“Right now we’re releasing Windows 10, and because Windows 10 is the last version of Windows, we’re all still working on Windows 10.” That was the message from Microsoft employee Jerry Nixon, a developer evangelist speaking at the company’s Ignite conference this week. Nixon was explaining how Microsoft was launching Windows 8.1 last year, but in the background it was developing Windows 10. Now, Microsoft employees can talk freely about future updates to Windows 10 because there’s no secret update in the works coming next. It’s all just Windows 10. While it immediately sounds like Microsoft is killing off Windows and not doing future versions, the reality is a little more complex. The future is “Windows as a service.”
Call me a convert. Instead of having to buy several copies of Office every few years for multiple computers (I require Office for my translation company), I now have a ^a`not99/year Office subscription allowing me to install Office on 5 PCs and 5 mobile devices. I know most of our readers are not a fan of this model, but I, personally, am all for it.
I can see how it would work well in Thoms case. But for the average user who buys a copy once and holds on to it for say 5 years or more, Im not so sure. Academic copies were pretty sweet one of purchases too.
I agree with you. I still have an old copy of Windows XP Pro, MS Office 2007 and MS Office 2010 that I use. Still have not reached the 5 maximum install on any of those so why would someone like me want to pay a subscription model? I like the idea of actually owning something and I still get the feeling I do when I have the product/activation key after shelling out $300 for a piece of software. I know I don’t own the software, but I own the activation key, which matters to me.
I still mostly install GNU/Linux or a BSD on my machines. It’s just easier and less hassle.
Lets face, it software as a service is a bald faced way of making more money.
Yes, it is, which makes Microsoft the same as any other listed company, or indeed pretty much any private company. Companies only exist to serve their shareholders, if they think selling copies outright will make more money, they’ll do that, if they think software as a service will make more money, they’ll do that.
For me, Office 365 makes a lot of sense, I stay on the latest version on several computers. For other products, maybe less expensive ones, it makes less sense.
Perhaps if people sleepwalk into paying for software as a service. I wont buy into it.
I bet in 5-10 years this will all be moot and software as a service quite the norm.
Edited 2015-05-08 08:24 UTC
Perhaps we’ll be seeing something akin to the in-app-subscription model used by some of the free productivity app suites. MS gives away the core OS (meaning the equivalent of what we get today in a basic install of Windows) for free, and offer subscription based packages for stuff like Office, Visual Studio, server packages, etc.
Probably just as unpopular as typical subscription models, and in many ways it’s no different to what they’re doing right now, aside from not charging for the base product. If they’re so confident in the subscription model, then it does make practical sense. Different institutions can still subscribe to various package and support options at discounted rates and the like.
And at any point company may decide that it is not making enough money and shut down the service.
Yeah, and you also have to think about the practical ramifications of this too. For example, if you install a fresh copy of Windows 8 today, it takes about a day and a half, and 90+ reboots just to install all of the updates. Can you imagine what this process would be like if your copy of Windows 10 was 5 years old or more? By the time you got it installed and updated, Windows 11 would be out
And with all of these little updates, this better be some background shit, and not something that forces me to reboot every other day.
Also, if you got a brand new video card (or whatever) that said it was compatible with Windows 10, what specific ‘version’ of Windows 10 would it work with? Will we have Windows 10.1, 10.2, etc? At some point, they’re going to break something with the rapid updates …
Edited 2015-05-08 02:06 UTC
I guess MS could be more obliging with releasing service packs. Those suckers can be slipstreamed into the OS.
Yea you make a good point about hardware support, looks like versioning of a sort is here to stay.
Edited 2015-05-08 04:00 UTC
Or you could have (As with Server 2012) a single Security Update (1 download) that is 800+ Mb in size…
I have been saying for at least 10 years that the MS update model is totally borked. How many times have you had an update that failed with some wierd 8000????? number? The last time the reason was that Update B needed to be installed after Update A but Update A hadn’t been installed at that point in the process.
Then seemingly endless reboots that are needed for some components (.Net, I’m looking at you kid) are a real PITA
Not everyone or evey organsation has the skills or the time to setup WSUS so you are left with huge downloads for every device.
On the otherhand, I updated my CentOS 6.5 server the other day. It had been up for 392 days. The downloads of the updates took less than 4 minutes and the server was offline for a total of one reboot that took less than 2 minutes.
Two commands and it was done and rebooted.
It works fairly well on linux, maybe they got some pointers from that wrt updates, or just bundle them into bigger update packs.
Only took about 45 minutes of updates when I installed a clean version of 8.1 on a laptop this week. Took another 20 minutes of downloading and installing the Dell specific drivers/software.
What took longer was discovering that in order to make a USB-based 8.1 installer I needed to turn off “USB selective suspend” in the power options– probably to make up for a buggy USB driver.
Yeah, that was 8.1, not 8.
8.1 is the latest version of 8. It it a free upgrade, fix, whatever you call it. If you are installing 8.0, you are just going to be downloading more updates.
Well, yeah– why would you deliberately install an older version? Did you really keep installing XP without any service packs and then complain about all the updates?
If you did, you’re a more patient person than I am.
I am only really concerned with what might turn into subscription fees in the long term. I do subscribe to Office 365 already.
Well – in my opinion there is an difference between an subscription for an program and an subscription for an whole operating system.
If you not longer pay your monthly/yearly rent, you cannot longer use the office program, but you can freely use another program like Libre Office and others.
However – if your complete operating system stops working because you have not (or can not) pay the monthly/yearly rent, you have an huge problem. It is no longer an program that stopped working, but the complete “environment” where all your (personal) data and programs are hosted.
From the perspective of the “normal” (not tech-savvy) user it would be equivalent to something like ransomeware. You can not get acces to your personal data, until you payed your monthly/yearly bill or “protection money” (yes – an bit over the top here, but you get the picture).
Sure – there are alternatives for Windows, but -as I said- most users would have no idea it is even there or how to use/install it.
That said – I have no idea how this will turn out to be. It is too early to say. But until it is very clear what I can expect, I certainly will not update any Windows 7 and 8 installation I have to Windows 10, even if it is completely “free” (for life of the .. device or something).
I doubt that MS could legally kill your software. They would probably just block updates and add an anoying renew subscription reminder.
But it’s not really your software. If you’re just paying for a service (in this case, the OS), I’m sure they could quite easily and legally stop it from working. Your programs and data would still be perfectly intact, just a bit useless if you can’t log into your machine.
Think of it this way: it’s not the electric company’s fault you can’t watch your favourite TV shows when you don’t pay your electricity bill and they cut you off. You still have your TV and all your recorded shows on your Tivo box, they’re just useless when the underlying infrastructure is disabled.
I’ve news for you: even if you “buy” software, it still not yours. There is no difference in ownership when it comes to “buying” software or “buying” a software service.
Yep, well aware of that, thanks. But as it stands, once you’ve registered and licenced Software, you can normally use it indefinitely. To the layperson that is much the same experience as owning – one up-front payment and then you can use it until it breaks and can’t be repaired. A subscription-based service changes that to the equivalent of renting.
But anyway, my point was that Microsoft could quite easily (and probably legally) totally disable your PC if you fail to pay your subscription, thus rendering all your applications useless, as that’s what unclefester doesn’t seem to think could happen.
It’s not about who owns the software, but more about how long you could use it. E.g., if an OS subscription runs out and you can’t use it anymore, then there’s no more storing your old computer in the basement and digging it out in 5+ years [*] for one reason or another, since it might not even boot anymore [**]. That would be sad.
[*] or for that matter, saving a virtual image with all kinds of old software then trying to reuse it after a few years
[**] you could in theory use a regular bought software till you want, but if it’d be a SAAS, and the service – and/or the company providing it – goes away, you won’t be able to use it anymore
And with regular Windows, the activation servers eventually stop working, causing the exact same concern.
How often does windows contact the activation servers ?
I though windows would still work like normal without internet access.
I really don’t use windows very often maybe once a year in a vm just to mess around, so I am not sure but I thought it would work without internet.
With Windows 7, once the activation process is completed, the computer never needs to access the internet again. Not sure about Windows 8 or 10.
The concern is, what happens in ten or fifteen years when the activation servers are turned off and you wish to reformat the drive and reinstall Windows?
Or what happens when the activation servers are turned off when someone tries to install a new copy of Windows 7 that they long-ago squirreled away?
I don’t believe that has ever happened has it? Windows XP was the first version that had product activation and even though it is completely unsupported now you can still activate it.
It has happened with software from other companies. For example, when Adobe turned off the registration servers for Creative Suite 2 they simply posted a universal registration key and offered the software as a free download.
That is not quite correct in the least. It depends on the product and contractual models, but there can be a huge difference in ownership between actually buying software and renting it as a service.
Edited 2015-05-08 16:11 UTC
The electricity analogy is absurd. It costs money to provide electricity.
Windows 10 is provided free of charge with a limited annual support contract (updates and patches) included.
There is no ongoing cost (except providing updates) to MS once Windows 10 is installed. If there is no cost to MS they are very unlikely convince a court that the contract has been breached. MS has few options except stopping updates and nagging customers.
Next you will be claiming that Ford can legally disable cars if they don’t get an annual service at an authorised Ford dealer.
“The electricity analogy is absurd. It costs money to provide electricity.”
If you hire something it is not relevant if the thing you hire cost money to provide. You hire it “as is”. Adobe is perfectly capable to provide software that stops working if you stop paying for the subscription. Microsoft can do the same thing for Windows. All completely legal.
“Windows 10 is provided free of charge with a limited annual support contract (updates and patches) included.”
How do you know? We have yet to see the actual form in wich Windows 10 will be delivered. Nobody (at this moment) has any insight in this, because Microsoft has not yet released anything that you can base your statement on.
“There is no ongoing cost (except providing updates) to MS once Windows 10 is installed. If there is no cost to MS they are very unlikely convince a court that the contract has been breached. MS has few options except stopping updates and nagging customers.”
Still Adobe seems to do just exactly that. Microsoft is perfectly capable to argue that they have to build the same “cloud service” and have to mantain that at their cost. I yet have to see that Adobe is drawn to court by an user that has stopped paying and demands that Adobe has to delever “their” program.
“Next you will be claiming that Ford can legally disable cars if they don’t get an annual service at an authorised Ford dealer.”
Nope – but if you hire an car, it is completelety obvious they will recollect the car if you stop paying the rent. There is an HUGE difference between buying something and renting it…
Adobe software is not considered essential to the normal operation of a computer. It is not factory installed so the computer manufacturer has no contractual obligation to the buyer. The rental contract exists between Adobe and the buyer.
Trialware is provided free of charge as part of the factory install. The buyer is told in advance that the product is free and will expire after a certain time. They are given the option to purchase if they wish to continue to use the product.
Edited 2015-05-09 14:32 UTC
EULAs have never been properly tested in US courts. There is real chance that they could be be declared invalid (as they already are in many non-US jurisdictions) by a future Supreme Court case.
Ehhh.. Microsoft can argue Windows is not really essential to let the computer hardware function as intended. They can point out there are alternatives (Linux, BSD) that are perfectly capable of let the hardware work. The same arguments that are used here by an lot people to argue Microsoft has no “monopoly”. You can even access your data (altough you cannot run any program that’s not supported by wine). If you try to argue in court that Windows is “essential” to let the hardware function, I am afraid there is no real strong case.
Then there is “maintenance”. Well – that’s another “can of worms” we bump into.
First of all – the hardware is not the problem of Microsoft, so if something goes wrong with that it’s the harware vendor that’s responsible. After all – it’s not an “Microsoft computer”, but an Asus, MSI or other vendor’s hardware.
With that out of the way there is the “software mainenance”. Well – Microsoft could demand that the user also has to do their part to keep things clean. If the user does something not approved by Microsoft that “breaks” the software, it’s not Microsoft’s fault. Ths could have the effect that the user only can use “Microsoft signed and approved” programs,like only “Microsoft store” programs, or programs or drivers from “Microsoft partners”(by controlling what drivers are signed they can also control what hardware is “allowed” on their platform…for just a small fee naturally). If the user wants to install an program or driver that’s not approved by Microsoft, they risk to loose their contractual support and/or “right on maintenance”.
Far fetched? Sure.. I am the first one that will say that there is an lot of speculation here (and an considerable bit of tongue in cheek). But… Really Absolutely Unthinkable? Well… ehrmmm.. it’s Microsoft we are dealing with here, don’t we?
Then there is the argument that you cannot ask an rent for something that is given for “free”. Well – that depends. Microsoft said that the sofware is given for free to function for the “life time of the device”. Nice nice… but what is the “device”? The computer? And if I change parts of the hardware is it still the same “device”? When does it stops to be the same “device”? And if it’s not longer the same device will “free” become “subscription”? As said – we yet have to see the legal therms for the “free” Windows 10, so everything is speculation at this moment.
And that’s only for “old” Windows 7 and 8 users. What will become the terms of an brand new “Windows 10” user? We have not seen the terms and conditions for that software yet. It will be interesting to see how that will turn out to be.
You just don’t get it.
If the hardware and software are bundled the manufacturer (Dell, Asus etc) is legally responsible for the function of the device. [Just like a car manufacturer is legally responsible for components provided by other companies.]
The only legal way Windows 10 can have an expiry date is by selling it as a standalone product.ie Installed after the consumer buys the product.
If Windows is no longer bundled vendors and retailers would simply offer a Linux install at no cost undercutting Windows machines.
I am afraid you are the one that is still not getting it.
You see – when Microsoft goes to subscription based with Windows 10, the only thing manufactuers have to do is making Windows 10 an optional choice for the buyer. They can also offer the hardware with -say- Winows 8, DOS or Linux (some do this already), and they shift the choice to the consumer and thus are “off the hook”.
The only thing they have to do then is pointing out they are not responsible for the software and make it very clear it is only an option between other possibilities before you buy their stuff.
The problem is, that you still keep referring to the old “bundled” model, while it is very possible Windows 10 will be offered under very different therms and conditions – especially when it becomes optional. I said it times and times again: “we do not know (yet) what terms and conditions will come with Windows 10”! and the same goes for the way the manufacturers will offer Windows 10 in the future. Until that is clear everything is just speculation.
That goes for you and me. The only thing we differ in vision is that you keep clinging to the “old” sales model, while I am prepared to see things could change – including the possibility Windows 10 will be offered in an different way on the hardware, just to avoid that “bundled” concept.
But this is the last thing I say about that. I can only conclude we agree to disagree, and that’s that…
People will then say “I’ll take the free OS and MS can get fscked.”
You don’t seriously think that MS would be obliged to provide you with a service after you stopped paying for it?
Windows 10 is free. The “service” is providing support and updates.
The situation is basically the same as buying a RHEL support contract. Red Hat is free but you pay for support. Stop paying and support stops – but your install still works.
How do you know? Have you seen the delivery therms on witch Windows 10 is provided yet?
If you do – please give an link to those contract therms, because I think an lot of people will be very interested to see that..
Do you consider Linux distros like Red Hat to be “ransomware”? Because we have every indication that is the model they are going for and every knock against MSFT for this new direction so far has been FUD with zero evidence or facts to back it up.
In the current build of Windows 10 you have “fast” and “slow” builds, this is comparable to the Linux “stable” and “testing” branches, you have an appstore where you can get first and third party programs which will then keep them updated, this is like a Linux repository, and every indication we have so far about the new business model looks like the FOSS business model where you give the core away for free but get paid for support and adding features.
There is NO WAY that MSFT would go for the “you haven’t paid your rent, your OS is now locked” kind of payment model because 1.- A false positive could cost a company serious $$$$ in downtime, which in turn would sue MSFT and cause a big stink, 2.- this would probably get them busted by the EU, and 3.- It would kill any possible gains for Windows 10 faster than you can say Metro.
How do you plan on carrying on with using your documents when you retire?
I’m getting close to retiring. My income will drop.
I really do not want to keep paying software rental once I retire. I have better things to spend my money on thank you very much.
If I can’t buy outright a perpetual license for the next version of some of the software I use then I won’t upgrade. I have already made that decision with Photoshop. I’ll make do with Elements from now on.
I wouldn’t mind if the upgrade “subscription” is optional and reasonably priced, like OSX.
I much prefer buying than renting. Heck, it would be better if they let us add Windows licences to our MS account and be done with the whole activation ordeal/hardware pairing/cd-keys.
Is that the subscription for Office Home? From my quick checking, Office365 Business is sold per-user, while Home and Personal editions are priced per device.
Commercial use is not permitted for the Home editions, which your translation business would fall under.
Or, do they license it differently in Europe?
It’s the same. From the Dutch license terms:
Translated: The service/software may not be used for commercial, non-profit and income-generating activities.
So, yes, in other words if Thom is using it for his translation business, he needs Office 365 Business for 8.80 per month excl. VAT (21%), aka 10.64 per user per month.
Oh, and you get the horrendous Sharepoint-based version of Onedrive with a 20,000 file limit.
Edited 2015-05-09 10:54 UTC
Right now we are in a situation where multiple programs only work with certain versions of windows and gamers are in particular affected badly by this. What happens if they change something that messes up a games compatibility. The game might say that it works with Windows 10 but what if that Windows 10 was the one from 4 years ago and not the one now. Or what if it runs but something in the game just doesn’t work properly. Windows is generally pretty good at maintaining compat but if they just run it as a service we will lack milestone points upon which to base things and no way to go back to those milestones. We’ve seen this recently in iOS where there were a few games which couldn’t be played because iOS changed. Because of this the devs issued refunds because the game that customers had bought could no longer be played.
Edited 2015-05-08 06:03 UTC
PC gamers made themselves MS’s bitches a long long time ago. To think that they consider games anything more than extra revenue is foolhardy. Even if MS forces payment for updates to make the games work the gamers will pay for it. It’s not like many game developers are seriously going to give you many options is it?
So they plan for Windows 10 to be used 10+ years from now, just like XP was (and still is used in many places). Hopefully, they will make it at least half-decent to deserve that (which I doubt, considering the published screenshots so far).
However, I fear something else will happen in practice: they may not offer Win 10 for sale in the traditional way, but only as a subscription.
At least XP, after paying the $300 (still too god damn expensive…), continued to work… to the point where it became so old and creaky you that you just couldn’t stand it anymore. Which for me was sometime between 2004 and 2006… just in time for me to learn about and start experimenting with Linux, giving me the opportunity to “upgrade” my systems while avoiding the colossal failure that came to be known as Vista.
Uh… Windows XP still works just fine. No shortage of compatible software, no short supply of compatible hardware and drivers, nor any compatibility issues with the internet.
Ask me how I know.
$300??? The Home Edition was about $100, maybe less than that for an OEM copy. And for that you got not only the original OS, but three major “service pack” updates and ten years (and counting) of useful life.
Just the other day I went to the doctor with my daughter (nothing serious, a routine check) and noticed they use Windows XP, now in 2015 (and that is a fancy private clinic, not a poor state run one). So there is plenty of juice left in XP.
Our government courthouse still had several XP machines running the last time I was in there, a few months ago. What they are used for and whether they’re connected to the internet, I don’t know. They may just be access points to a database server, or perhaps they’re needed for interfacing with some specialized hardware.
Just because someone is stupid and using an XP computer for confidential medical data does not mean there is “plenty of juice” in XP. All it means is your Dr is playing fast and loose with your data.
Which would probably result in negative publicity and they’d back down, as they did with the controversial Xbox One launch and the problems with Windows Eight.
You might be all for it, but if you crunch the numbers, it works out to be more expensive in the end.
Microsoft shot themselves in the foot with Vista, and lost a lot of customer loyalty. The few people that upgraded hated it (with good reason). The OEM XP downgrade program was hilarious. I saw WAY more “down”grades than i saw upgrades to vista. Hey, i “down”graded to XP myself on some company laptops, and i was happy for not having to suffer vista.
Win7 was ok, but then they shot themselves in the foot again with win8.
Just look at what it took to kill XP. The frankenwindows that wouldn’t die. They finally had to come out and yell it from the top of their lungs … WE WILL NOT SUPPORT YOU ANYMORE!!! And then they had to go and patch some critical vulnerabilities a few week later, lol.
The days where every windows upgrade was compulsory for large companies are long gone.
They know they have to keep the cash rolling in somehow, right?
What better way to make sure everyone pays (whether they upgrade or not), than with a subscription?
EDIT: I just thought of this … is this the end of OEM windows licenses? The end of the infamous windows tax? I sure hope so!
Edited 2015-05-08 06:49 UTC
Vista was a necessary evil– and if you were careful to only run software that was written to actual Windows best practices, it was a perfectly good operating system.
It was a bit slow, and a bit overly paranoid on security, but given the history of Microsoft, that was a refreshing change.
For years, people had been writing applications assuming that the user was always running as Administrator, which certainly made malware authors’ lives easier. Adobe products believed they had a right to create “C:\Adobe”, no matter where you installed the application.
The problem people had with Vista wasn’t the OS– it was all the crappy XP software out there that just wouldn’t work under Vista. By the time Windows 7 came out, everyone had reworked their code to play (mostly) by the rules.
I still refuse to install any software that can’t play nicely with UAC– it tells me the programmer(s) really don’t know what they’re doing.
And no, it’s just now your new computer will come with Windows 10 “refresh NN.nn”.
Oh please … UAC was but one of the things that didn’t work. It was also dead easy to circumvent, and they had to patch that more than once IIRC.
Vista was huge, slow, bloated and just plain didn’t work right. The fact that win7 runs better on the same hardware should be enough proof.
If it really was the way software was developed, then even microsoft themselves couldn’t get it right! Office ran like a pig on Vista. EVERYTHING ran like a pig. The fact that so many people downgraded wasn’t just because of UAC … come on now …
Microsoft caught a lot of flak for vista, and they deserved it. It was very, very short lived. They extended XP for years. That is no co-incidence …
They got it right with win7. Win7 is decent.
Even though i don’t use windows myself, i have nothing against win7. Vista is just pure evil. Right up there with windows Mistake Edition.
Edited 2015-05-08 21:20 UTC
(Lack of) Drivers, crappy hardware, badly written apps (many devs did have updates for their software but they had to postpone or completely abandon them because of the performance) where the real cause of this.
By the time Windows 7 was released, the driver database was increased considerably and the app selection was decent enough.
Searching for compatible drivers / apps is not on the list of priorities for the average person. It either works or it doesn’t.
Nah, win2k had a much bigger driver gap to fill, and much “crappier” hardware, as did XP. They were nowhere near as bad. The same “crappy” hardware (c2d, 2G ram – ish) can run win7 today, much better than it can run Vista.
You say devs gave up because of performance issues … well there you go.
Vista was horrid. That’s all there is to it.
Not long ago, someone asked me to reinstall their laptop. Normally, i don’t do that kind of thing, because as you all know, you unwillingly sign a free life-long support contract whenever you help someone out …
Anyway, it was a dell vostro with Vista on it. Ditched vista for win7, and it ran MUCH better.
UAC did work, It was badly written programs that caused UAC headaches, ones that kept data in program files, or other protected locations. It’s no longer like that, as most programs now work properly. MS did not fix UAC.
Office running like a pig had nothing to do with UAC. It was a pig, and Vista was slow.
Windows 7 is nothing more than Vista with a little more time in the oven.
I didn’t claim that UAC caused the problems with vista being slow.
I just said it didn’t work. Whatever the reasons for it … it didn’t work.
On unix, it doesn’t matter where you store data. You cannot get past your privilege level.
Vista is a pig. We agree.
The fact that you say win7 is vista with more development shows you that vista was just a bad product. It should never have been released like this.
The latest linux kernel is just linux 1.0 with a bit more time in the oven …
Edited 2015-05-11 09:50 UTC
You’re right, you didn’t claim that, my bad.
Ugh, no, not even the same thing. The differences between Linux 1.0 and Linux 4.0 are astounding. The differences between Vista and Win 7 is some optimization, and better drivers.
Sorry but Vista was deep fried sick, and I’ll be happy to list a few reasons why!
1.- The infamous “can’t download while playing music or watching a vid as the download will die” bug, I had forgotten what using a single tasking OS was like, thanks Vista!
2.- The thrashing, oh Jeebus tapdancing Christ on a cracker the thrashing! I had it on what was a pretty powerful system at that time, P4 3.6Ghz with HT, 2 200GB HDDs, 4GB of RAM, and even with all those resources it managed to literally thrash a brand new drive to death! I tried every tip and trick in the book, no dice. Software killing hardware, I had forgotten what that was like too…thanks Vista!
3.- “Senior moments” where the OS just “hangs for a few seconds? Oh man was Vista good at that, it would be puttering along and then just…..okay you can go now. Wow that was irritating, thanks Vista!
I could go on all day but I don’t want to write War and Peace here, I have used just about every Windows since Windows 2 and the only ones I ever “downgraded” was WinME (for the most excellent Win2K), Vista (for XP X64, also excellent), and Windows 8 for Windows 7 (which I’m running now, great OS) and of those 3? I’d say Vista would be tied with WinME on the suck scale!
Had Vista from RC2 status until Windows 7 hit RC2 status– didn’t have any of the problems you listed.
1. Sounds like you had the buggy ethernet driver. I seem to recall a problem with nvidia ethernet at gigabit speed.
2. No idea what happened there– My machine was slightly less powerful, and didn’t have that problem. Was primarily my gaming / transcoding box.
3. With the exception of the problem below, never saw pauses.
The only time I had a problem was with McAfee silently blacklisting *part* of an NVidia driver install– and even then, the system worked, it just had to reset the video subsystem every time it returned to desktop from full-screen graphics, leading to a black screen for about 2 seconds.
On the other hand, that was pretty easy to track down with the new troubleshooting tools they installed on Vista.
WinME wasn’t an OS– it was an error stack with a graphical interface.
For me, Vista was rock solid for 2+ years, and “just worked”. I realize my experience wasn’t typical, but I think the driver and application authors were responsible for most of the pain people had, not Microsoft.
software as a service is like screaming dinosaurs. sorry, the end is coming and it cannot be stopped
software does not rust. it does not scratch. it does not wear out or break down. so how do you make money on it once it’s done? you don’t. so you make sure it’s never done, and charge money for it forever.
software as a service is like the software analog of planned obsolescence. batteries that die and cars that rust.
enter free software
You are clearly not in IT.
Software does have to be updated. Code rots and bugs need fixing, exploits need patching and new hardware needs to be supported.
You talk about free software. Open Source software has to be updated too which is why all linux distros have package managers and software repositories. That whole infrastructure is designed to deliver updates efficiently and easily.
Yes… enter free software.
“heartbleed”
“shellshock”
“poodle”
All of which were bugs that had been present for a long time, in what was believed to be reliable software that “just worked”.
More disturbing is that OpenSSL and NTP, two of the most important packages for “the interwebz”, either were, or are, in serious danger of being abandoned, as the people maintaining them simply can’t afford to keep doing so for free.
Free Software is not a panacea. It’s just part of the toolset we have available.
This is so lame. Windows As A Service?
I guess you can call old-fashioned rolling updates that…
One problem with making the operational system into a subscription service, is that, in most countries (yeah, America never counts) that would make the company responsible for any problem the user have with its machine.
If the PC won’t boot anymore, for example, in brazilian law, Microsoft would be obliguated under the law to send a service to the user business or home to fix the machine. And you can’t charge the user unless it is proven that it was the user’s fault.
Oh, and if the sold service works 24h, the company must have a phone for support 24h available.
That would be… interesting to see.
Edited 2015-05-08 12:13 UTC
Chinese consumer law is even harsher. [In theory] You must provide [unlimited] replacements for defective consumer products during the warranty period.
At this stage in the field of computing, in which improvements are mostly incremental rather than steps, a subscription based model for the operating system and applications likely makes sense. It is probably one of the better way to keep the dependencies between the Apps and OS synchronized across all devices.
Pricing would have to be reasonable – which is definitively not a sure thing with Microsoft.
Rather than a single fixed priced for an “up to x devices”, I would welcome a “base price” for 1 personal computer and 1 mobile device with “increments” on a per device basis.
Also, not renewing the subscription ideally should not stop one from getting the critical/security updates for all the devices licensed. By-the-way, if one devices dies, then is should be possible to cancel the renewal for that device…..
One thing – have those tech news writers and tech web sites consider that there will no longer be rumours to write about (and drive visiting web traffic) for months before a product launch?
A subscription based software service will do nothing more than drive consumers away from MS. Large businesses will keep paying the MS tax but everyone else will look elsewhere.
Google could easily provide a highly polished desktop Linux distro free of charge to OEMs (along with shared search revenue) to totally fsck MS.
That is the straw that will break this camel’s back. Been looking for a solid reason to abandon Windows [Microsoft actually] again. If they’re go to Windows as a service, well I can’t make that jump. Back to Linux or *BSD…
As a home user I’m not able to come up with a single reason to use MS Office instead of LibreOffice.
Edited 2015-05-08 12:57 UTC
Quite a few home users, including myself, still deal with workplaces and organisations that do use MS Office.
Compatibility with MS Office may have improved, but in my experience it’s still nowhere near good enough to rely on when dealing with other people’s MS Office documents.
If you by “dealing with other people’s MS Office documents” mean “collaborating with people on the same MS Office documents that will go to print”, then yes, you need MS Office.
However, if you only need to open MS Office documents to view them or have other people read your documents, then Libre Office is perfectly fine. It won’t be pixel perfect but pretty much everything will convert good enough for most uses.
Install once and run forever.Microsoft could cut a lot of money and the OS’s will keep functioning anyway.Everybody is happy again.
This pretty much guarantees that I won’t ever go back to windows. On Mac I get free OS updates.
And even if you buy the OS outright, it’s only $20. Compared to $100-ish for Windows.
Until Apple EOLs your computer, and you need to spend 1500 bucks on an upgrade.
If users were to go for Windows as a service, how long do you think it’d take Apple to follow? You might want to remember that free os upgrades are relatively new for the Mac as well. We’ve had two out of 10 OS X upgrades free. I wouldn’t call that a guarantee of anything especially if A. Microsoft actually does this and B. the users willingly embrace it.
Of course it’d be smart for Apple to continue their free upgrades in this case, but quick money can turn smart people into idiots faster than almost anything else.
So it has been said…let your own words prophecy the future!
Seriously, the last “real” version of Windows was 7. This crap they are pushing bears very little resemblance to the Windows we all know and love. It, like Windows 8 before it, is trying to push “Win32” into the “legacy” category, and push users into using “universal apps”. These apps will NOT be able to run unless the are digitally “signed” by MS. They HAVE to be purchased and downloaded through the Windows Store. And MS gets 20-30% of the gross from the sale. MS also gets to decide what software gets published. Much like with Apple…if they don’t like it, it doesn’t get published. Even if you wanted to download it off of the web yourself, you won’t be able to run the app, since MS won’t give it the digital blessing (signature) it needs to run.
Screw this! I, and no one else, gets to decide what software I run on the hardware I OWN! I will NEVER buy into Microsoft’s new ecosystem, nor any of their services. They are dead to me. Hopefully, the rest of the world will respond in a similar fashion to this crap!
One of the things that might also happen is an increase in quality. With software as a service, companies have no reason to incentivize you to upgrade. You’re always paying them.
So there’s no need for them to play compatibility scam, not supporting new formats…
It also changes the funding model for the accountants in the house. Since there is always cash flow, paying for continuous improvement instead of playing the feature game to push users to upgrade is also there.
I’m a big fan as long as they keep the pricing reasonable. Just like how netflix has kept its pricing reasonable and keeps you hooked.
Funny how OS X was the last version of Mac OS. Man Microsoft copies everyone. (jk)
I heard they are working on a brand new OS at Apple. They call it Pink.
</grin>
This will be a fun train wreck to watch. The unwashed masses have never paid anything for Windows. As far as they are concerned, it is part of the computer they bought and its supposed to stay the same as long as the computer itself lasts. With subscription Windows they essentially get to pay for Microsoft to randomly change things around in the UI every few months, and most of them will hate that.
I predict that in a year after this, Microsoft’s owners will be begging Bill Gates to come back to save the company.
Windows has been pirated to the extreme, but this – in very huge part – is the main reason why Microsoft has been so successful. Windows has been one of the most ‘accessible’ operating systems over the last 29 years. Vast amounts of consumers have adopted the platform from a very early stage and have been very content to the extent that Microsoft has benefited by achieving monopolistic market shares.
Microsoft is probably going to start off by providing a subscription-based service along side the traditional licensed version.
Hopefully, Microsoft’s introduction of a subscription-based OS will serve as yet another catalyst for users to embrace and help improve alternatives such as Linux, BSD or even OS X.
I, for one, am not willing to pay a single cent in subscription fees to Microsoft.
Every system was pirated to the extreme. Windows is no exception. One of the reasons people prefer OSX for example is that besides free updates from Apple they can easily install as many apps as they want (from obscure sources) with no activation required.
..ie
If you have an Office 365 sub and it expires,
and you’re temporarily out of cash you can at least download free alternatives like open office and be enough at home to be productive.
And (for instance) similarly if you had a Photoshop subscription and had to jump to gimp on expiry.. bit more of a learning curve to get productive again, but it’s a free option at least.
Subscription based OS is an awful awful idea – if expires that is. As long as subscription expiry doesn’t leave you with a dead computer. If expiry just leaves you without new feature upgrades but continued security updates – that’s on the edge of acceptable.
If subscribing folk run out of ^Alb$^a`not and are forced to jump to linux, have a really big learning curve plus potentially lose access to a lot of proprietary software formatted data without Linux alternatives..would be pretty outrageous.
*I might have got the wrong end of this stick* .Apologies for timewasting if so
But for home users or very small businesses it is not a good monetary proposition. If they go this route I will probably migrate to Linux entirely. For example: Windows 7 professional is around 180 (at least when I bought it) and functional for 12 years it is around 15 dollars a year.
Now let’s say microsoft charges 20 dollars a year, that is way much more expensive and with an expiration date. I’m sorry but I’d like to know for how long is the purchase I made going to be supported for and I don’t want it to stop functioning if there’s some sort of glitch going on.
While none of this might be the case going on with windows 10, I am not willing to run the risk.
I’ll wait it out.
This is really good move from Microsoft. It’s been a long time coming and is the modern way to sell an operating system.
Microsoft says they were working on Windows 10 even as they released Windows 8. Really??? They released that steaming pile of awful whatever, that did not sell at all and users avoided like the plague, all the while working on a new version that would back away as fast as they could from that same Windows 8? Sorry, but I’m not buying that one at all. Whatever Microsoft WAS working on while releasing Windows 8 had to be shelved pronto once they saw how horrible 8 was being received. There may be some vestiges of those projects in Windows 10 but it’s mostly a huge backtrack towards Windows 7, and that’s a good thing. There are still plenty of vestiges of Windows 8 in 10 that need to be thrown into the trash heap in my opinion.
Why not? Debian has Stable, Testing, and Untested – the current release, plus two future releases- in the pipeline. FreeBSD also has multiple future versions in the pipeline.
Any large project will have multiple future versions in the pipeline, being worked on concurrently. It would be idiotic not to.
I have installed and run MS Office 2007 under wine under Linux Mint v17 with no problems AT ALL for the past year. I am a student and use some fairly advanced features with Office, but have run into zero bugs. I am actually surprised too…
I know it isn’t the latest version of Office but it has negated my need to run Windows at all, although I do have the option (dual booting laptop) if needed.
I can provide the very straightforward instructions if needed here…