Will Windows transition to one update a year?

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WOODY’S WINDOWS WATCH By Woody Leonhard Windows 10 upgrades have had a rocky past, with minimally useful new versions cropping up two — or even
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Carl D, Elly, abbodi86

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[EP]

well this Neowin article could “debate” on whether or not MS will transition to one feature update a year:

https://www.neowin.net/news/the-case-for-biannual-windows-10-feature-updates

Rich Woods of Neowin made this statement in his article-

I’m here to say that Microsoft shouldn’t do it, and that it should stick to feature updates twice a year. Give us one major update in the spring and one in the fall. It’s fine, really.

what does woody think of that, Tracey?

• This reply was modified 3 years, 1 month ago by EP.

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The idea that updates need be done more than once a year ignores that most hardware is kept for 5+ years. Unless someone is updating the hardware, driver updates will primarily be security/bug fixes. OS ‘feature’ updates should be minimal also. So most updates should be various patches. Updating the OS more than once a year is a best stupid. For many an update every 2 or 3 years would probably be adequate with a version life of at least 5 years. MS should go back to the old system as it is more reasonable for users.

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AngryJohnny75, doriel, Carl D, RamRod, Cybertooth

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be done more than once a year ignores that most hardware is kept for 5+ years.

Might be true for some but others keep it longer. Some businesses keep hardware for 8-9 years. Some of my smaller clients keep hardware for 10-12 years. Other keep it until it fails.(IE governments and hospitals fall in this category)

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Woody wrote; “The award for the most disastrous rollout goes to Version 1809, released October 2018. When upgraders started losing data, Microsoft yanked the new OS — then released it again, yanked it again, and finally released a fully working version in mid-November.”

1809 was yanked once, not twice:

Updated version of Windows 10 October 2018 Update released

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Microfix

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I suspect Woody would love to see Windows 10 feature updates only once a year… or even once every Other year. Frankly, so would I, as long as major updates don’t arrive every 6 months.

I also suspect, however, that M$ thinks (or wants to think) that Win1o feature updates twice a year keep it relevant. Or at least keep it in the public eye… even if the Spring (yyH1) update is “major” & the Fall (yyH2) update is “minor”. Or vice versa, it really doesn’t matter!

Bought a refurbished Windows 10 64-bit, currently updated to 22H2. Have broke the AC adapter cord going to the 8.1 machine, but before that, coaxed it into charging. Need to buy new adapter if wish to continue using it.
Wild Bill Rides Again...

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Carl D, Cybertooth

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Great article @woody !  I too would love to see only one update per year – or better yet – every other year, as the previous poster suggested.  All this churn and waiting for fixes on top of untested patches etc., is a complete waste of both professionals’ and consumers’ time and energy.

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Cybertooth, Microfix

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I certainly hope so.

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Moving to a Cloud-centric model takes a large number of computer users out of circulation. There are still many parts of North America (not to mention the world) where an internet connection simply does not exist. That any company could be so stupid boggles the mind.

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Microsoft only cares about enterprise customers. Not many of them are likely to be located where an internet connection does not exist.

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Alice

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The trouble with two updates a year is that by the time the current one – in this case 2004 – reaches the point where it is recommended by Woody and others to install, we’re already close to (or even past) the release of the next version. Especially when the releases are ‘falling behind schedule’ as we’ve seen over the past couple of years.

If the second yearly release is just a minor upgrade like it was last year with 1903 > 1909 then it isn’t so much of a problem but I believe MS should just have one Windows 10 release every year, preferably every two years. Especially since it looks like they’ve run out of ‘cool new things’ to add to Windows 10 lately.

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The way I’d like to see it done would be to make LTSC the default release. But to appease the enthusiasts who like the latest and greatest, give them the option to opt in to a quicker update cycle, which would effectively be a beta test for the next LTSC release. Similar to what we have now with the Insider programme, only slowed down.

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Id like to see lower cadence of new versions. Present system seems to be little bit wild to me. I think that very large number of users would appreciate. So many people are stuck in infinite loops of udating and failing.
Also, if MSFT is betatesting amongst large number of non-techy users, their feedback is very poor, cause they have no clue what is really happening. To be honest, even IT admins have rough times with installing updates.
Windows10 would have become “more united”, if there were less versions at the same time.

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Cybertooth, Noel Carboni

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A lower cadence than the frenetic pace of an OS reinstall every 6 months would be good.

Back to nominal 3 year intervals would be even better. OS tech isn’t advancing any faster than it was years ago. If anything, it’s stagnating – what does Windows 10 do for us now that its predecessors did not?

An operating system isn’t an App. It’s not even an Application. It’s a foundation on which to build things. It can’t be a moving target. Not and get anything useful done, anyway. And while we’re at it, an operating system should not be a reason for anything either – it needs to be a facilitator.

-Noel

P.S., I’ve had people claim that Windows NEEDS to be installed every 6 months. Perhaps if you don’t know how to take care of it…

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Alex5723, Ascaris, AlexEiffel, OscarCP, Cybertooth

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Noel Carboni wrote:

P.S., I’ve had people claim that Windows NEEDS to be installed every 6 months. Perhaps if you don’t know how to take care of it…

1995 called and they want their Windows maintenance plan back!

I know some people even now do the whole reinstall thing as a normal part of maintenance, but I haven’t reinstalled since XP arrived, and maybe before that.  When I retired XP from my 2008-manufactured Core 2 Duo laptop (which I bought that same year), it was the same installation I’d done the day it arrived.  That was some time after updates had officially ended, so maybe 2015. Seven years!

I think that was my longest span of having a computer in active daily use… I have older XP PCs, but they were retired before 2014 for being too slow.

That 7 year span means that if I were to observe the whole “install clean, don’t upgrade” thing, I’d still have six extra installations compared to before.  As you said, still excessive.

Microsoft lifted the 6-month release schedule and MMYY nomenclature straight from Ubuntu. Perhaps MS would also like to copy the bit where every other year, one release is LTS, supported for 5 years?  Ubuntu reports that 95% of its users use the LTS… in the vote of bleeding edge vs. stability, stability wins 19 to 1.

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AlexEiffel, OscarCP, Cybertooth

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I too never reinstall unless there is a hardware issue. I have seen a fleet of maybe about 200 computers over the years come and go, most of them different from each other because we didn’t buy a bunch of the same model at the same time but only when needed and rarely retired older ones until they died. I didn’t manage thousands of computers, but I got a look at a good variety of models.

The key to success was install right, lock them tight. I don’t have complaints. Users don’t wait for a slow computer and they have the right tool so they don’t ask for more. I also have good users with not too complicated needs. Computers are very fast many years later, I don’t buy cheap so they last both in performance and hardware wise. I have many computers off the net that are more than 10 years old. And I had to retire perfectly fine Internet facing Win 7 stations for security reasons because they had an OEM license of Office 2010 and support was ending for Office even if I could have purchased 3 more years of OS support…

Win 10 changed all our simple workflow and introduced all kind of problems,  few real world benefits for a SMB like us, and some downsides, loss/deprecation of features that we used and enjoy. Now I have users calling us because they don’t know what to do when updating windows pop in the middle of their work and they don’t want to make a mistake or launch a feature update at the wrong time.

Before, everything was done automatically with no issues and there was no need to worry too much about an update breaking things. We didn’t spend much time managing PCs. Most of our IT time was on development and value-adding activities for the business. Of course, when you have feature updates instead of security only, updating can’t be that minor thing it was for us. Managing independent stations was easy and cheap before and we stayed patched. Now, it is more complicated and there are more issues with third party software that don’t follow the crazy way fast enough, but it is everybody else but Microsoft’s fault, right?

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Elly, Cybertooth, Ascaris

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Windows versions lasting 4, 6, or more years were painful.  As a developer, I would see great functionality added to the Win32 API that I knew I couldn’t use for up to a decade.  It’s nice to know that the window has dropped to 18 – 24 months.

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[abbodi86]

Windows 10, version 20H2 available for commercial pre-release validation

• This reply was modified 3 years, 1 month ago by abbodi86.

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Cybertooth

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