Microsoft extends free Windows 10 S to Win 10 Pro upgrade offer Microsoft has quietly extended a free upgrade offer that will allow some buyers of Windows 10 S to move to Windows 10 Pro, a move that suggests buyers aren't entirely happy with the cut-down version of Windows restriction on running apps sourced from beyond Microsoft's own Store. Windows 10 S is a cut-down version of Windows …
I actually take offence to the comparison with chromeos. Windows 10 is nothing like it at all. ChromeOS has bulletproof security, windows 10s security is like all other windows security, namely dogshite.
http://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-no-known-ransomware-windows-we-tried-to-hack-it/
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"...most, outside the US and the small world of fixie riders,.. "
Oddly outside of the US most people spell it Backpedalling which is correct as it has to do with feet not selling tat. However in the case of MS, peddling is probably right here...
"Note that ChromeOS sucks as much as Windows 10, imho, but in different ways"
I think that school administrators who have migrated to Chrome from Windows might disagree with you. As would I. ChromeOS is a very good fit on security, deployment and management grounds for an audience that doesn't need very capable computers, and the learning curve for children is very short. It would seem to be ideal for schools and senior managers, especially in marketing and sales.
I think that Microsoft's management are getting a bit too game fixated. Turning W10Pro into DLC, microtransactions and such.
By logical extension, this means that people buying Surfaces with W10S on want a fully open system, not one gimped to the MS Shop, so the MS Shop is another failure? Are we equating the Shop with Zune-like failure here?
Nadella has to fix Bing first if he wants to try to lock people in his store. The idea of having to use Bing and spend endless time to look for what you need is quite scary.
Probably if MS had spent the effort it put in gathering data from users in trying to build an usable search engine that doesn't believe any search is made just to buy something, they could have a chance. Hope telemetry tells them how many people have no choice but to use Google to find what they need...
"when your only meaningful competition is Google in the thing that Google do best, you're bound to look crap."
BT runs a free hosting service for community groups under some community obligation. Google doesn't find these sites, Bing does. An aspect of search at which Google isn't best. There may be others.
Google also spams results with their YouTube, their Books and sites that spend lots with Google / use Google Analytics / Adwords and other Google services.
They also think you want places you have been before over new results. I have a bookmark feature.
Google is MUCH poorer quality on search than they used to be and while many aspects of Android have improved, it's still a work in progress and seriously invasive of privacy. As is Chrome Browser and Chrome OS.
> BT runs a free hosting service for community groups under some community obligation. Google doesn't find these sites
I just highlighted "BT runs a free hosting service for community groups" from your message, right clicked and hit 'Search Google for ..". It gave me a page of links to those sites.
You are a liar.
I would be grateful if someone would reasonably put, say, 10 search terms here that highlight the superior results from Google.
I don't mean keep doing searches and select the ones where you think Google outperformed Bing.
I am sure Google have a good search engine but I personally find the results way to ad-driven with steers to Googly things I can do without.
Many search results I have seem on both look very similar, I did a film search for instance (Enemy of the State). Normally the results looks similar. Both have a sidebar with the film info. I did notice however:
1. The Bing result had the trailer, non-playing, available, right there.
2. Google put a pop-up saying "Hey, use Chrome loser" or something. Of course Bing might do this on Chrome.
3. Google placed ads to buy it in that sidebar, not unreasonable but not wanted.
4. Both placed some critic scores, useful, Google allowed the user to vote (I think).
5. Interestingly, Bing actually placed a Dictionary definition of "Enemy of the State" at the top of the search, which is a con-incidence given the title of course. Google had this nowhere on the first page although they did offer other similar questions people asked; although both had a list of similar questions.
6. Bing (usefully, IMO) places two results of Images and Videos in the main page to avoid the 'menu' at the top being required for many searches.
7. The pics in 6 on Bing Zoom on a mouse hover.
8. The video in 6 on Bing play, right there in the browser on a mouse hover. And they stop when you move away.
9. Upon selecting Images on Google, it once more asked me to use Chrome despite the No Thanks less than a minute earlier.
10. The Images page is so similar on both it is amazing, except that on Bing, the fancy tiles at the top with alternatives is sideways scrollable and noticeably better.
11. The videos page on Bing has the aforementioned play on hover facility as well as a much nicer layout that is Video orientated. The Google one just looks like the main web page with pictures and text.
I don't have more time (gotta go to see a SlipKnot movie!) but Bing seems vastly more impressive at this ordinary task.
Google is definitely the Street-view destination and almost certainly has more places on its maps although I have stated before, I like having built-in maps so web-based maps are not my thing.
Google have other features I am sure which may be superior too but I cannot see, for the life of me, why Bing is seen as so poor when it seems to do the job just fine, and better IMO in most cases.
I think this is a case of standard MS bashing from those who don't actually try all options before pronouncing.
At least I have used Google/Android/iOS/Linux and even almost used a Mac.
any search is made just to buy something
Googles search does that too, but in a slightly 'hope you want to buy something' way with mostly useful at the bottom.
While Bing arrogantly assumes, like a shopkeeper who dislikes window shoppers and pulls out a shotgun for people asking for directions.
Bing is very good at finding Google, and that is what people seem to use it for.
Seriously, I've seen people type "Google" into the Bing search box, click the link that comes up, then type "Amazon" into the Google search box, then start doing their shopping.
The idea that they could type "Ama ↓ ↲" into the address bar is completely alien to them.
than Micro-shaft shipping 'Windows Lame" with Surface, and oh-by-the-way it'll cost you another $49 toll to run things that aren't CRapps from "the Store".
Except, maybe, a SUBSCRIPTION version of Win-10-nic, for which you MUST pay annual money to be able to run Win32 appLICATIONS or something YOU wrote yourself.
<sarcasm>
Good. Job.
</sarcasm>
[NOT self-fulfilling the 'Linux Prophecy' from the first post, heh]
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If portability is top priority its probably alright. Bang for buck its very not particularly alright. I looked into this seriously earlier this year, compared specs with other companies and went with MSI, got a much higher spec machine in the same price range and without a version of Win 10 that's had its nads cut off.
MS need to understand they're just not cool enough for the cool kids to pay a premium and too expensive for most anyone to bother. There's some nice features but they're not killer features.
And Bing. Meh to the Nth. Internet searches powered by Clippy in a hamster wheel.
I got a surface pro 4 with full-fat win10, but that was for a very specific purpose. I wanted a graphics tablet with the display on the drawing surface to upgrade from my old Bamboo Pen, and it was between that and the cintiq 13HD (which my old graphics card wouldn't support, and wouldn't be portable).
For the very specific combination of "runs full programs, preferably the same ones my desktop runs", "drawing surface on screen", "is portable" and "has a pen" it ticks the boxes for under a grand, the next nearest thing was that wacom companion thing at twice the price.
Windows 10 S was an experiment that has, thankfully, fallen flat on its arse. Had it been more of a success, we might have seen a gradual change in Windows 10 towards it - and WIndows 10 is bad enough TYVM. (And I only ever use it when I'm fixing things on colleagues' computers!)
WIn 10S is IMHO not much about the users, but about the developers. Microsoft is desperately trying to bring developers to the store and lock them there to get a share of their revenues too.
That's why it has developed Desktop Bridge to convert actual applications into store ones.
Despite some roadblocks MS used, especially in the past, Windows is a quite open platform for developers, and it looks Nadella doesn't like it. It is quite stupid, because one of the reasons DOS and Windows became widespread was exactly the availability of applications from many different vendors.
The same market approach used for $4,99 mobile apps won't work for more expensive ones.
Nadella is looking for quick money, but it will backfire. After all, even Apple has been careful not to adopt the iOS business model in macOS.
For all people took the mickey, the dancing monkey was right.
Windows only exists because it's easy to develop for. Anyone can write anything and it's trivially easy to then sell or give it away to anyone they want.
Linux is also easy to develop for, but it's a bit harder to sell or give away the result as the distros vary. Not too nuch though.
Web "apps" are the elephant in the room of course.
On the fourth hand, Apple are slowly killing macOS anyway. Unless there is a big change it'll be gone in 5-10 years and Apple won't care - they don't make much money directly from it. The final nail will be when they officially let you develop for iOS on something else.
No, especially for GUI applications. Linux never had tools comparable to Visual Basic or Delphi which made developing even complex GUI applications easy enough also for single developers or small teams (although many of them could be very ugly inside, in the hand of not very skilled developers).
The lack of a common widget set and API, different windows managers, distros and so on, plus a greybeards disdain for IDEs and graphical tools never helped - and that's one of the reasons "Linux on the desktop" struggled and struggles, while in the mostly non-visual server environment it flourished. Web apps are OK in a client/server environment, but are uselessly more complex and slower when they are just local ones, and the browser just gets in the way.
I'm not sure Apple will port iOS to Macs, it knows there's a lot macOS can do that iOS can't, and there may be little reason to bloat iOS with features unneeded on phones.
It will be interesting to see what will happen to iPads, as Surface-like devices capable of running more powerful applications with less limits gain traction - a situation that makes the idea of Win10S even more stupid, and shows the slit-brain situation at Redmond.
> Linux never had tools comparable to Visual Basic or Delphi which made developing even complex GUI applications easy enough also for single developers or small teams
I completely disagree. There is for example Glade. When this is used with Python it makes developing desktop GUI applications extremely easy. It is also cross platform, my developments ran on Linux, Windows and Nokia N800 with exactly the same code and no changes.
The main difference is that VB and Delphi are fully integrated with the language and Windows only while Linux tools are modular so almost any language can be used with Glade, Wx or QT developer. This is flexible but means that the community is dispersed amongst many language and GUI groups, while VB was locked into the 'one true path' (except when Microsoft brings out a new incompatible version).
It was a shit idea which was obviously shit to everyone outside Microsoft Marketing.
Which is just another shit idea in a long long inglorious history of shit ideas that Microsoft seems to keep churning out.
Really they should have a discrete channel to some normal people to ask "is this shit?" rather than their own circle fucking echo chamber.
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