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Microsoft to stop producing Windows versions

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Re: Microsoft to stop producing Windows versions

#261

Post by golergka »

macspoofing wrote: post #225
someear wrote: post #191

Entirely an enterprise play - gone are those firms that essentially say "we'll stick with XP". They'll either be forced into a subscription model or will switch off to another platform. This is also a huge win for not having the need to support super old OSes, which is a huge tax in not just support cost, but also testing and designing for backward compatibility.

This is an anti-enterprise play. There are significant costs to OS updates, including retraining, downtime, and legacy (working) software compatibility. Most enterprises are pretty good at applying security patches but rightly balk at full OS upgrades. >This is also a huge win for not having the need to support super old OSes Who wins?

Traditional Windows version updates, as in, from 95 to 98, from 98 to XP, etc — yes. But that's exactly what they're trying to eliminate, and use a modern update mechanism that is supposed to be easier than applying patches.

Re: Microsoft to stop producing Windows versions

#262

Post by emp_zealoth »

aleem wrote: post #250
someear wrote: post #191

Entirely an enterprise play - gone are those firms that essentially say "we'll stick with XP". They'll either be forced into a subscription model or will switch off to another platform. This is also a huge win for not having the need to support super old OSes, which is a huge tax in not just support cost, but also testing and designing for backward compatibility.

I think this goes far and beyond Enterprise play or anything of that nature. There is a lot at stake here. This is a response to a bigger paradigm shift that is the web and software as a service and Mobiles. If you are on Windows XP and windows 7 rolls out, you have the option of upgrading, not upgrading or switching to a Mac (or similar). Gmail versus outlook is another good example. With Outlook you would need to s…

I'd hardly call Gmail updates liberating. Every time i am forced to check it, it seems to have removed another useful feature, or broken my web browser in some horribly misguided flash of "brilliance". Last I checked it is impossible to open email in new tab. At least I haven't found the Magical Arcane Only True Way To Use Gmail.

Re: Microsoft to stop producing Windows versions

#263

Post by 1_player »

velodrome wrote: post #88
semi-extrinsic wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The big reason why rolling release works so well on Arch is the assumption that the user is smart, so there are several difficult tasks which are pushed over onto the user (like handling non-trivial conflicts of software that the user may not have directly installed, e.g. libgl, handling exceptional circumstances, being able to recover after a failed update, ensuring the system is updated regularly, knowing when a re…

Agreed. Arch requires a lot of maintenance. Ubuntu, just click update and you don't have to worry about it (until the next LTS). Personally, I like the rolling model. Chromebook is probably best example for regular users.

I moved to Arch because just clicking update on Ubuntu more often than not botched the upgrade somewhere. And I'm a power user.

If I had a penny every time I had to help a friend with a failed Ubuntu upgrade...

Re: Microsoft to stop producing Windows versions

#264

Post by 72deluxe »

bitwize wrote: post #131
Sir_Substance wrote: post #5

I'm not happy with this. I waited on XP until they got over vista, and I'm still on 7 while I watch in bemusement at the windows 8.1 nonsense. Now, with windows 10, my security updates will come bundled with my unwanted OS changes. I doubt microsoft will let people opt out of unwanted cloud-based security risks or crazy interface experiments.

> Now, with windows 10, my security updates will come bundled with my unwanted OS changes. Had this experience with Mac OS X. For 10.4 they switched to a new, dynamically linked libstdc++ that used the new Itanium C++ ABI. 10.3 had a statically linked libstdc++ and the old ABI. They pushed out an OS update that installed the new libstdc++ on 10.3, breaking linking against libstdc++ with standard cxxflags. You see the…

Very informative, thanks. I write software for my daily job on OSX and I get the feeling that if you're not "current" then they don't care. Look at how they handled the recent security update and left all Mavericks users in the lurch by not back-porting the fix. (Does anyone know if they ever did?)

Re: Microsoft to stop producing Windows versions

#265

Post by xg15 »

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #252
quotemstr wrote: post #168

What will GetVersionEx start returning? dwMinorVersion is 32 bits wide, so Windows 10 can live for quite a while. I look forward to Windows 10.34124.

GetVersionEx is broken from Windows 8.1 onwards, they want developers to query the OS for functionality rather than check a version number. See https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ms7...

Like this? https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ms7... Are they seriously deprecating a vital API and replacing it with a few vague suggestions on what patterns might somewhat reliably indicate whether a feature exists or not?

This anti-pattern in API design is annoying enough in HTML5. Awesome to see it's now leaking into the OS world.

Re: Microsoft to stop producing Windows versions

#266

Post by gambiting »

castell wrote: post #257
Redoubts wrote: post #45

This was news around January, I thought. Why are all the tech sites playing this up now? I feel like i could reply to half the top level posts with this link: http://blogs.windows.com/business/2015/01/30/windows-10-for-... >January 30, 2015 > this is much more than a one-time upgrade: once a Windows device is upgraded to Windows 10, we will continue to keep it current via Windows Update for the supported lifetime of…

There are alternatives to "Windows 10 as a service" - WINE on Mac/Linux and ReactOS. ReactOS is an attempt to build an open source version of Windows XP/7. It uses source code from WINE and it aims for better compatibility with legacy apps and drivers by developing a WinNT-like OS-Kernel: http://www.reactos.org/screenshots

It's not an alternative. At least not for a lot of companies. I work at a games studio and we exclusively use Windows - PS4, Xbox One, Wii U sdks and tools only work on Windows and only with Visual Studio(well, PS4 and Xbox One), and it's extremely unlikely that you would get them to work under Wine. So now our company will have to pay a fee to Microsoft to continue using windows, instead of a single flat payment when we bought our hardware.

Also - yes I know they are saying they will support Windows 10 for the lifetime of the device it was bought with,but I doubt it will work like this for enterprise users.

Re: Microsoft to stop producing Windows versions

#267

Post by 72deluxe »

MichaelGG wrote: post #178
sesutton wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>- of course, you can totally ignore the "modern Windows" side of the coin for now, except that's where Windows is headed It seems to me that they are backing off metro/"modern Windows" more and more. 8.1 made boot to Desktop the default, they are bringing back the start menu in 10 and Metro apps will run in windows in 10.

Nope, they're going even more in with Win10. Calc.exe is replaced with a shitty, functionally inferior version that takes 1-2 seconds to start. The metroization is all over with its terrible blurry font rendering and gimped settings.

Is it really that bad for Calc???? I was not impressed how they took the windows photo viewer (whatever that app was called) and replaced it with a Metro version that sat at a full-screen splash screen for 5 seconds.

Re: Microsoft to stop producing Windows versions

#268

Post by 72deluxe »

MichaelGG wrote: post #245
eropple wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

YMMV, but I can't tell the difference between the font rendering in Metro apps and WPF apps (on a Retina MacBook Pro). I really like the typeface and rendering choices they've made and it's easy for me to read.

WPF apps also traditionally had shitty font rendering. The issue is that they are pixel unaware so at small sizes it blurs. On a HiDPI screen it's fine, as well as with larger font sizes. On the standard Windows DPI settings, it's terrible. Pixel snapping and ClearType are what deliver sharp small fonts at the cost of less "accuracy" since the renderer may need to bump things around by half a pixel or so. Some people…

I remember the good old days where they introduced that in XP (was it XP?) and suddenly all the fonts were blurry red/orange/black/green squishy messes that were impossible to read.

Re: Microsoft to stop producing Windows versions

#269

Post by 72deluxe »

Sir_Substance wrote: post #145
mark_l_watson wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you like better in Windows 7 than 8.1? Seriously, I have been a long time OS X and Linux user, and 8.1 has won me back to the Microsoft fold. I still use Linux and OSX, but WIndows 8.1 is now something I frequently use. I was not impressed by Windows 7. So, serious question, what do you like better about Windows 7.

Windows 8 came with skydrive preinstalled, and I removed it. 8.1 has skydrive "integrated into the OS", so it can't be removed. I tried skydrive on windows 7 when skydrive was first released, and instructed it to sync a few specific folders. I didn't like it enough to keep using it, so I uninstalled it and forgot about it. In order to upgrade from 8 to 8.1, I had to put my microsoft account into the system (because t…

Very informative, thanks. I'll be staying on 7 for a while then.

Re: Microsoft to stop producing Windows versions

#270

Post by ifdefdebug »

silverbax88 wrote: post #192
swalsh wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your monthly subscription payments will come in the form of monthly Azure payments. People will accept that. This isn't 1996 anymore. People don't buy desktops, and laptops will soon be obsolete too. When your phone has a processor powerful enough to do all the work a consumer could ever want, there will be 3 main markets. Mobile, Server, and Gaming. Now they probably could keep charging for the OS for the gaming PC'…

I always get such a kick out of how silly this is. There is no reason people won't continue to have both mobile and desktop. When 'mobile' reaches the computer power of desktop, and screen size, and input, then it will be a desktop. They aren't mutually exclusive.

Furthermore: When 'mobile' reaches the computer power of desktop, and screen size, and input (as of today), desktop will have moved on far by then.
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