service is the act of taking care of the customer’s needs by providing and delivering professional, helpful, high quality service and assistance before, during, and after the customer’s requirements are met.

Windows 10 is a hybrid and as it is currently implemented suffers from instability and unpredictability. It defies logic that Microsoft would impose this chaos on an existing stable environment – that being W7/8.1.

I agree that Mr. Thurott got it right this time.

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If there were no class action suits after the get Win10 free debacle, they must be fully armoured.

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Amen.

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Naw. Paul’s just trying to make a living off of something that’s valuable to many people. Me included. It’s a very, very tough decision.

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“fully mitigated by the deployment of the Adobe Flash update released last week. Additionally, our analysis indicates that this specific attack was never effective in the Windows 10 Anniversary Update”

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I thought we were discussing Windows not Doors!

There was zero learning required by the hundreds of employees I witnessed transitioning from Windows 7 to Windows 10; their apps just worked (and the task bar hasn’t changed much).

So where are the confusing handles you have to push not pull in Windows 10?

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I’ve also been saying much the same to colleagues and friends for the last year or so. Certainly, in my professional environment, we all consider windows 10 to be an entertainment platform now, almost a “toy” OS; rather than a stable no-frills, efficient OS to do our work.

MS Windows ought to split into two entities; one for serious sttuff and work/business/research and another for “retail masses”. Make a super efficient core OS and fork to two versions only. Now how hard can that be!

As for patching and updating, I’ve said it before also, as well as many others: break the tradition and put out a real SP2, SP3 etc for win 7, even if it does mean the EULA would contain a clause that “does not imply 5 more years of support after issuing the SP”.

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Another analogy on human behaviour: Where I do tech support, we have about 400 classrooms, lecture halls and meetign rooms equipepd with a computer, screen, audio system and a projector. Not all those systems were built at the same time, and not all of them have dedicated control systems. So, in some places we wired in the projector remote control and velcroed it to the side of the LCD. Now, despite a big sticker that says “do not pull out the remote”, despite them seeing a cable connected to the thing, what do you suppose most people do? Of course they see a remote, they have a few at home and the natural gesture is to pull it and point to the thing to be controlled. Many many service calls per year for broken remotes, plugs and cables!

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I don’t think they CAN put the cat back into the bag. They went down a path they cannot recover from.

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Woody, if I was running MS I would concentrate on making a reliable business oriented OS for laptops and PCs. MS’ most important customers are businesses and governments. Also, I would provide an easy upgrade mechanism from one version to the next but leave the choice to the user to migrate when they are ready. I would view consumer purchases as gravy.

Note that the difference between a business OS and consumer OS is not that much, mostly it’s an attitude towards OS stability and avoiding featuritis. W10 seems to suffer from excessive featuritis and gimmicks at the expense of stability. The desktop GUI does not need to change every time someone sneezes.

Next, fix the idiotic and buggy patching system. If that means having a proper internal QA team then hire one.

Most importantly play to your strengths and do not try to ape Apple or Google.

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Entertainment makes system more complex to learn and use without any benefits. An os should not serve as apps but serve apps.

Make it modular. Instead of home and business make it base and add-one that people can choose.

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He would only listen to bad consequences of not listening? Do u see any? I don’t.

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Will listen only if bad conseqs to not listening. I don’t see any.

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Going back would cause even a worse mess than what they have now — imagine all the devices with the mixture of patches they have.

I dk if when they went down this path they realized there is no way back if it failed. Knowing MS, they could not envision their monopoly failing.

What they should have done is take a basic OS core of Win7 and give it modular extensions based on needs of different types of users. One of those could have been the new UI as an option, for those interested. e.g., entertainment stuff for creators.

Bloating useless stuff into one OS that do nothing but consume resource and collect data is not a recipe for success.

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Dk about Azure.

The IT industry operates like the fashion industry — from fad to fad. Cloud is the current fad.

I dk when, but there will be a backlash to hype there always is and another fad will pop — planned obsolescence is very profitable — and when it does, we’ll see.

The point of most technologies these days is a quick buck — speed not soundness is what counts these days — riding the fads.

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I dk the details but whatever Thurott says could be figured out by anybody that is reasonably informed and can think critically and independently.

Unfortunately, not many of those around.

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“fully mitigated… never effective…” and yet Malwaresoft is hurrying to patch this anyway…

http://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-to-patch-windows-security

Seems like they can’t spin this one any further…

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>Microsoft’s goal with Windows as a Service was pure and well-intentioned.

I’m sorry, but the words “pure” and “well-intentioned” definitely do not go with “Microsoft” anymore.

-Noel

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You said it, brother!

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+1

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“anymore” implies that at one time they did. Did they?

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“What would you do to make Windows better?”

I would go back to the model that they had with Windows 7 — do as much as you can to keep everything as backward compatible as possible, for as long as possible. In other words, I would be much more customer-centric.

Also, I would purchase Novell and implement real server-centric networking, instead of the client-centric so-called “networking” that they now offer.

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Yes if by pure and well intentioned u mean what they perceived as profitable.

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They had the windows vista/7/8.x updating under control much like with windows 2000/xp until they decided there will be no more service packs and many many users will be doing in place OS upgrades. (8.0->8.1, 7->10, 8.1->10, 10_1507->10_1511->10_1607, 10_1511->10_1607, 10_1507->10_1607)

Now its a mess and they are looking at marketing and adding new features rather than making things we already have work.

“Don’t worry about the bugs, windows 10 is a service and we can fix it later”. When later comes, just repeat the same answer.

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And laugh all the way to the bank!!

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