Windows 10 Soon To Be A Service

bfa1509

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/deployment/update/waas-overview

This has been penned as the next and last release of the Windows OS.

It was only a matter of time, but soon you will no longer own the license to your own operating system (it was arguable if you ever truly owned it for Windows 10)

Release date/fees if any remain unknown.

There will be two service updates per year - Feature updates and Quality/Service updates. Whether you have a choice to keep or remove anything remains to be seen.

In a passing comment a few months back I highlighted my preference for Windows 7 rather than Windows 10 which, needless to say, resulted in uproar in the thread!

This news is the final affront for me, it is now set in stone that I will remain a Windows 7 user for life!!

rocketspocket

bfa1509 wrote: »

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/deployment/update/waas-overview

This has been penned as the next and last release of the Windows OS.

It was only a matter of time, but soon you will no longer own the license to your own operating system (it was arguable if you ever truly owned it for Windows 10)

Release date/fees if any remain unknown.

There will be two service updates per year - Feature updates and Quality/Service updates. Whether you have a choice to keep or remove anything remains to be seen.

In a passing comment a few months back I highlighted my preference for Windows 7 rather than Windows 10 which, needless to say, resulted in uproar in the thread!

This news is the final affront for me, it is now set in stone that I will remain a Windows 7 user for life!!

Do you feel the same about your smart-phones OS?

Windows 3.1 yer only man.

heebusjeebus

I've no issue with this. When companies do not upgrade their operating systems regularly you end up with issues like the the Win XP and Windows 7 end of life deadlines. They were a nightmare.

If we can just keep on updating Win 10 every few months, it means this wont be an issue anymore.

28064212

You realise this is documentation on how Windows currently works, right? Of course there's no release dates/fees. Furthermore, this is documentation for how systems administrators can roll-out and service Windows 10 deployments, not some sort of future roadmap for the Windows products. It really doesn't seem like you understand what you're looking at

seamus

The changes to the way updates are done in Windows 10 has been a massive leap ahead for the OS, IMHO. The whole process of piecemeal patching and major jumps between OS upgrades was a perennial headache for anyone who had to manage more than one computer.

There's a considerably greater aspect of "it just works" with Windows 10 compared to all previous versions of Windows.

The question really is where they're going to look to make money on this. Are they going to go down the Android road where manufacturers have to get certified and licenced by Microsoft to bundle Windows on their devices?

Or are they going to look for a yearly subscription to get access to feature updates? Since this is the way they went with Office, I suspect they'll go this way with Windows too.

CatInABox

seamus wrote: »

The changes to the way updates are done in Windows 10 has been a massive leap ahead for the OS, IMHO. The whole process of piecemeal patching and major jumps between OS upgrades was a perennial headache for anyone who had to manage more than one computer.

There's a considerably greater aspect of "it just works" with Windows 10 compared to all previous versions of Windows.

Yes, you only have to look a pie chart of the breakdown of different Windows version pre and post windows 10. Before was totally fragmented, while the after looks very much like the roll out of iOS versions, quite smooth, if a fair bit slower.

seamus wrote: »

The question really is where they're going to look to make money on this. Are they going to go down the Android road where manufacturers have to get certified and licenced by Microsoft to bundle Windows on their devices?

Or are they going to look for a yearly subscription to get access to feature updates? Since this is the way they went with Office, I suspect they'll go this way with Windows too.

Can't seem them blocking feature updates, then they'd be back in the old problem of having to support loads of different versions. I think any future "windows as a service" will be priced around bundling in all their different services, such as office, onedrive, etc. Whether the EU lets them do this is a different question, of course.

seamus

CatInABox wrote: »

Can't seem them blocking feature updates, then they'd be back in the old problem of having to support loads of different versions. I think any future "windows as a service" will be priced around bundling in all their different services, such as office, onedrive, etc. Whether the EU lets them do this is a different question, of course.

Yeah, it could just be a single bundle thing alright.

This is a step towards abandoning the old "support everything" model though.

Again, very like the Android model if you haven't upgraded your version of Windows and can't install the latest app, it'll be tough sh1t. Or if your app doesn't work on the latest version of Windows, then tough sh1t. Security issue? You need to update your OS or take the device offline. MS aren't going to patch an old OS version because you won't make the effort to update to the latest release.

In the past if a multi-billion dollar company were running some bespoke piece of software that was incompatible with the latest version of Windows, MS would patch their own OS to make it work. This model will be the end of all that.

LTSC will continue to exist, but they do imply in that document that LTSC is only for devices with very specific needs; not ones that will be running the latest versions of apps. Thus if you have a device on LTSC you'll be given plenty of notice & support before an upgrade

Capt'n Midnight

They may well be using Windows as a loss leader to keep market share for Office and server side stuff.

While there may be a billion windows users there's 3.8 billion smartphone users, mostly Android with IOS a distant second. Similar story for tablets.