back to article Your Phone prematurely ejected, Skype texting on the way, and 900 more years of Windows

As Alexa and Cortana kicked off a conversation more awkward than the worst Tinder date and Visual Studio 15.8 dropped into the hands of delighted developers, what else happened last week at Microsoft? Your Phone is here! Oh no it isn't! Oh yes it is! Someone in Redmond is having to spend time on the naughty step as the Android …

  1. Korev Silver badge
    Pint

    900 years

    eagle-eyed Register reader Philip Coakes found evidence in a security advisory that Windows is with us for the long term.

    Another 900 years, to be precise.

    A pint for Mr Coakes for brightening our day -->

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: 900 years

      >> Another 900 years, to be precise

      So not quite a "Thousand-Year Reich" then.

      1. jelabarre59

        Re: 900 years

        So not quite a "Thousand-Year Reich" then.

        Thousand-year retch is more like it.

      2. bombastic bob Silver badge
        Unhappy

        Re: 900 years

        'Windows 10 Uber Alles!' <-- echoes in the Halls of Redmond

        And will it be 2D FLATSO 'The Metro" light blue on bright white [aka eye-killing] ADWARE+SPYWARE with forced updates 900 years from now? Or will they come up with EVEN WORSE THINGS to HORRIFY us?

      3. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: 900 years

        The Tausend Jahre Reich actually lasted something under 12 years, so there is hope.

    2. jelabarre59

      Re: 900 years

      eagle-eyed Register reader Philip Coakes found evidence in a security advisory that Windows is with us for the long term.

      Another 900 years, to be precise.

      No, it will just take that long to get the security update right...

      1. LeahroyNake

        Re: 900 years

        It's never coming... unless they invent a month called Augus.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Eh?

    The iPhone incarnation of the app, which will allow Edge browsing to hop from their phone to their Windows desktop, has yet to make an appearance.

    Edge browser on IoS? Isn't it really just a new skin on Safari? I wonder if it actually works better than the original.

    But... 900 years of Windows?

    Please no.

    Can someone please save us from this torture?

  3. Alister

    2919

    The year of the Linux desktop

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Windows

      Re: 2919

      To be honest it depends on how the 2032 thing pans out.

      For me 1999 was the first year of the Linux desktop. OK, year of the Linux console - it took me a while to configure XFree86 and work out how to get a window manager together. God it looked crap compared to what I'm typing this on: sysadmins should not have to work with typeface choices and anti aliasing was not exactly a thing.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    900 more years of Windows 'health warnings' then it is :XD

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    A + B <> C

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    A:

    "Microsoft Chairman Thompson expressed distaste for companies whose ad-financed businesses share or sell user data, while declining to comment on Facebook Inc. specifically. “Many of them make money off Ads and they have used that (user data) as kind of a leverage point,” he said “At Microsoft, we don’t believe in that.” Microsoft Corp. Chairman John Thompson

    https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-04-30/if-microsoft-finds-another-linkedin-deal-chairman-is-all-in

    ----------------------------

    B:

    "Chief Executive Officer Satya Nadella: It's important for tech companies to “self-police” or build the tools that create transparency, make sure that people's privacy is protected.” - "Nadella spoke forcefully in favor of .... the privacy of customer data."

    https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-09-28/microsoft-ceo-urges-tech-to-focus-on-self-policing-not-regulation-fears

    ----------------------------

    C:

    ....."When we talk about why we're upgrading the Windows 10 install base, why is that upgrade free? MS CFO asked during a meeting with Wall Street analysts. These are all new monetization opportunities once a PC is sold. Microsoft's strategy is to go low on consumer Windows licenses, hoping that that will boost device sales, which will in turn add to the pool of potential customers for 'Advertising'".....

    ....."CEO Nadella has referred to the customer revenue potential as 'lifetime value' in the past -- and did so again last week during the same meeting with Wall Street -- hinting at Microsoft's strategy to make more on the back end of the PC acquisition process. The more customers, the more money those customers will bring in as they view 'Ads'".....

    https://www.computerworld.com/article/2917799/microsoft-windows/microsoft-fleshes-out-windows-as-a-service-revenue-strategy.html

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: 900 more years of Windows 'health warnings' then it is :XD

      As often happens at MS, they could have switched direction at the very wrong moment... they saw the shitloads of money FB and Google were making with ads, but coudn't see the data hoarding scandals, and the obvious reaction, even in a very business friendly country like US.

      Yet the GDPR was approved two years ago, and they should be very careful about what they collect and why.

      Windows 10 could become a big failure one day, maybe well before 2918.

  5. cambsukguy

    Been texting from Skype

    On PC and Phone for ages and ages, didn't even realise that others can't.

    But then I am mad, I use WinPhone.

    Now, if they could just make this Edge browser on the phone let me carry on with Edge tabs on the PC and vice versa - that would be magic.

    1. katrinab Silver badge

      Re: Been texting from Skype

      Is that over the Skype network, or via your or over the mobile network via your phone like Facetime and iMessages on Mac + iPhone?

    2. Franco

      Re: Been texting from Skype

      I'm amazed anyone COULD use that, it spectacularly messed up my message backups before MS swiftly pulled the feature and went back to the standard messaging app.

      Haven't tried it recently though, still have my Lumia 925 but it's battery life is approximately one half of 10 minutes ( (C) Strong Bad) these days.

      1. Unicornpiss
        Meh

        Running MS apps on Android

        It's useful to have Skype on my phone so I can get and respond to messages when away from my desk at work.

        It works okay for the most part, but why oh why doesn't it time stamp the messages received? And sometimes I click on a message notification and the notification just disappears without the app opening, leaving me to launch it again and look for the message. And Outlook is just as randomly quirky and laggy as it is on my PC at times.

        So it appears that MS has gone to great pains to ensure mobile users have the same experience as desktop users of their products. Too bad it's not a good one overall though.

  6. Gio Ciampa

    Augus 2918

    I take it there'll be a month renaming decree by then also...

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Sticky notes pre-dates WinXP

    "Sticky Notes had roots in the venerable tablet edition of Windows XP".

    Nah, mate, Stickies started as a Desk accessory on Mac System 7.5 in 1994, seven years before XP was released.

    1. bombastic bob Silver badge
      Meh

      Re: Sticky notes pre-dates WinXP

      as long as it doesn't show up as part of a desktop package under Linux, with ".Not" aka Mono dependencies (like Tomboy - I can't say enough *BAD* things about *THAT* cluster-blank), I don't care about any 'sticky notes'. It just sounds like another 'gimmick feature' that will die a horrific death on its own, without any intervention.

    2. eldakka

      Re: Sticky notes pre-dates WinXP

      Nah, mate, Stickies started as a Desk accessory on Mac System 7.5 in 1994, seven years before XP was released.

      The first stickies-like program I ever used was Borland Sidekick from 1984, an MS-DOS TSR (Terminate and Stay Resident) application that allowed you to have 9 'stickies' (i.e. 9 files open in a notepad-like app).

  8. Grikath
    Trollface

    Skype texting

    Wouldn't that devolve to Sexting pretty soonish?

    1. bombastic bob Silver badge
      Trollface

      Re: Skype texting

      yeah - with auto-emoji that has motion in it for "the usual ASCII art"

  9. shil1

    Skype could text then MS took over ....

    Before MS took on Skype we'd been able to send text from Skype from both the desktop and Android for years. As soon as MS took over the texting to mobiles stopped and was removed from the app completely.

    This year MS have put it back in after much abuse from those of us who used to rely on it asking why they had removed it. However, up until last month it wasn't actually sending texts. I had to get a refund from them from all the texts they had charged me for that were never received.

    I then found out that they had also removed essential account configuration from the Skype Out service, such as show my telephone number when I SMS. This had to be recreated because they had removed the service.

    So Skype has done SMS for years, who cares about the other apps when you're a Linux user through and through. Keep Skype, dump the rest.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Skype??

    That's a blast from the past!

    Didn't realise it was still going. They've not killed it yet?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Skype??

      They've not killed it yet?

      MS are really trying hard to kill it but there are a lot of stubborn users and very large corporations out there that like it.

      Typical, they remove a number of ages old features and see who shouts loudests and grudgingly restores the most popular ones. But they'll carry on and eventually many users will just give up and then they can extinguish it only for it to be re-invented in a plethora of sub standard products in the future.

      SOP for the Droids in Redmond.

      1. Franco

        Re: Skype??

        They used to love that feature "spun out in to a different product" press release. Removing IMs from Exchange 2003 for example, and the utter chaos they caused by trying to remove public folders from Exchange 2007 and forcing everyone to SharePoint with no direct or easy migration path.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      "Didn't realise it was still going"

      Sure. Most of the alternatives - including Skype 8 - are designed for youths with more fingers than neurons, so they're not really useful when you need some work done, compared to chatting without any real reason but killing time and avoid to awake the few neurons...

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Oh...

    ...skype ? Is that still a thing, who knew

  12. Fruit and Nutcase Silver badge
    Facepalm

    Nokia N9

    The best user experience of Skype for me was on the Nokia N9 - Seamless integration into the phone for voice calls and Skype text messaging was integrated into the messaging function.

    Then when I moved over to Andriod (the N9 was too slow/no further updates thanks to Elop...), in the skype App, you could not override the idiot ringtone, which was the start of me moving off Skype...

  13. This post has been deleted by its author

  14. cb7

    Ho hum

    Now if only I could have unified contacts across Outlook (the Windows program) and Google Contacts...

    Vista did it one way, Win 10 does it another. But for some stupid reason known only to Microsoft, they didn't think to have Microsoft Outlook use either and it's stuck doing it its own way.

    At least Apple allowed auto sync with Outlook via their Windows iCloud app.

    But Google want money for their equivalent. And the poor user suffers. And suffers. Years later

  15. N2
    Trollface

    900 Years?

    Perhaps they need it to fix [insert application of choice] and all the other Win bollox?

  16. IGnatius T Foobar !

    Lost the plot

    Launch applications and get out of the way. That is the job of an operating system. The primary, and some would say only job.

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