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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 three! — times a year.

I assume that an exceedingly few Windows users want that much churn. The entire process has brought more smoke than light.

But it now looks like Microsoft will finally fall back to just one new “feature” release each year. Arguably, we’re there already.

Raise your hand if you can remember the Windows versions that lasted two, four, six, or even more years.

Yeah, I’m an old guy, too. In case you’re too young to recall, it’s every release before Win10.

Windows 10 rolled off the block five years ago with promises that it would be updated continuously, with new versions appearing three or so times a year. (This was the concept of Windows as a “service.”) Then, someone at Microsoft who was a bit more astute than the rest slowed the upgrade process down to a more manageable twice a year.

More recently, that pace was further slowed to our current tick-tock, major-minor cadence … sorta. Even the most recent upgrades are not quite a simple tick-tock. Here’s a brief history of Win10 releases:

Of course, these release dates were totally spurious for average Windows users, who might wait months for an upgrade to be offered on their PCs.

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. True to form, many Windows users did not see the final, final Win10 1809 until early 2019.

The six-month tick-tock pattern became far more apparent with Versions 1903 and 1909. I characterized the fall release as akin to a Win7 service pack: an update with under-the-hood fixes and almost no new features. In fact, to this day, both 19xx versions share the same update patches.

Clearly, Microsoft’s current plan is to send out the first feature release each year for the cannon fodder — er, masses — to test. It will then solidify interim fixes with the second, “fall,” update. Again, this is a sort of service-pack approach — you get the main release, then a service pack six months later.

Those with Enterprise licenses get a bit of a snooze button. Most Win10 versions include support for 18 months, but Enterprise editions of the “fall” releases get patches for 30 months. In other words, pay the vig, and you get extended support on the “tock.”

It appears that this six-month upgrade cycle will persist through this year, with Win10 2004 designated the “major” update (though in truth, it has few new features) and the next release (code-name 20H2) acting as the “minor” update.

However, don’t get too comfortable with this cadence; well-informed rumors say that we probably won’t get a spring 21H1 — or if we do, it’ll be stunted. Reportedly, the next real update for Win10 will come in late 2021.

In place of the “tick” release, the inside bet is that Microsoft will switch gears and release a stripped-down version of Windows in early 2021, commonly called Windows 10X. It would go head-to-head with the Google Chromebook.

I wrote about Windows 10X in “Windows 10X: Future fireworks or another dud?” — AskWoody Plus Newsletter 2020-02-24. The vision has changed quite a bit in the interim:

Zac Bowden has more details at Windows Central.

By taking this approach, Microsoft could try to kill two birds with one Windows stone: the horrendous and universally decried churn in Win10 versions gets cut in half, and a new kind of Windows is allowed to rise to the forefront.

Color me skeptical.

I have a hard time believing people will buy a Windows computer that doesn’t run standard (i.e., local) Windows programs. It’s an old refrain, but legacy apps remain the reason — and the only reason? — to stick with Windows.

If Microsoft creates a Windows-centric cloud service, how long will it be before Apple, Google, Samsung, Huawei, and others jump onto the bandwagon?

This much I know for sure: Microsoft has gotten away with rapid-fire and disruptive feature upgrades for far too long. Instead of emphasizing — even relishing in! — the churn, MS should return to the days of producing a dull, boring, but rock-solid operating system.

The last thing we need is more psychedelic lipstick on the pig.

Eponymous factotum Woody Leonhard writes lots of books about Windows and Office, creates the Woody on Windows columns for Computerworld, and raises copious red flags in sporadic AskWoody Plus Alerts.

Best of the Lounge

Yes, in this era of streaming, some of us still have stacks of CDs. And we’d love to play them … if only they were better organized and more easily accessed! No doubt audiophiles have established their own elaborate systems. But how are the rest of us supposed to do it?

@NetDef does a superb job of showing us troglodytes — step by step and illustrated — just how to make high-quality digital copies of our favorite music, and how to organize them into a form that makes sense.

Check out “A guide to archiving RedBook standard audio CD’s!” in the AskWoody Knowledge Base. Technical considerations such as FLAC and MP3, preservation, and playlists are all covered.

If you’re not already a Lounge member, use the quick registration form to sign up for free.

	LANGALIST More tales from the drive-sanitation trenches By Fred Langa My report about making a hard drive permanently inaccessible really struck a chord with AskWoody subscribers! That article, “‘Moving house is great fun,’ said no one ever,” kicked off a profusion of reader tales about drive sanitizing — a mix of excellent advice, unexpected suggestions, and amusing anecdotes. Take a look!
	Privacy Is there a DNS Blackhole in your future? By Richard Hay Managing your online security and privacy is a never-ending battle. There is a variety of tools for this task, but each has its limitations. So I decided to experiment with a somewhat lesser-known technique called DNS Blackholes. Here’s my report on a journey of discovery.
	On Security Living in a time of digital obsolescence By Susan Bradley Recently the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation released a document warning about unpatched Windows 7 machines. That alert (PDF) reinforced what we already know: using an unpatched copy of Win7 is risky. According to the FBI, cybercriminals are targeting network infrastructures containing Win7 systems. And the document pointed out past problems with obsolete operating systems. For example, after Windows XP’s end of life, the healthcare industry was slow to upgrade to a supported version, leading to increased exposure of “records.”