It's not incompatible. Win7/8 don't take full advantage of some of Skylake's new features. But at least now they're making sure to keep Skylake systems up to date in terms of security patches. They're not going to be updating the kernel to support new extensions and features, however. If you want to get the most out of Skylake and other future x86 architectures (including AMD's Zen) with an MS OS you would need to use W10. My experiences with W10 have actually been pretty positive. There's still room for improvement but I think overall it's much more accommodating to more systems than 8.x ever was.
The real irony here is how similar Windows 8.1 and Windows 10 are architecturally. This is purely a business move. Adding skylake extensions to the Windows 8.1 kernel wouldn't be a big deal, but most people on W8 are biting that free upgrade to Windows 10 (except me, because I actually liked Windows 8, who gives a shit about the start menu....really.)
Windows 8 still has an edge over Windows 10 in battery life (even Windows software group admits that) and the simple fact I can control my updates and maintain the legacy control panel for all system operations are imperative features. Eventually I'll move all my systems to W10, most already have, but my gaming system and my laptop will stick to Windows 8.1 for the mean time.
Agreed -- I will move to Windows 10 once I can actually control when updates take place. I understand why Microsoft forces updates, but I don't care. If I have a 15 day render or transcoding task, under exactly no circumstances should my computer EVER reboot without my explicit permission.
For me, this is actually not good enough. Under no circumstances do I want the OS to decide for me that it will reboot after a certain period of time. I get to choose, and that's final. For this reason the first thing I do with Win10 installs is disable the Windows update service. When I'm ready to update, I reenable it and check for updates. Yes, I am putting myself at risk, but that's the price I pay to get the mode I want. If Microsoft's goal was to make me secure and up to date, their plan backfired on me.
I applaud you for updating to win10 and finding a way around the feature that annoys you. Rather than whingeing forever and living eternally in a win7 wet dream. Even if i think the reasoning is maybe a little odd. Also I am sure that Microsoft are not targeting the users who have the knowledge to stop a service. I am definitely sure they are targeting users that don't know what Phishing is, or who think clicking side adverts is a good idea. They are the ones auto-update is supposed to help.
If MS was really that concerned about user security it would get rid of Admin accounts being setup as the main user account. The fact that Admin is still the default is crazy.
That doesn't work. I merely to choose a nearby restart date, or have it decided for me if I do not. If I have a 15 day render, what does it matter if I get to reboot tomorrow or next Monday if the render's progress is lost either way?
It doesn't automatically restart anymore unless there's no one logged in. It'll simply put up a message saying "Updates have been installed, restart when possible".
That's definitely not true for me. My surface, which is on insider builds, has installed entire OS flights and rebooted when even in connected standby before. It's the worst experience ever to open up my device and find out its 42% through an OS install... I had not configured the device, though, so it may have been with "automatically install updated" instead of "notify to schedule"
You've been able to do this for a long time in Windows and 10 is no different. You simply tell it to notify you and it doesn't automatically install them.
Win10 still has a newer version of the kernel and it's not worth updating Win8 for a number of reasons. You can still use Skylake on such a system if you really want. More importantly, how many new/upgraded Skylake systems are getting built/upgraded with Win8.x? They need to focus on Win10, and they want Win8 users to get on board. Adding support for new processor features and instructions is counter-productive in addition to being a waste of resources.
I like Windows 10, but MS is pushing too hard for Windows 10 on every system. The obnoxious upgrade reminders, the telemetry reporting, and the occasional forced upgrades to Windows 10 are really starting to grate on a lot of people.
I can understand why they push so much to it. 1) It costs lots of resources to update old system (you need to pay devs, support etc.) 2) Old code, no matter how clean could be when released, gets patched and patched over and is getting harder to maintain as it gets older 3) Nobody wants to spend time on dying software, it's demotivating for developers, everybody wants to work on the new&cool so when MS pushes to W10 they are trying to slap many flies with one hit. And those above are just developers' point of view...
How f*cking difficult can it be to provide support for a product you are actively selling (not something that you have shelved years ago and moved on)?!?!
Microsoft's not a monolithic entity. You can bet your bottom dollar that the people responsible for trying to cancel future-proofing support on 7 and 8.1 and the people responsible for 7 still being on sale are not the same people, or the same division. They are probably not even in the same building.
The economic reality is that MS have to sell 7 whether they want to or not. If their customers had their own way, they would still be selling XP.
They are supporting it, but they aren't obligated to add features to it that weren't originally included, such as kernel level optimizations for Skylake. This would be like ford upgrading every Sync vehicle to Sync 3. They really just want you to buy a new vehicle.
"Support" in the sense of technical support for customers is different from the type of "servicing" support being referred to in the article. They are not getting rid of anything they've ever promised or dropping technical support. They are simply not servicing the OS with new features to take advantage of new features on some new hardware.
Right on - and with the XP madness, we should legislate, and mandate software companies (who are providing entire operating systems) to support them for a reasonable amount of time.
@Notmyusualid: "we should legislate, and mandate software companies (who are providing entire operating systems) to support them for a reasonable amount of time."
YEAH!!! Like about 15 years for phones and tablets. Desktop and laptops get 30 years. Servers get 40 years. That way it will be in line with common loan terms in the United States (which is the legislative jurisdiction of Microsoft, Google, and Apple for the purpose presented).
What's that? You don't think that is reasonable. Do you really think U.S. legislators have any idea what is reasonable? This is the kind of madness you'll get if you let people with no clue about technology make the decision.
They created the problem for themselves by releasing new Windows versions every few years in order to keep people buying what they already had. They cost business untold man-hours in retraining for each "new and improved" version so that they could make the claim that it was something new that should be paid for (again) and not just an update to an older product (which they expect to get for free).
MS profited from this model for a bunch of years, and supporting older versions was the trade-off. Now that they ruined that model by releasing a series of duds, people have gotten out of the habit of upgrading simply because a new product was available. So now that the need to support all of the many versions they created is all cost and no (future) profit, we're supposed to let them off the hook?
All of Windows has old code. It's the NT code based, evolved and changed over the years, but it hasn't been rewritten from scratch at any point since the release of XP. Linux is the same way... it's patched and modified, but not rewritten.
As for (3)... suck it up, guys; you're getting a paycheck. It may be more fun to work on "new and cool," but I'm not picking an OS based on what's fun for their programmers. It's more fun to add new features than to debug, too; debugging is drudgery, but it's necessary.
You haven't hit on the real reason MS is pushing 10 so hard. They're afraid of becoming the next AOL, a former juggernaut in its category that failed to keep up with the times. They see the world switching to phones and tablets, and they don't have a credible entry in that market that is capable of standing toe-to-toe with Apple and Google. Windows 8 was the first attempt to use their desktop near-monopoly to make up for lost ground and force a credible app store into being. By making the desktop OS app-centric, it was supposed to entice devs to write Windows Phone apps that also happened to work on PCs, so those devs would not have to worry that they were wasting their time developing for a platform with no customers. That's why 8 was regarded by many as a mess for desktop PCs... it was never really about them. It was about the mobiles.
MS miscalculated how much "mobile" people would tolerate in their desktop PC environments, and 8 never sold well. It never became the dominant OS, and even after MS released 8.1, it was clear that it never would. In order to convince devs that they should write phone apps, though, it has to be the dominant version of Windows, or else anyone would see that writing a Metro app is going to reach less potential customers than a Win32 one, which will still work on 7 (and XP, if they wanted it to).
10 was a second attempt at that, but "Now with more desperation!" Two years after the release of 8, MS was no closer to having a credible mobile app store than before. They dialed back the mobile, made it superficially more like 7, and released it again... but they could not take the chance that it would not take the world by storm. It's imperative to their business model that it does just that. A worthy successor to XP and 7 was never in the cards-- it was only going to be as much "desktop" as was required to get people into the pool of potential Metro (now UWP) app customers. Thus, the free upgrade to 10 was born.
The failure with 8 had revealed that releasing a new Windows version each few years was no longer working in the post-Vista era. Vista was not just a one-time misstep; two failed Windows versions was a pattern. So thus was born the "Windows as a service," and all of the negatives that come along with that, like the forced upgrades. There was no reason the sudden push to slurp massive customer data had to go along with that model changeover, but what better time to do it would there be? It could be passed off as necessary for Cortana or as part of how they are now "servicing" us customers.
So that's the story of why MS is pushing so hard. They want all of us desktop users on 10, because they don't care about desktop users anymore. 7 won't help sales of Windows mobile devices, so it's no good to MS anymore. 8 won't either, since they (again) changed the format and APIs of the apps, and it's all about UWP now, not Metro.
Sorry to disappoint you, MS, but I'm not "upgrading" to an inferior product so that you can use me to try to catapult your way into another market.
There is so much wrong in this. First of all. The consumer market is a fraction of the money they make. Enterprise buy per seat licenses. Many of them are still on win7. But they could deploy win7->10 if they like as long as they pay per seat. The OS version number doesn't matter to the cost.
Win10 is not about catapulting into another market. It is about keeping windows attractive for developers. That includes adding features that are generally found in mobile first OSs. Win8 was a miscalc but win10 is a very different beast. If you cant see that, I would suggest you haven't used it for a long enough period of time.
It amuses me that people think MS should just add features to their OS forever for nothing. They have maybe the best LT support of all OSs and you still want more? Crazy.
"The more you tighten your grip, the more star systems will slip through your fingers"
Having a MS account is optional with Windows 10 right now. Next week it may be mandatory. Who knows. Every Microsoft decision seems to be made with a coin flip these days. It is still the most dysfunctional management in the tech industry. So much wasted potential.
I have 10 on 3 computers and I have no problems. On my workstation, I have tried 10 Pro twice. Everything's OK till I try to use IE. It crawls and is unusable and I hate Edge. No right click on the back button amongst other irritations. So I revert to 7 Pro, then you have to sort through the updates to see what crap they're going to dump on you to prepare and nag you to upgrade. Everyone keeps making excuses for Microsoft, but they committing the cardinal sin: telling the customer what they want.
Through several forums, and keeping an eye on Microsoft's "sneakware", these KB's appear to be involved in the W-10 update (l doubt this is a complete list BTW):
I personally don't concern myself with updates that do pre-upgrade checks for compatibility. It is KB3035583 that installs the GWX nagware, so that is the one I try to avoid. I was primarily speaking about home users by the way. I just run a script to prevent the Win10 OS upgrade and if KB3035583 is installed, I just run a script to uninstall it. The problem is that I have hidden that update several times and it keeps getting put back into the update queue.
At companies we just hide KB3035583 in WSUS or SCCM and it isn't an issue.
"When you set out to take Vienna, TAKE Vienna" Microsoft has gone through so many reversals of policy that who in their right mind would trust their business to anything they say? Whatever you're relying on, it will probably be altered next year.
Is the policy business first or consumers first? Are phones essential or a side issue? Is Windows 10 free forever or will never be free again? Is the goal that Windows is the "Always backwards compatible OS" or is it the "First with new features, first to match new usage models OS"?
Business first. Always. Then Gaming, Mobile and Cloud are next.
Phones are essential. They have made quite a few errors on this one. But with Win10 they just need to commit serious software resources and it will come good. Never going to beat Android or iOS. But should be good in enterprise. Remains to be seen if Nadella fixes this though.
WIN 10 is not free. You still need to buy a license for every machine. The upgrade is free for the first year after that, probably an upgrade fee.
It is backwards compatible AND first with some new features. Second with others.
You're missing the point. I actually agree with your answers; the point is that these are NOT the messages MS sends out. The message of Win8+Metro was that shininess was more important than backwards compatibility, and that consumer was more important than enterprise. The message from Win Phone 7.8 (and the constant delay and uncertainty in feature set of Win Phone 10) is that phones are unimportant.
This Skylake about face is more of the same --- the company seems incapable of sending a coherent message because it appears to have no idea what that message IS. Satya may have a coherent plan, but he also seems to be head of an organization that continues to tolerate massive deviations from the global strategy at the lower levels. (The most obvious example of this, of course, being the whole .NET clusterfsck.)
There's a simple solution to this. Just buy an AMD processor so you don't have to worry about having those pesky new features or annoying additional capabilities. You pay less and sure they're stuck on 28nm transistors for the moment ANNND you fell like you've crawled back into the bad old days of Soviet Russia-style computing where the entire experience is akin to being lined up and handed a bowl of mysterious, gray sludge as a meal, but you certainly don't have to worry at all about any cutting edge technologies that were implemented that the OS doesn't understand how to utilize.
On a more serious note, I am rather surprised that Microsoft backed off from their earlier stance. Because the company is happily ramming telemetry down the throats of customers (something that you can stop at your perimeter firewall with some good ACLs, but was more of a pain in my sexy tush to implement than installing Linux) and forcing updates, upgrades, and being quite a nag when it comes to running anything older, I would have thought they were still in the business of doing what they did when Windows 8 was coming out. To paraphrase a line that came out of Microsoft very loosely, they were to, "stay the course and ignore what the world was saying" which worked out very well for them with Windows 8, as I recall.
With Win 10: I lost USB 3.0 on my Z68 chipset /external AsMedia chip/ Recently all my PCs dropped common share on network due to "missing protocols" after Win 10 update.
So far, not very promising :(. At least I paid almost nothing for 6 licences - a deal that not going to be repeated, from the Win 8 intro era. If I am to pay for Windows licences - one gaming PC at most, the rest is Mac laptops and iPhones. Dumb enough, they work, cost the same, and are resellable.
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shabby - Friday, March 18, 2016 - link
I'm sure there will be a few more extensions.Gigaplex - Friday, March 18, 2016 - link
"After July 2017, patches that are found to cause an issue with Skylake systems would be excluded from certain security patches"What is so different with Skylake that makes it 'incompatible' with a legacy operating system?
Alexvrb - Saturday, March 19, 2016 - link
It's not incompatible. Win7/8 don't take full advantage of some of Skylake's new features. But at least now they're making sure to keep Skylake systems up to date in terms of security patches. They're not going to be updating the kernel to support new extensions and features, however. If you want to get the most out of Skylake and other future x86 architectures (including AMD's Zen) with an MS OS you would need to use W10. My experiences with W10 have actually been pretty positive. There's still room for improvement but I think overall it's much more accommodating to more systems than 8.x ever was.Samus - Saturday, March 19, 2016 - link
The real irony here is how similar Windows 8.1 and Windows 10 are architecturally. This is purely a business move. Adding skylake extensions to the Windows 8.1 kernel wouldn't be a big deal, but most people on W8 are biting that free upgrade to Windows 10 (except me, because I actually liked Windows 8, who gives a shit about the start menu....really.)Windows 8 still has an edge over Windows 10 in battery life (even Windows software group admits that) and the simple fact I can control my updates and maintain the legacy control panel for all system operations are imperative features. Eventually I'll move all my systems to W10, most already have, but my gaming system and my laptop will stick to Windows 8.1 for the mean time.
Sivar - Saturday, March 19, 2016 - link
Agreed -- I will move to Windows 10 once I can actually control when updates take place.I understand why Microsoft forces updates, but I don't care. If I have a 15 day render or transcoding task, under exactly no circumstances should my computer EVER reboot without my explicit permission.
Brett Howse - Saturday, March 19, 2016 - link
Change it to Notify to Schedule Restart. It's the first thing I do on a new PC.Alexvrb - Saturday, March 19, 2016 - link
Great Brett. Now he's going to have to find a new excuse. I hope you're happy.inighthawki - Saturday, March 19, 2016 - link
For me, this is actually not good enough. Under no circumstances do I want the OS to decide for me that it will reboot after a certain period of time. I get to choose, and that's final. For this reason the first thing I do with Win10 installs is disable the Windows update service. When I'm ready to update, I reenable it and check for updates. Yes, I am putting myself at risk, but that's the price I pay to get the mode I want. If Microsoft's goal was to make me secure and up to date, their plan backfired on me.doggface - Sunday, March 20, 2016 - link
I applaud you for updating to win10 and finding a way around the feature that annoys you. Rather than whingeing forever and living eternally in a win7 wet dream. Even if i think the reasoning is maybe a little odd. Also I am sure that Microsoft are not targeting the users who have the knowledge to stop a service. I am definitely sure they are targeting users that don't know what Phishing is, or who think clicking side adverts is a good idea. They are the ones auto-update is supposed to help.jabber - Sunday, March 20, 2016 - link
If MS was really that concerned about user security it would get rid of Admin accounts being setup as the main user account. The fact that Admin is still the default is crazy.damianrobertjones - Monday, March 21, 2016 - link
Good lord man... the moment MS released UAC the internet decided to turn it off! The world would crumble if MS did such a thing.Sivar - Sunday, March 20, 2016 - link
That doesn't work. I merely to choose a nearby restart date, or have it decided for me if I do not.If I have a 15 day render, what does it matter if I get to reboot tomorrow or next Monday if the render's progress is lost either way?
r3loaded - Saturday, March 19, 2016 - link
It doesn't automatically restart anymore unless there's no one logged in. It'll simply put up a message saying "Updates have been installed, restart when possible".inighthawki - Saturday, March 19, 2016 - link
That's definitely not true for me. My surface, which is on insider builds, has installed entire OS flights and rebooted when even in connected standby before. It's the worst experience ever to open up my device and find out its 42% through an OS install... I had not configured the device, though, so it may have been with "automatically install updated" instead of "notify to schedule"jardows2 - Monday, March 21, 2016 - link
The difference is that you are on the insider builds. As an insider, you are under different rules, and should expect things like this.06GTOSC - Monday, March 21, 2016 - link
You've been able to do this for a long time in Windows and 10 is no different. You simply tell it to notify you and it doesn't automatically install them.Alexvrb - Saturday, March 19, 2016 - link
Win10 still has a newer version of the kernel and it's not worth updating Win8 for a number of reasons. You can still use Skylake on such a system if you really want. More importantly, how many new/upgraded Skylake systems are getting built/upgraded with Win8.x? They need to focus on Win10, and they want Win8 users to get on board. Adding support for new processor features and instructions is counter-productive in addition to being a waste of resources.e36Jeff - Sunday, March 20, 2016 - link
You can access the control panel by right clicking the start button and selecting control panel. literally the same number of clicks as 7 & 8.Krysto - Sunday, March 27, 2016 - link
> But at least now they're making sure to keep Skylake systems up to date in terms of security patches.Except only until for another year or so.
ChefJeff789 - Friday, March 18, 2016 - link
I like Windows 10, but MS is pushing too hard for Windows 10 on every system. The obnoxious upgrade reminders, the telemetry reporting, and the occasional forced upgrades to Windows 10 are really starting to grate on a lot of people.HollyDOL - Saturday, March 19, 2016 - link
I can understand why they push so much to it.1) It costs lots of resources to update old system (you need to pay devs, support etc.)
2) Old code, no matter how clean could be when released, gets patched and patched over and is getting harder to maintain as it gets older
3) Nobody wants to spend time on dying software, it's demotivating for developers, everybody wants to work on the new&cool
so when MS pushes to W10 they are trying to slap many flies with one hit. And those above are just developers' point of view...
Arnulf - Saturday, March 19, 2016 - link
They are still SELLING Windows 7.How f*cking difficult can it be to provide support for a product you are actively selling (not something that you have shelved years ago and moved on)?!?!
Spunjji - Saturday, March 19, 2016 - link
Microsoft's not a monolithic entity. You can bet your bottom dollar that the people responsible for trying to cancel future-proofing support on 7 and 8.1 and the people responsible for 7 still being on sale are not the same people, or the same division. They are probably not even in the same building.The economic reality is that MS have to sell 7 whether they want to or not. If their customers had their own way, they would still be selling XP.
Arnulf - Saturday, March 19, 2016 - link
Agreed 100%.And they should be providing support for their product (Windows 7) because they are still actively selling it - no ifs, no buts.
Samus - Saturday, March 19, 2016 - link
They are supporting it, but they aren't obligated to add features to it that weren't originally included, such as kernel level optimizations for Skylake. This would be like ford upgrading every Sync vehicle to Sync 3. They really just want you to buy a new vehicle.Ascaris - Saturday, March 19, 2016 - link
But they're not talking about adding support for anything... they're talking about dropping the support they already have.inighthawki - Saturday, March 19, 2016 - link
"Support" in the sense of technical support for customers is different from the type of "servicing" support being referred to in the article. They are not getting rid of anything they've ever promised or dropping technical support. They are simply not servicing the OS with new features to take advantage of new features on some new hardware.Notmyusualid - Sunday, March 20, 2016 - link
Right on - and with the XP madness, we should legislate, and mandate software companies (who are providing entire operating systems) to support them for a reasonable amount of time.BurntMyBacon - Monday, March 21, 2016 - link
@Notmyusualid: "we should legislate, and mandate software companies (who are providing entire operating systems) to support them for a reasonable amount of time."YEAH!!! Like about 15 years for phones and tablets. Desktop and laptops get 30 years. Servers get 40 years. That way it will be in line with common loan terms in the United States (which is the legislative jurisdiction of Microsoft, Google, and Apple for the purpose presented).
What's that? You don't think that is reasonable. Do you really think U.S. legislators have any idea what is reasonable? This is the kind of madness you'll get if you let people with no clue about technology make the decision.
Ascaris - Saturday, March 19, 2016 - link
They created the problem for themselves by releasing new Windows versions every few years in order to keep people buying what they already had. They cost business untold man-hours in retraining for each "new and improved" version so that they could make the claim that it was something new that should be paid for (again) and not just an update to an older product (which they expect to get for free).MS profited from this model for a bunch of years, and supporting older versions was the trade-off. Now that they ruined that model by releasing a series of duds, people have gotten out of the habit of upgrading simply because a new product was available. So now that the need to support all of the many versions they created is all cost and no (future) profit, we're supposed to let them off the hook?
All of Windows has old code. It's the NT code based, evolved and changed over the years, but it hasn't been rewritten from scratch at any point since the release of XP. Linux is the same way... it's patched and modified, but not rewritten.
As for (3)... suck it up, guys; you're getting a paycheck. It may be more fun to work on "new and cool," but I'm not picking an OS based on what's fun for their programmers. It's more fun to add new features than to debug, too; debugging is drudgery, but it's necessary.
You haven't hit on the real reason MS is pushing 10 so hard. They're afraid of becoming the next AOL, a former juggernaut in its category that failed to keep up with the times. They see the world switching to phones and tablets, and they don't have a credible entry in that market that is capable of standing toe-to-toe with Apple and Google. Windows 8 was the first attempt to use their desktop near-monopoly to make up for lost ground and force a credible app store into being. By making the desktop OS app-centric, it was supposed to entice devs to write Windows Phone apps that also happened to work on PCs, so those devs would not have to worry that they were wasting their time developing for a platform with no customers. That's why 8 was regarded by many as a mess for desktop PCs... it was never really about them. It was about the mobiles.
MS miscalculated how much "mobile" people would tolerate in their desktop PC environments, and 8 never sold well. It never became the dominant OS, and even after MS released 8.1, it was clear that it never would. In order to convince devs that they should write phone apps, though, it has to be the dominant version of Windows, or else anyone would see that writing a Metro app is going to reach less potential customers than a Win32 one, which will still work on 7 (and XP, if they wanted it to).
10 was a second attempt at that, but "Now with more desperation!" Two years after the release of 8, MS was no closer to having a credible mobile app store than before. They dialed back the mobile, made it superficially more like 7, and released it again... but they could not take the chance that it would not take the world by storm. It's imperative to their business model that it does just that. A worthy successor to XP and 7 was never in the cards-- it was only going to be as much "desktop" as was required to get people into the pool of potential Metro (now UWP) app customers. Thus, the free upgrade to 10 was born.
The failure with 8 had revealed that releasing a new Windows version each few years was no longer working in the post-Vista era. Vista was not just a one-time misstep; two failed Windows versions was a pattern. So thus was born the "Windows as a service," and all of the negatives that come along with that, like the forced upgrades. There was no reason the sudden push to slurp massive customer data had to go along with that model changeover, but what better time to do it would there be? It could be passed off as necessary for Cortana or as part of how they are now "servicing" us customers.
So that's the story of why MS is pushing so hard. They want all of us desktop users on 10, because they don't care about desktop users anymore. 7 won't help sales of Windows mobile devices, so it's no good to MS anymore. 8 won't either, since they (again) changed the format and APIs of the apps, and it's all about UWP now, not Metro.
Sorry to disappoint you, MS, but I'm not "upgrading" to an inferior product so that you can use me to try to catapult your way into another market.
doggface - Sunday, March 20, 2016 - link
There is so much wrong in this.First of all. The consumer market is a fraction of the money they make.
Enterprise buy per seat licenses. Many of them are still on win7. But they could deploy win7->10 if they like as long as they pay per seat. The OS version number doesn't matter to the cost.
Win10 is not about catapulting into another market. It is about keeping windows attractive for developers. That includes adding features that are generally found in mobile first OSs. Win8 was a miscalc but win10 is a very different beast. If you cant see that, I would suggest you haven't used it for a long enough period of time.
It amuses me that people think MS should just add features to their OS forever for nothing. They have maybe the best LT support of all OSs and you still want more? Crazy.
Donkey2008 - Saturday, March 19, 2016 - link
"The more you tighten your grip, the more star systems will slip through your fingers"Having a MS account is optional with Windows 10 right now. Next week it may be mandatory. Who knows. Every Microsoft decision seems to be made with a coin flip these days. It is still the most dysfunctional management in the tech industry. So much wasted potential.
coit - Saturday, March 19, 2016 - link
I have 10 on 3 computers and I have no problems.On my workstation, I have tried 10 Pro twice. Everything's OK till I try to use IE.
It crawls and is unusable and I hate Edge. No right click on the back button amongst other irritations.
So I revert to 7 Pro, then you have to sort through the updates to see what crap they're going to dump on you to prepare and nag you to upgrade. Everyone keeps making excuses for Microsoft, but they committing the cardinal sin: telling the customer what they want.
damianrobertjones - Saturday, March 19, 2016 - link
Customers usually have no idea what they want until told by x or y.Murloc - Sunday, March 20, 2016 - link
the average consumer is helpless, you know what a workstation is, you're not an average consumer.Donkey2008 - Sunday, March 20, 2016 - link
"So I revert to 7 Pro, then you have to sort through the updates to see what crap they're going to dump on you to prepare and nag you to upgrade"No matter how many times I hide KB303583 it keeps coming back over and over.
spikey27 - Sunday, March 20, 2016 - link
Through several forums, and keeping an eye on Microsoft's "sneakware", these KB's appear to be involved in the W-10 update (l doubt this is a complete list BTW):KB3075249
KB3080149
KB3068708
KB3035583
KB2952664
KB3021917
KB3022345
Best wishes on dodging the W-10 bullet.
Donkey2008 - Wednesday, March 23, 2016 - link
I personally don't concern myself with updates that do pre-upgrade checks for compatibility. It is KB3035583 that installs the GWX nagware, so that is the one I try to avoid. I was primarily speaking about home users by the way. I just run a script to prevent the Win10 OS upgrade and if KB3035583 is installed, I just run a script to uninstall it. The problem is that I have hidden that update several times and it keeps getting put back into the update queue.At companies we just hide KB3035583 in WSUS or SCCM and it isn't an issue.
BurntMyBacon - Monday, March 21, 2016 - link
@coit: "Everyone keeps making excuses for Microsoft, but they committing the cardinal sin: NOT BEING APPLE AND telling the customer what they want."Fixed That For You.
UltraWide - Saturday, March 19, 2016 - link
It's time to move forward. Taking a page of the OSX playbook. ;)name99 - Saturday, March 19, 2016 - link
"When you set out to take Vienna, TAKE Vienna"Microsoft has gone through so many reversals of policy that who in their right mind would trust their business to anything they say? Whatever you're relying on, it will probably be altered next year.
Is the policy business first or consumers first?
Are phones essential or a side issue?
Is Windows 10 free forever or will never be free again?
Is the goal that Windows is the "Always backwards compatible OS" or is it the "First with new features, first to match new usage models OS"?
doggface - Sunday, March 20, 2016 - link
THIS IS AN EASY GAME.Business first. Always. Then Gaming, Mobile and Cloud are next.
Phones are essential. They have made quite a few errors on this one. But with Win10 they just need to commit serious software resources and it will come good. Never going to beat Android or iOS. But should be good in enterprise. Remains to be seen if Nadella fixes this though.
WIN 10 is not free. You still need to buy a license for every machine. The upgrade is free for the first year after that, probably an upgrade fee.
It is backwards compatible AND first with some new features. Second with others.
name99 - Sunday, March 20, 2016 - link
You're missing the point. I actually agree with your answers; the point is that these are NOT the messages MS sends out. The message of Win8+Metro was that shininess was more important than backwards compatibility, and that consumer was more important than enterprise. The message from Win Phone 7.8 (and the constant delay and uncertainty in feature set of Win Phone 10) is that phones are unimportant.This Skylake about face is more of the same --- the company seems incapable of sending a coherent message because it appears to have no idea what that message IS. Satya may have a coherent plan, but he also seems to be head of an organization that continues to tolerate massive deviations from the global strategy at the lower levels. (The most obvious example of this, of course, being the whole .NET clusterfsck.)
There's a reason that xkcd image for MS org char was multiple guns pointing at each other. And nothing seems to have changed since the cartoon was drawn:
http://www.bonkersworld.net/images/2011.06.27_orga...
Ascaris - Saturday, March 19, 2016 - link
"Pray they don’t alter it any further."I used that same quote in reference to Microsoft's actions not long ago.
just4U - Saturday, March 19, 2016 - link
Didn't Darth Vader also use that quote?.. or something very very similar.Holliday75 - Monday, March 21, 2016 - link
Yes, that was a reference to Star Wars. I doubt it was a coincidence.icedeocampo - Sunday, March 20, 2016 - link
Grammar / typo error on the end of 5th paragraphBrokenCrayons - Monday, March 21, 2016 - link
There's a simple solution to this. Just buy an AMD processor so you don't have to worry about having those pesky new features or annoying additional capabilities. You pay less and sure they're stuck on 28nm transistors for the moment ANNND you fell like you've crawled back into the bad old days of Soviet Russia-style computing where the entire experience is akin to being lined up and handed a bowl of mysterious, gray sludge as a meal, but you certainly don't have to worry at all about any cutting edge technologies that were implemented that the OS doesn't understand how to utilize.On a more serious note, I am rather surprised that Microsoft backed off from their earlier stance. Because the company is happily ramming telemetry down the throats of customers (something that you can stop at your perimeter firewall with some good ACLs, but was more of a pain in my sexy tush to implement than installing Linux) and forcing updates, upgrades, and being quite a nag when it comes to running anything older, I would have thought they were still in the business of doing what they did when Windows 8 was coming out. To paraphrase a line that came out of Microsoft very loosely, they were to, "stay the course and ignore what the world was saying" which worked out very well for them with Windows 8, as I recall.
Tunrip - Monday, March 21, 2016 - link
"This deal is getting worse all the time..."Ananke - Wednesday, March 23, 2016 - link
With Win 10:I lost USB 3.0 on my Z68 chipset /external AsMedia chip/
Recently all my PCs dropped common share on network due to "missing protocols" after Win 10 update.
So far, not very promising :(. At least I paid almost nothing for 6 licences - a deal that not going to be repeated, from the Win 8 intro era. If I am to pay for Windows licences - one gaming PC at most, the rest is Mac laptops and iPhones. Dumb enough, they work, cost the same, and are resellable.