back to article Windows 10: Triumphs and tragedies from Microsoft Build

Microsoft presented its latest Windows 10 strategy to developers at its Build event in Seattle last week. Microsoft states that Windows 10 is now installed on more than 500 million devices, halfway towards the goal of 1 billion by 2018 that it set itself at Build 2015. In July 2016 the company acknowledged that its target was …

  1. alain williams Silver badge

    Putty ....

    You generally install it. But if you do so on Window 10 then you are compromising the *nix systems that you login to - that telemetry that can log all your key strokes.

    1. fobobob

      Re: Putty ....

      If one is forced to run Win10, there is a potential workaround to the keylogging; set up linux in a VM, and associate a separate USB keyboard directly to the VM. While it's still possible that the USB datastreams could be logged, it seems a bit less likely.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Putty ....

      Surely the telemetry isn't down to logging all your keystrokes. Even Microsoft couldn't get away with something like that....citation, please.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Putty ....

        Well documented that windows 10 comes with a Microsoft keylogger installed, purely for diagnostic use only you must understand. They would never be tempted to use that for advertising purposes on all those free installs of Windows 10...

        Google for "How to turn off the Windows 10 keylogger enabled by default". That should get you started.

        I would also question the 500m number, which is clearly utter horseshite, business's haven't adopted (install numbers stopped overnight when the freebie Win10 datamine edition ended), and the PC is pretty much dead outside the office (and should be dead inside the office given how much of a security liability it is)

        1. Timmy B

          @AC: Re: Putty ....

          RE: "Google for "How to turn off the Windows 10 keylogger enabled by default". That should get you started."

          I've yet to see proof that this is actually referring to being a key logger. This is the improve typing information. Do you know what information is being sent? Do you know how this is being gathered? Until you can point to something more than "I don't have any actual evidence but go Google" then I call BS on your assertion that this is a key logger. Prove your point or it remains rubbish.

          1. oldcoder

            Re: @AC: Putty ....

            What do you think "improve typing information" is?

        2. fandom

          Re: Putty ....

          "install numbers stopped overnight when the freebie Win10 datamine edition ended"

          Haven't you seen the "Your computer in too moderm for windows 7, we are going to stop sending you updates that would save you from things like WannaCry just because we can. Update to Win10 already!"

        3. Rob Gr

          Re: Putty ....

          Hmm, that's not my experience - all 500 PC's in our offices have been upgraded to Win 10.

          1. anonymous boring coward Silver badge

            Re: Putty ....

            "all 500 PC's in our offices have been upgraded to Win 10"

            You are a trendy lot, you!

            Not trendy enough for Macs, mind.

      2. homerjsimpson

        Re: Putty ....

        @DougS, I think this is referring to the Privicy Setting "Send Microsoft info about how I write to help us improve typing and writing in the future".

        I don't know what information it would send but depending on the user's viewpoint, simply seeing that could cause concern. If there are details of what is captured, I would like to know too.

    3. bombastic bob Silver badge

      Re: Putty ....

      Cygwin's ssh is better anyway, in my bombastic opinion

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Sorry

    Sorry, but until the underlying operating system is actually stable, all of this is wasted. Shouldn't have to wait until a given bug makes it into the news before they start working on a fix.

    It seems like they don't give a rat's arse, if something only affects a few million users.

    Not referring to anything specific, just commenting on the status quo.

    1. TReko

      Re: Sorry

      Indeed - they have all these fancy UI ideas when Windows 10 still looks butt-ugly of high DPI 4k displays.

      I wish they'd fix the basics before adding new features.

      1. anonymous boring coward Silver badge

        Re: Sorry

        "I wish they'd fix the basics before adding new features."

        MS doesn't like doing things well on a detailed level. They still can't do colour management right, for example. In sharp contrast to Apple.

        Polishing things to perfection isn't really MS's thing.

  3. Thought About IT

    The store is unattractive for developers ...

    ... because Microsoft take a 30% cut, which only makes sense for Windows software which is not already established in the market.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: The store is unattractive for developers ...

      Yeah. Copying the Apple "30% cut" store model intended for sub $10 throwaway apps makes zero sense for PC, especially professional, applications. This has been proven to be true since the debut of the Windows 8 store in 2011 but Microsoft continue to flog the same dead horse in UWP clothing.

    2. bombastic bob Silver badge
      Devil

      Re: The store is unattractive for developers ...

      who needs "the store" when you have your own web site already?

      1. P. Lee

        Re: The store is unattractive for developers ...

        >who needs "the store" when you have your own web site already?

        People who want to sell to people running Windows S?

  4. GrumpyOldMan

    Don't care

    I'm becoming more and more disillusined with Windows. I miss Windows 2000. Simple, rock solid, clean. Never missed a beat, no poncy fancy gimmicks or gizmos, a workhorse OS. I'm still on W7 and will damn well stay that was untill I have to run it on a vm to keep it secure off a Linux base OS and behind a virtual firewall appliance. I refuse to have 10 on _my_ hardware.

    1. frank ly

      Re: Don't care

      Is your W7 license transferable? You might want to buy a new W7 license key now to be ready for the future.

      1. kain preacher

        Re: Don't care

        If it's retail or OEM key yes. I found out the hard way that the educational version can be turned of if acquired via you school. Now you might have to use the phone activation.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Don't care

          OEM is not legally transferable to another pc....

          Whether you can do it or not is another matter...

    2. Notas Badoff

      Mixed Reality?

      It amazes me that Microsoft cannot see themselves as others see them. It seems their persistent outlook consists of "Missed Reality".

      1. Terry 6 Silver badge

        Re: Mixed Reality?

        Yes, the drive to get us using the "store" and the names "creators" and "Fall" are all indicative of some kind of silo mindset that fails to understand what people outside might want/like/need/think.

        The store is, as stated, modelled on devices that sell pocket money "apps" not grown-up programmes. As is the whole Modern/Metro/Universal-whatever-it-is-today interface. The "Creators" and "Fall-----" updates seem named for some kind of fantasy world made in Microsoft's own image: The former because of some, irrelevant to most users, 3D capacity, and the latter because they apparently don't know that this only makes sense to Americans.

        1. Dan 55 Silver badge

          Re: Mixed Reality?

          And they also missed that there'll be something wrong with it so it'll inevitably get called the Fail Update.

    3. Mark 85

      Re: Don't care

      I fondly remember Win2000 and it's no BS approach. It was a damn good OS. Instead we get bells, whistles, and apps (sometimes).

      An operating system should just work. Fancy bells, whistles, dancing bears, etc. aren't needed and for many of us, not wanted. Our applications need a stable platform that will sit quietly in the background and just run the tools.

  5. Mage Silver badge

    Business users

    Most have no choice and would rather have better legacy compatibility than telemetry, ill thought out changes, itunes, lack of classic GUI, windows store etc.

    MS still don't get it.

    > So... What is a sustainable business model for Microsoft?

    Sell businesses stable version of windows, with better reverse compatibility. XP, Server 2003, Office 2003 and SQL7 and Visual Studio before .Net were the high points. Chasing the consumer and One Windows for Phones, Tablets, Workstations and TV has killed the quality, security and experience.

    Sell ONE version, not the crazy multiple versions. Make difference between Server and Workstation purely a licence key for any server services. NO Workgroup file/Printer sharing. An absolutely stupid idea released same time as MS OS/2 Server!

    At the minute Linux is MUCH superior as File Server, Web server, SQL, Email Server, Cluster. Linux and Libre Office is now a good bit better than Windows Workstation & office unless you locked into Exchange Calendars/Schedules on Outlook and Macros.

    Frankly even in 2004 Linux couldn't touch MS Client SW for ease of use and stability, it's better now.

    Visual Studio.net and .net is a mess.

    Forget the consumer market. It's gone for laptops. Maybe even ditch Xbox. It's just a drain on R&D resources for very little or no income.

    Business are the only people locked to Legacy Windows applications and few consumers need a laptop (writing, video editing, photography hobbyists is a small market).

    They should split in three:

    Windows (ONE product, simply licence keys or on high end a dongle for Laptop, Server, Cluster). NO tablets, unless really a laptop with detachable keyboard and Wacom as well as touch. Main emphasis on WIMP interface, touch is useless on a workstation screen or regular size laptop unless it's a single use scenario (Medical tablet, POS, ATM etc)

    Tools. These should work on Windows, Linux and MacOS.

    Applications. These should work on Windows, Linux and MacOS (that includes stuff like MS SQL which they have on Linux now). They should NOT also work on set boxes, TVs, Phones, Tablet.

    They should open source the file formats and network APIs so iOS and Android developers can do mickey mouse apps / Widgets. I've used "Full featured" Spreadsheets on an Android tablet. It's a garbage experience for real work. A simple app that lets you open file and type some small change is limit to practicality.

    GUI

    Ribbon was / is absolutely stupid

    Aero, excessive eye candy, depreciation Win Forms etc in favour of Direct 3D was stupid.

    Excessively flat is stupid

    MRU Menu items are stupid. Menus need to be unchanging and have everything.

    Tiles are stupid.

    Forget phones, consoles, gaming. Concentrate on 100% stable, secure, private and backwardly compatible for business laptops/workstations, or else there is no reason to buy Windows at all.

    I bet I could double MS income and stop the griping. Almost everyone now hates the stuff, but has to use it. It really used to be better than Mac or Linux. (I used OS8 and OS9 and OSX is just a more Unix style prettier sideways move).

    Canonical / Shuttleworth has seen the light and ditched ABSOLUTELY STUPID Unity.

    1. Neil Alexander

      Re: Business users

      "Linux and Libre Office is now a good bit better than Windows Workstation & office"

      What on earth are you smoking? LibreOffice is nowhere near functional parity with Microsoft Office. Not even close.

      1. inmypjs Silver badge

        Re: Business users

        "LibreOffice is nowhere near functional parity with Microsoft Office"

        Sure, but, I still see people hit tab at the start of every line when they want a paragraph indented.

      2. bombastic bob Silver badge
        FAIL

        Re: Business users

        From the article "Windows is in better shape with businesses than with consumers and that looks set to continue"

        My answer: in WHAT universe? But 'looks set to continue' is still accurate.

        "LibreOffice is nowhere near functional parity with Microsoft Office. Not even close."

        It works exceptionally well for me. What functions is it missing??? I haven't seen anything in Micro-shaft Orifice that I would WANT, particularly their "ribbon bar" and (probably, haven't seen it) new 2D FLUGLINESS. Thanks, I can run Libre on windows systems AND linux/BSD systems, and therefore I standardize on it. And "cloudiness" 365 solutions are HIGHLY overrated...

        [might as well just use the 'google doc' editor, which stinks on ice, if you must have cloudy documents, as it costs you NOTHING and works on Linux, BSD, Mac, and *cough* windows]

        The ONLY thing that is driving Win-10-nic adoption these days is that YOU! CANNOT! PURCHASE! A! NEW! COMPUTER! WITH! WINDOWS! 7! ON! IT! ANY! MORE!!!

        (or maybe you can, and I just missed them?)

        1. Timmy B

          Re: Business users

          In the style of BBob:

          WHAT the HELL does Win-10-nic MEAN? YOU KEEP SAYING IT!!!! AND! WE! DONT! KNOW!!!!

          1. This post has been deleted by its author

            1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

              Re: Business users

              "It is an in joke. You have to be in the group to know what it means."

              In jokes limited to a group are not the best approach to wider communication although I'm not sure wider communication is Bob's intent.

            2. Timmy B

              Re: Business users

              @Shadmeister

              Well I'm happy - not sure I' want to be in a club that would have Bob as a member.... I'm still wondering what on earth it means. These things get under my skin.

              1. This post has been deleted by its author

          2. DropBear

            Re: Business users

            "WHAT the HELL does Win-10-nic MEAN?"

            Probably a childish attempt to use Google as Your Personal Comment History Search Engine.

      3. Timmy B

        Re: Business users

        "What on earth are you smoking? LibreOffice is nowhere near functional parity with Microsoft Office. Not even close."

        Exactly. My other half is a freelance office administrator / organiser / etc. I let her have a try at LibreOffice to see what she thought as she's a bit miffed that Office costs. An afternoon with it and her whole opinion is now "Office costs money but compared to that it's great value". She actually likes the ribbon as the things she needs are there all the time and clear and easy. I think if all of the IT "experts" on here actually spent more time talking to the people whose day to day jobs involve using office type productivity software, beyond typing a few paragraphs in a word processor, would realise that Office sells well because there simply isn't anything better and the users know that.

      4. oldcoder

        Re: Business users

        And yet it can do the same job, easier, and without imposing the Microsoft overhead on you.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Business users

      Linux as a file server, but for very simple needs, is really outdated. NFSv3 is old, NFSv4 attempts to imitate Windows. And no surprise most Linux server have to use Samba to offer SMB, just like Apple made SMB the default network file system for macOS, not NFS. And still, lots is lacking especially from a management point of view compared to Active Directory + SMB (despite the vulnerabilities of SMBv1).

      Nothing under Linux is even close to Exchange capabilities and features. Simple email, OK, workgroup features, no luck... SQL Server goes far beyond MySQL/MariaDB and Postgres capabilites. Not up to Oracle yet, but Oracle is not your average Linux DB. I agree that as a web platform Linux is better.

      Visual Studio (.net suffix was abandoned years ago..) is far better than any development solution on Linux, especially those based on vim. Anyway, developing applications for three platforms would have unbearable costs, especially under Linux were very few are willingly to pay, and especially until the desktop gets a unified API and a single decent widget set, not that mess Gnome and KDE are.

      You don't know what WinForms is (it was the GUI libray of .NET, not of Windows). Probably you meant GDI, and you obviously don't know the limitations GDI has, and the need of a more perfomant, hw accelerated, 2D API.

      If you believe that desktop applications are just a niche market, well you're wrong. Not only laptops, full desktops. With RAID disks and big video cards. Don't believe photographers, for example, even hobbyists, use only laptops with small gamuts screens, lack of redundant storage, low-end video cards.

      It's quite clear the last time you used Windows and Office was several years ago... and just small networks. It's better you refresh your knowledge, and, especially, you should avoid to speak about things you obviously never used and don't have a clue about.

      1. bombastic bob Silver badge
        Devil

        Re: Business users

        "Linux as a file server, but for very simple needs, is really outdated"

        clueless. Actually I use FreeBSD, but it's basically the same userland software. It handles my e-mail repo (IMAP), source repository (SVN), and file-based backups and archival storage, as well as internet firewall, internet gateway (PPPoE for a DSL connection), IPv6, DNS server (for a domain), web server, and stores it all using ZFS [the most reliable file system that I'm aware of]. And it does all of that on an older Intel Core Duo running at 1.6Ghz with only 4G of RAM, and I don't have even a REMOTE case of performance issues with it. Good luck getting THAT to work with a windows server, ha ha ha ha ha! And it has Samba running on it for windows shares [all read-only except for a couple - when I want to write to it I use rsync via Cygwin, which is a lot better/safer - in case of a 'wannacry' problem that decides to go after network shares]. And it doesn't expose ports 135-139 nor 443 (by default) to the intarwebs (unlike a windows server).

        So, _THAT_ is "outdated"? Hah, I laugh in your general direction!

        "Visual Studio is far better than any development solution on Linux, especially those based on vim"

        vim? ha ha ha where have YOU been! I prefer using pluma/gedit to VIsual Studio anyway, since visual studio GETS! IN! MY! WAY! most of the time. The last decent MS developer studio was VS98. After that it got all "Visual BASIC" on us, and you have to mousie-clickie-mousie-clickie and move your hand off of the keyboard all the time, especially with the dialog box editor. "property" drop downs, what a freaking joke! I liked the old class wizard dialog-based interface because I had the hot keys memorized and could fill a dialog box with accurately aligned controls in minutes, without wearing my right hand out doing mousie-clickie-mousie-clickie. And that mousie-clickie process SLOWS! ME! DOWN!!

        FYI in case you hadn't seen, there are also a couple of other IDEs out there, some written in Java (like Arduino, Eclipse). Eclipse is very popular with Java programmers. It's quite good, actually. It lacks some of the C++ support I'd like to see, but hey, you can't have everything.

        Then of course there's Qt, a commercial toolkit. I haven't used it but I hear good things.

        "Anyway, developing applications for three platforms would have unbearable costs"

        No, it doesn't. wxWidgets. Qt. GTK. All 3 of those are cross-platform toolkits. code to one of them, and it's "good to go".

        "especially under Linux w[h]ere very few are willingly to pay, and especially until the desktop gets a unified API" (ha ha ha not a chance) "and a single decent widget set, not that mess Gnome and KDE are."

        Gnome and KDE might be 'a mess'. but 'Mate' and 'Cinnamon' are pretty good.

        As for 'a single decent widget set', I like having CHOICE. And I'm working on my own... [with an IDE to wrap around it].

        So yeah, much of what you said here is the same FUD as always. Since I've been using BSD as my daily OS since around 2004, and doing primarily non-windows development since 2005, I've seen Windows in decline and it's turned ugly, and mean.

  6. Bob Vistakin
    Facepalm

    Yeah - they said that about Windows Phone too

    Even proudly ponced about holding a mock funeral for the iPhone.

    How'd that work out then?

  7. lsces

    How many people use 'Classic Shell'?

    First thing I install on any windows machine post W7 and then I can talk clients through problems over the phone. Makes W10 at last usable again :)

    1. Prst. V.Jeltz Silver badge

      Re: How many people use 'Classic Shell'?

      i finally figured win 10 out:

      press menu key - type the thing you are looking for - click on it . Easy.

      1. Prst. V.Jeltz Silver badge

        Re: How many people use 'Classic Shell'?

        hey whats the downvote for?! ungateful grits.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    OK, I give

    What negative meaning would "Creators Update" have in Australia?

    1. David 132 Silver badge
      Pint

      Re: OK, I give

      It's not the word "Creators" that has the Aussies riled, but the assumption that the third season of the year is "Fall":

      The "Creators" concept is rather tangential both to the new features and to Windows users in general. As for Fall [emphasis mine], I remarked to another journalist at Build that the name was US-centric. "Imagine how it goes down in Australia," he replied.

      Imagery of falling leaves and frosty mornings probably won't resonate with those Down Under, who will at that time of the year be more concerned with throwing shrimps on the barbie, adding Vegemite to tinnies, tying corks to their hats, watching out for drop-bears, playing knifey-spoony, tying kangaroos down, wrestling crocodiles, and other traditional local pursuits that I am 100% sure are accurate and not based on clichéd stereotypes.

      The icon is a pint of Castlemaine XXXX, which as everyone knows is the only beer available down there.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: OK, I give

        America doesn't care about what happens in the rest of the world if it doesn't affect America. Seventeen million Australians are of no consequence or four million Kiwis or anybody else. As long as it makes sense for USA it doesn't matter to them.

        1. oldcoder

          Re: OK, I give

          You mean MICROSOFT doesn't care. and "As long as it makes sense for MICROSOFT it doesn't matter".

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "Focusing"

    Maybe they should be "focusing" on getting an operating system that is designed to work on PCs rather than phones.

    They need to get a GUI that is simple - W2k or XP - and not something that causes eye strain by being all white. They also need to stop using the people they have foisted this abomination on to as beta testers and drop all the telemetry and spying.

    The OS needs to be able to do what people and business want in a clear, easy and repeatable way.

    I could go on but it is just too depressing. Thankfully I don't use windows.

    1. bombastic bob Silver badge
      Megaphone

      Re: "Focusing"

      "They need to get a GUI that is simple - W2k or XP - and not something that causes eye strain by being all white"

      yeah, focusing MY EYES on "that interface" causes me eye strain.

      Micro-shaft forgot about USABILITY and ACCESSIBILITY when they took the customizations out. I had always created a really READABLE interface that minimized eye strain.

      BLUE LIGHT (and that includes bright white backgrounds) is *VERY* *HARD* on the eyes. It can (and probably will) result in PREMATURE MACULAR DEGENERATION, due to the depletion of the orange pigment in the macula [I did some work for an Optometrist a while back, on a machine that analyzes this]. A work environment with bright white lights gives you eye strain BECAUSE of this. 'Yellowing' the screen slightly so that it's still visible cuts WAY down on the eye strain. but I don't think that's in Micro-shaft's "pre-defined color set" last I looked. Basically you want lower temperature colors, like an incandescent bulb. It's more natural, like the Sun. And high contrast based on relative 'Y' brightness, and not chroma balance, helps TREMENDOUSLY [I sometimes want to shoot Linux devs who pre-assign colors to 'ls' and 'grep' because of this... I always 'unalias' those because they're FRICKING UNREADABLE with those color choices].

      Anyway, THAT way of pre-assigning our color schemes (like Win-10-nic does) reflects the "INEXPERIENCED YOUTH" aspect of the development. People who must stare at a screen all day and are over 40 will recognize the STUPIDITY of that. Arrogant millenials want "to do it OUR way now, because we CAN, because it's OUR TURN, NEW! SHINY!". And so we have THAT abomination known as "Windows 10".

      1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

        Re: "Focusing"

        Bob,

        If you're against things that cause eye strain, pleas give the caps & exclamation marks a rest. Just make the effort to type normally like everyone else.

  10. Sureo

    I am waiting....

    I am waiting for Windows 10 Legacy Edition, which should look, feel and work just like Windows 7. (But I'm not holding my breath.)

  11. stephanh

    MS please fix the real issue

    I am actually fairly happy with Windows 10 (after installing Classic Shell), but the telemetry worries me a *lot*.

    Perhaps I am just overly paranoid, but *by their own admission* Microsoft reserves the right to download documents (as in "actual files I own") from my machine. All for good intentions, presumably.

    MS, please stop faffing around with Hololens and Cortana and give me a kill switch for the telemetry.

    Thanks,

    Stephan

    1. Getmo
      Linux

      Re: MS please fix the real issue

      Their telementry is indeed terrifying, and it's the main reason I blew off the 'free upgrade' offer on my Windows 8.1 laptop. In fact I'll be sticking to 7 and 8 exclusively from now on until I find a flavor of linux I like.

      Apparently the baked-in OS capability to watch whatever you're looking at and log ALL keystrokes (and maybe grab your webcam feed too, b/c why not?) was only in the 'Preview' edition of Win10. "It's not turned on by default in RTM editions" is what I've heard and such. To me, the pot is already poisoned when that capability was developed into the OS itself.

      Icon because despite all the talk and nag over the years as a grumpy Windows customer, this version is the first to make me realize now may truly be the last time I use Windows as my main OS for personal machines.

      1. Captain DaFt

        Re: MS please fix the real issue

        "It's not turned on by default in RTM editions"

        Even so, it's still installed and only an 'update' away from being active again.

        No Thanks MS, still not using Win 10.

    2. Whiznot

      Re: MS please fix the real issue

      Are you aware on Spybot Anti Beacon? It blocks telemetry.

      1. stephanh

        Re: MS please fix the real issue

        @ Whiznot

        I am using the ShutUp10 tool which is presumably similar. However, these tools don't fox the underlying trust problem.

        1. There is no way for me to judge their effectiveness.

        2. They operate by changing various low-level setting, i.e. in essence they just ask the OS nicely not to spy on me. Even if that is effective today, MS can decide to stop honoring those requests with any update. And how would I know? See also point 1.

        Stephan

  12. handleoclast
    Coat

    Fall Creators Update

    For some reason I keep reading that as "Fail Creators Update."

    For the life of me, I can't think why I keep seeing that word as "fail."

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      "I'd like to employ Microsoft F'CU (NT) S to help clean up this Ransomware mess"

      This written proposal (read out) didn't go down too well at the meeting regarding a recent Ransomware attack:

      "I'd like to employ Microsoft F'CU (NT) S to help clean up this Ransomware mess"

      Windows 10 S?

      Waste of space. It's vunerable with the obsolete model of a central registry.

      A "Windows skin" for an underlying Linux codebase is where the solution is, Microsoft. The condensed equivalent of using a Linux VM to run/host Windows.

      The new MS should be about overall solutions to problems, not artificially supporting/propping up an obselete design/model (Windows OS Registry model).

      1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

        Re: "I'd like to employ Microsoft F'CU (NT) S to help clean up this Ransomware mess"

        A "Windows skin" for an underlying Linux codebase is where the solution is, Microsoft.

        No. Let MS keep their own mess. Don't import it to Linux.

      2. Updraft102

        Re: "I'd like to employ Microsoft F'CU (NT) S to help clean up this Ransomware mess"

        The registry isn't obsolete. It simply wasn't a good idea even when it was new.

        1. CrazyOldCatMan Silver badge

          Re: "I'd like to employ Microsoft F'CU (NT) S to help clean up this Ransomware mess"

          The registry isn't obsolete. It simply wasn't a good idea even when it was new.

          And now it's colonising Linux in the form of systemd.

        2. Terry 6 Silver badge

          Re: "I'd like to employ Microsoft F'CU (NT) S to help clean up this Ransomware mess"

          I'm glad you said that. I used to think it was just me that didn't get the registry, and since I was not a proper IT guy, just an upstart amateur doing the jobs that had to be done because no one else could, I have always assumed that there was a deeply important reason for piling everything and anything into the monolithic database that is a registry.

          Oh and fwiw, to me the problem with the ribbon is that it deliberately prevents me from hiding the elements that I'd never need from one year to the next. i.e. it's only different from before because instead of having a set of customisable menus it has a set of non-customisable menus.

          And tying these two things together, the Win 10 Start menu is both based on a database and virtually non-customisable even though it contains tons of entries that users will not directly use from one year to the next ( pdf readers for example are only ever launched by clicking on an actual pdf file).

  13. This post has been deleted by its author

    1. Pascal Monett Silver badge

      Re: What Is Microsofts End Game ?

      To become Google. And Apple. Goopple ?

      MS always has been late to the party, and has only ever caught up because of its oodles of moolah that it throws around in mostly doomed endeavors. Of late, MS has noticed that its entrenched money makers, Office and Windows, are at risk of being swept aside by the combined threat of Google Docs and mobile phones.

      Because Google is making money every second just by people searching for stuff, MS has frantically put together Bing, at ginormous cost, hoping to cash in on that particular kind of cow. It's not working very well because Google has years more experience which no amount of money can catch up to.

      Then MS tried attacking the mobile phone sector in its usual ham-fisted way by trying to buy into the market, but as usual again it made bad choices from day 1 and that effort is now stillborn.

      MS simultaneously lobbed tankerloads of money to get into the tablet arena that Apple had opened, but are far from recovering the costs on that front as well, although I've heard that the Surface 3 ain't that shabby. For that, of course, MS had to have a touch-enabled interface. Fair enough, but then, in true MS fashion, it decided that ALL Windows should be touch-enabled. Cue the fiasco that is the Windows 1 0 interface, because if there is one thing that MS will never truly understand, it is that different machines need different interfaces.

      Finally, the Store is the last thing that MS will let go of because it sees how much money Apple makes on doing next to nothing and it wants its share of that sweet pie as well. Legacy Windows mean that MS is a while away from having a perfectly walled garden, but that is their end game : that every click, every interaction, every purchase bring in the money that MS fears Google and Apple are taking away with their better ideas implemented way before MS woke up to smell the coffee.

      1. Terry 6 Silver badge

        Re: What Is Microsofts End Game ?

        Pascal Monett

        Yes. Microsoft got left behind at the start of the Web and had to run to catch up. Each successive innovation has come from elsewhere and their response has been to try to buy a late ticket. But then they seem to have a knack of messing it up.

        The Windows phone is actually pretty good. But they tried to sell it at a budget price point without the toy-shop apps and some essential features ( front facing camera for example) that Android users and fashion buying iusers wanted, and at a premium price point that didn't offer anything for the extra money that couldn't have been in the budget jobbies, was too late to just be fashionable and couldn't stand up against the high-end Androids or iPhones on saleability. For an ordinary person wanting a good, medium priced device with some useful and solid apps there was bugger-all on offer for ages.

        Stupidities like the Ribbon or those hidden "charms" that only appeared when you didn't want them have all the hallmarks of being someone's pet idea, that should have been shot down at the committee stage - presumably kept in because of someone's power and influence within the corporate hierarchy. Removing the Start Menu ( in response to criticisms of it that just needed fixing) then bringing it back as an unwieldy beast that the users can't control without use of serious technical skills is just further evidence that the suits don't understand the users.

      2. Updraft102

        Re: What Is Microsofts End Game ?

        Wish I could upvote that more than once, Pascal!

    2. Richard Plinston

      Re: What Is Microsofts End Game ?

      > It is not as if Microsoft will force developers to UWP etc., so they can take 30% of the developers revenue.

      That is what Windows 10S is designed to do: force users* to only buy from the store so that developers have to follow or lose market share.

      Note that with Windows 10S they will also be taking OEMs revenue and profit. MS Office, for example will no longer be pre-installed and added to the price of the machine (revenue and profit to OEM) but will be bought by the user from the store (all revenue and profit to MS) because it would be associated with their MS account.

      * 'force' them by getting OEMs to sell cheaper machines with 10S that requires additional money to allow non-UWPs to be installed.

      1. bombastic bob Silver badge
        Devil

        Re: What Is Microsofts End Game ?

        "That is what Windows 10S is designed to do: force users* to only buy from the store so that developers have to follow or lose market share."

        the bigger market share right NOW is WINDOWS 7. just sayin'

        Here's a thought: What if WE (the people, the devs) take Micro-shaft's own tactics and use them against Win-10-nic and "the Store" ? you know, we pressure the computer makers to ship LINUX versions at LOWER prices than Windows, and THEN offer the software people NEED to RUN on those machines natively, never mind running at ALL on Win-10-nic. It would be fun to watch Micro-shaft scramble to produce on OS that people actually WANT.

        1. Roger Greenwood

          Re: What Is Microsofts End Game ?

          "we pressure the computer makers to ship LINUX versions"

          Whilst I admire the sentiment, I don't know how you are going to do that. The fact is money talks - if enough folks bought something other than Windows (enough to affect the stats and the bottom line) then change would come. But sadly few people are that interested in this petty squabble of ours and therefore buy whatever is in the shop and from whoever has the largest marketing budget/slush fund.

          For what it's worth, my last machine at home running an MS product was Win95 in 1996 on a second hand computer.

          1. Pascal Monett Silver badge

            Re: "we pressure the computer makers to ship LINUX versions"

            That has already been tried and it failed. The only good thing about that experience is that now most on-line shops give you an OS option when you hunt for a new PC - but that option is most often Windows, Mac or No OS - you'll have to put Linux on there yourself.

            There are a few online vendors that actually offer laptops and desktops with Linux, but then you generally don't get to choose the distro you want.

            So the pressure is not really really on the vendors - you can get a PC without Windows if you really want one. The pressure is on the buyers and they're not buying Linux. Even for free.

  14. Ilsa Loving

    What carrot and stick approach?

    How in the name $DEITY and all that is holy can you call Microsoft's antics a "carrot and stick" approach?

    It's more like a "hold a gun to your head" approach. It's now virtually impossible to get computers that do not have Windows 10. If you want to use the latest hardware, you MUST use Windows 10 because Microsoft has decreed that not only will Windows 7 be unsupported, but they're actively sabotaging updates, in direct violation of their promise to support Windows 7 until 2020.

    Windows 10 could have been a colossal success. Technologically, it's pretty solid. But the way Microsoft rolled it out, and all the shenanigans they've played to the detriment of consumers, completely undo any good will they might have eeked out. If anything, Microsoft's idiocy is pushing people away from PC even more than before.

    Microsoft have shot themselves in the foot so often and so badly, that I think they're now having to shoot their thighs cause there's nothing left below.

    1. anonymous boring coward Silver badge

      Re: What carrot and stick approach?

      The problem is that the kids like it, and they are used to being spied upon. They are addicted to updates, and having the latest.

      They just see the PC as a bigger, more powerful smartphone.

      It's a fact that devices become more and more owned by someone else -and the end user becomes more and more helpless. There is power and money in that from the manufacturer's perspective. Lot's of money! Now a BMW owner can't even buy a new battery for his car, for example, because it has to be coded to the car! All electronic parts are "coded" and cost extortionate amounts of money to replace.

      Not sure what will happen when I upgrade my son's PC, but I suspect some kind of Windows 10 licensing extortion racket will kick off.

      Bright new PC future!

      1. anonymous boring coward Silver badge

        Re: What carrot and stick approach?

        "Not sure what will happen when I upgrade my son's PC, but I suspect some kind of Windows 10 licensing extortion racket will kick off."

        Update: That is exactly what happened!

        Luckily I had another licence key code at hand which resolved the situation. And, luckily Windows 10 accepted it as the new licence key. Some codes are better than others.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: What carrot and stick approach?

      How in the name $DEITY and all that is holy can you call Microsoft's antics a "carrot and stick" approach?

      I think they mean stick as in "red hot poker inserted forcibly through the rectum."

  15. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    FIX IT ! THEN add shinies !

    Two decades after NTFS had Long File Paths, File explorer STILL cannot handle files with Long File Paths THAT IT ITSELF CREATES !

    FIX the awful, long- long- long-standing bugs in WINDOWS that affect EVERYONE.

    THEN worry about the shiny bits no-one will use

  16. Hwalker1

    What's wrong with Win 10?

    It usually works for me. Does email. Writes articles. The odd spreadsheet. Runs all my programs from 2005 onwards. For anything else I use Android. Cortana speaks American, and always ignores me when I tell it to do something, unlike Google which I talk to all day. It has no problem understanding my thick north of England accent. Microsoft office on Win 10 dies if it gets a few emails to remember, and has to be restored. No problems on Android. Perhaps as Microsoft is now controlled from India, they have a different mind set from the rest of the world. Or have they just lost the pioneering spirit they had when they wrote Win 7?

    They control the market, updating my machine when I am in the middle of using it and ruining my work. I always say that you get what you pay for. Why do you think that they gave it to most people for free? So that they can control your use of Windows.

  17. Ryan Clark

    Win10 for business

    For all those who don't think businesses are adopting Win10, you are mistaken. We are currently doing several projects, all for several thousand seats, packaging Win10 builds. We have more in the pipeline too. There are plenty of companies moving over at the moment.

    Despite the prevailing El Reg commentard opinion, Win10, Intune and Azure AD join are all proving popular.

    1. Updraft102

      Re: Win10 for business

      Kind of like paying the local mob boss protection money is popular...

  18. Sil

    There's a life outside of mobile

    So basically everything is lost because it's not mobile ?

    I disagree.

    It may take time, but people will come back to (or most of them discover and embrace) the personal computer, because

    A. nowadays it's cheaper than a smartphone and

    B. It is the better form factor for many use cases.

    The video editing software is a good example. Perhaps you took most of your videos with your phones, but it sure is easier/better to edit it on a bigger screen with a mouse, a keyboard and perhaps a stylus.

    1. DropBear

      Re: There's a life outside of mobile

      That would probably be even true, assuming anyone at all (outside Youtubers) ever actually edited their videos...

      1. keith_w
        Pint

        Re: There's a life outside of mobile

        I have been known to occasionally edit a vacation video.

  19. Francis Boyle Silver badge

    RemoteSystems API

    "The RemoteSystems API could enable an app running on a mobile device to launch itself on a nearby PC or Xbox, for example"

    Nope, can't see how that could go wrong in any way.

  20. bombastic bob Silver badge
    Big Brother

    A "Windows skin" for an underlying Linux codebase

    you used to be able to buy a windows subsystem for Mac...

    So, you know, they COULD do that for Linux. But it would have to be seamless with the X11 window manager. And you wouldn't be *RESTRICTED* to "the Store". And people would be ENCOURAGED to write NATIVE Linux appLICATIONS. And Microshaft would LOSE CONTROL. They don't want to lose control. THAT is at least PART of the motivation behind Win-10-nic. It's about "the CONTROL" and "the SPYING" etc..

    1. RyokuMas
      Facepalm

      Re: A "Windows skin" for an underlying Linux codebase

      Sorry, but the AGGRESSIVE, LASH-OUT attitude displayed here only serves to put me off giving Linux development another try... this is fast approaching Eadon territory.

      As as for worrying about control and spying, what search engine, browser and phone OS do you use?

  21. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Brace yourselves...

    ... but I love the Ribbon in MS Office. It makes sense to hide the multitude of options under categorized panes. I know you may all love the simplicity of older versions but think how many features have been introduced since then? Word 2016 without a ribbon would look like an IE6 browser with 152 rows of search engine add-ons.

    1. Updraft102

      Re: Brace yourselves...

      Would it be so bad if MS at least offered the option?

      Some people like the ribbon. I, for one, think it is one of the dumbest ideas ever (or at least it was before I saw the hamburger menu on a desktop PC). Why do we all have to march in lockstep when MS gets some wild hair and decides to do something like the ribbon? Offer your new idea to the public and see if they like it... don't grab them by the scruff of the neck and smash their face in it while screaming at them to embrace the awesomeness.

  22. CrazyOldCatMan Silver badge

    "Imagine how it goes down in Australia,"

    To which Microsoft responded "There's somewhere called Australia? Which state is it in?"

  23. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    nothing

    absolutely nothing in that OS, including the update, that makes me feel: Uhm, perhaps I might re-consider, THIS (or THAT) could really help me. Nope, all I see is turd-polishing. Oh well, perhaps Windows XII will get me to the point of re-considering, if I can still bother by that time ;)

  24. Michael Sanders

    1 feature

    I think the future update having the ability to run apps in a safe container sounds interesting. Everything else has been a disappointment.

    Hey. Fun fact. I remember Novell used to be much smarter for file copy. A file copy from one server to another or one drive to another in the same server still travels across the network through your PC. Novell was smart enough to make that copy local to the resource. OS/2? Let's bring Novell back. Microsoft is still playing catch up.

  25. Jonjonz

    Creator's Update... NOT

    Still no replacement for Media Center and Movie Maker.

    1. anonymous boring coward Silver badge

      Re: Creator's Update... NOT

      Still?

      There won't be a new Media Center. Any 15 pound streaming device will do the job better (or almost as well), with certain restrictions (no recording, no getting terrestrial or satellite feeds, not much support for local content).

      MS lost interest in WMC about 10 years ago.

  26. Dark_Ronius

    I've been a huge fan of Metro UI since I first caught a glimpse of it; although its integration into Windows has been a bit crap (going back to an older start menu fixes things a little; but I feel the Start Page would be much better as a desktop background).

    Microsoft have probably had the benefit of monetising all my information from being in a bit of a daze the last couple of years because of circumstances. Now I have had Windows 10 for a good while, I don't see the point in changing it (which are probably the final cries of democracy before the machines take over...)

  27. Ardeth Bey

    Yes indeed!!! Regarding Windows 10, has anyone else been enjoying Tabs disappearing after closing down Edge even though "Previous Pages" is checked off? O do please advise.

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