Official: Windows for Workstations returns in Fall Creators Update Microsoft is reviving Windows Workstations with a new cut of Windows titled “Windows 10 Pro for Workstations”. The last time your vultures heard "Windows for Workstations" was the 1990s when Redmond used that moniker to market flavors of 16-bit Windows 3 with networking stacks. Then along came the 32-bit NT Workstation …
"The Home versions of Windows 10 handle updates completely different to the Professional versions."
Funny, I read that as:
'The Home Office' versions of Windows 10 handle updates completely different to the Professional versions. (I'm sure there is some truth in this too).
I think Amber Rudd's clueless vision of an lovely happy Authoritarian State is starting to get to me.
"Welcome to Britains' Open Prison,
Best Amber"
I want to know 1) how telemetry controls work in this version, 2) can I pick and choose updates and when they are applied, 3) does it have Linux Subsystem, 4) can I disable Cortana and all Store Apps (per user), 5) does it have any stupid limitations compared to Pro version, 6) what's the price for an upgrade from Pro, 7) is free trial available. Will consider buying if (and only if) I like the answers.
My take:
1) As in the Enterprise, given what workstation are usually used for.
2) See 1). If you're in a domain with WSUS, you can control updates anyway,
3) Yes, but if you need to run heavy Linux workloads IMHO that's not for you.
4) See 1)
5) It will be positioned above the Pro, given the target users
6) Ask MS
7) Do you have a four socket workstation with a lot of RAM to try it? Otherwise, the Pro/Ent won't be much different, but the ReFS file system. Don't know if it will come with MSDN as well, probably so.
"I believe any device connected to the internet should forcibly update itself."
As a default setting, absolutely. As a forced setting, not so much.
Sometimes it's not such a good idea: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/08/11/lockstate_bricks_smart_locks_with_dumb_firmware_upgrade
I have laptops here at home with both Pro and Enterprise on.
I allow them to get updates automatically, 'cos they're connected to the web (yes, not directly but still).
Honestly, I don't recognise this reboot, update, reboot, update...cycle.
Once a month I get a bunch of updates. My machines either reboot at 3am give or take or I can do it manually. Yeah if there's been a bunch of updates, it can be a bit of a PITA waiting for the whole boot cycle to finish but it does it once and then on wtih working.
Some updates - defender, for example, don't need reboots at all.
Just updated a Debian desktop I have in a VM and a Kali install on another laptop and both required reboots - granted they were much faster, but they still needed reboots.
Honestly a reboot once a month that takes a bit longer is hardly a royal PITA to most people.
And frankly, given the shite I've had to dig neighbours out of in the past because they'd either turned off updates or had a hooky copy of say XP that didn't get them, I'd say any home system shouldn't have the option to defer or turn off updates.
"The moniker “Windows for Workstations” was used for the cut of Windows NT 3.5.1 and 4.0 intended for use as desktops for the power-hungry, as opposed to the version of Windows NT intended to power servers. Windows for Workstations was rather more reliable than either Windows 3.x or Windows 95,"
This is nonsense.
There were versions of Windows 3.1 and Windows 3.11 that had networking included, optionally TCP/IP as well as Novell, not just NetBEUI that were marked as "Windows For Workstations". It was intended for peer to peer, or as a client on Novell, MS Lanmanager based servers (IBM or MS OS/2) or as a client to an NT based server.
There was a Workstation version of NT3.5, NT3.51 and NT4.0 called "Workstation" which simply had the client connections to its server features limited to 10 and some changes to easily visible default settings. NT3.1 only had one version.
The NT4.0 moved GDI to Kernel and had a CHOICE of Program Manager or the Win95 style Explorer Shell. You could still run the earlier standalone File Manager, which unlike Explorer could have dual windows.
This was continued with NT 5.0, better known as Windows 2000, with again essentially the "Workstation" and "Server" versions differing in number of Client connections.
NT5.1 was a Workstation only version, called XP
NT5.2 was a Server only version called Windows 2003 Server.
There was never ever an NT marketed as "Windows For Workstations", but there were "Server" and "Workstation" versions (difference was price and artificial limit to number of client connection when the "Workstation" was used as a Server.
The NT 4.0 Enterprise Server allowed clustering and use of PAE to access more than 4G RAM, as did Windows 2000 Advanced Server.
"Windows For Workstations" was only ever the 16 bit Windows 3.x that loaded from DOS.
From after XP, in 2003, the server versions of NT were differentiated by being called Server <year>
2003
2008
2011
2012
2016
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_NT#Releases
I remember NT 4 as being very reliable and so fast and snappy. It was lovely. A weird student version of some dinosaur CAD software required it.
Alas, I still needed to have 98 installed, for NTL internet, USB support, and a couple of other things. I also bought a copy of John Romero's Daiktana because it supported OpenGL and thus NT 4... hmm, not a wise move in my part.
I had Macs and WinNT4 machines at that time. Win95/8/ME was banished to the Outer Darkness. NT4 on a good Pentium or Pentium II CPU (up to 450 glorious MHz! The speed, the incredible unbelievable speed!) was very nice, almost as nice as OS 8.x or OS 9 on a up to 300 MHz (still more glorious speed!) PowerPC G3.
I still have an old beige G3 desktop. 266 MHz. 768 MB RAM (yes, Apple said that it topped out at 192. Apple was wrong). The extra VRAM for the video card. The internal IDE 6GB (no, that's not a typo, that's six whole gigabytes, who could ever use up that much storage?) hard drive replaced by 20 GB UltraSCSI drive. The internal Zip drive ripped out and used for its finest purpose, a paperweight. A PCI card with USB 2 and FireWire 400 ports. And a floppy drive which STILL WORKS. My old WinNT4 machines are all dead, dead, dead now... If I want to do something like play old games (Harpoon! There is no finer game ever created! The Red Banner Northern Fleet rules the Atlantic! Soiuz nerushimyj respublik svobodnykh!) I either have to boot up my Win98 (ick) VM or boot the beige G3.
"I remember NT 4 as being very reliable and so fast and snappy. It was lovely....It was indeed. Well and truly cured my MacEnvy at the time. Journalling file system, virtual memory...Alas, I still needed to have 98 installed, for NTL internet, USB support,"
I recall having an external cartridge hdd back in the day and that had a scsi to USB converter. The scsi card in my PC was incompatible. Maybe the manufacturer provided a driver; I can't recall. I do remember my colleague back in those days fixing some Dell machines that ran NT4 and had USB support.
"10 locks up a few times a day, something to do with NTDLL.DLL"
If by lock up, you mean Explorer hangs or crashes there are 2 likely causes I know of:. 1) You have a network drive mapped with a path length of over 260 characters, if so unmap it, or 2) you have previously had one mapped.
If it might be 2, try this: File Explorer > View > Options > Change Folder and search options > Privacy >Clear File Explorer History
Also check your graphics driver is up to date. Especially if it's from Nvidia...
"But the 7 PCs just keep working reliably."
The issue you have is not normal / common. In general W10 is more robust than W7...
Suggest trying the following in order
CHKDSK /F /R
(reboot)
SFC /scannow
DISM /online /cleanup-image /checkhealth
"Tried those no difference unfortunately."
Then you need to look at the crash dumps and see what was causing the problem. Most likely it's not Windows itself.
See https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/2082-install-configure-windbg-bsod-analysis.html
This latest update is hanging reliable software, so why down vote someone having genuine issues with Windows 10?
4 PCs we have seen have issue All latest update Windows 10.
I suppose downvoting someone with issues is easier than fixing it.
As before all OK XP to 8.1 and before we used some newer libraries was OK on 2000 and NT as well.
And yes we are looking at a rewrite to go platform neutral.
This post has been deleted by its author
So will Win X 4 Workstations still contain a few of MocroSoft's favorite things, or will they allow this version to work more like the Enterprise Edition? Really the only winning move is One to Linux, or BSD. But, since there are times you just have to use Windows there is thankfully still 7. But, in about Three more Years, even that won't be much of an option anymore.
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