Windows 10 - First Impressions

[JorgeA]

Microsoft will shut down 'Modern' Skype Windows client on July 7 in favor of desktop version

 

Microsoft is making a big change to its Skype strategy on the Windows platform. On July 7, the current "Modern" version of Skype that was first released for Windows 8, and later became the default messaging app for Windows 8.1, will no longer be available. Instead, users of that version will be redirected to the current desktop Windows Skype client.

 

I was about to type a certain question that this news brought to my mind, when I saw that someone already asked it in the comments section:

 

...If Microsoft can't even get it's own divisions to produce modern apps, how are they expecting developers to take them seriously. The Office modern apps never even came to be on Windows 8. Skype is now saying they won't have a modern app anymore. Could Microsoft make it any clearer that tablet users need to get an iPad and forget about Windows already.

 

Microsoft's move represents a surrender to reality, of course, but more than that it exposes the pointlessness of the whole idea of grafting a mobile interface onto Windows.

 

More comments along similar lines in Mary Jo Foley's coverage of the news:

 

It just shows that even devs at Microsoft understand that building "modern" and desktop apps is a waste of time. Desktop apps can work on windows XP, Vista, 7, 8, 8.1 and 10. "Modern" apps can only work on windows 8 and later. Universal apps would run on windows 10 but I do not know and frankly do not care if apps would run on windows 8/8.1. If Microsoft could just port all that metro goodness to the desktop with access to full APIs and possibility to run on win 7 and above then it would be awesome.

 

I'll take that as an indication that Metro might not be the future of Windows after all.

 

So the message to developers is that "Universal Apps" cannot be made to work, even by Microsoft themselves. That's a pretty good statement to be making to any remaining developers thinking of developing for Windows Mobile right now.

 

Microsoft I think you have just killed of Windows 10 mobile and Windows Phone all by your own hand. Well done !

 

--JorgeA

 

[JorgeA]

 

Windows SuperSite is reporting that even if you go through the process of cancelling your Windows 10 reservation, Microsoft will still give you yet another chance to mess up and fail to cancel it:

 

 

Yeah, like if I got that far in the process I somehow didn't really want to cancel Win10...

 

--JorgeA

 

there should be 3rd button saying "go f*** yourself already"

 

 

 

 

--JorgeA

[MTDirector]

And now Microsoft push Windows 10 directly into Windows 8.1 setup : http://www.winbeta.org/news/microsoft-now-offering-windows-10-upgrade-during-windows-81-setup-process

[jaclaz]

Yep , though the good WinBeta guys have it backwards:

So, have you reserved your free copy of Windows 10 yet? If not, why not?

 

 

Should really be:

So, have you reserved your free copy of Windows 10 yet? If yes, why the heck you did it?

 

 

 

jaclaz

[Formfiller]

The fanboys don't like the Skype news.

 

http://channel9.msdn.com/Forums/Coffeehouse/Modern-Skype-is-dead?page=2

[JorgeA]

Details of the scheme are slowly emerging:

 

Here's how Microsoft plans to push new features to Windows 10 business users

 

Windows 10 Pro, Education and Enterprise users will have the option of an additional branch, known as Current Branch for Business (CBB), which will allow them to take security fixes immediately, but delay new features for a set period of time. Windows 10 Enterprise customers will have the greatest set of Windows 10 servicing options (CB, CBB and/or Long-Term Servicing Branch, or LTSB). LTSB will enable users to delay for up to 10 years the delivery of new features to users' Windows 10 devices.

 

Contacts of mine previously revealed that Microsoft would not allow Windows 10 users on the CBB to delay taking new features indefinitely. The way Microsoft plans to enforce this, my contacts said, was to prevent CBB users from getting new security updates if they tried to delay feature deployment past a set period of time.

 

So, except for Enterprise customers, Microsoft intends to require users to accept feature changes in order to receive security fixes. Not even a Pro license (which is already more expensive than a home license) will spare you.

 

And note how home users will serve as guinea pigs for the rest:

 

Windows 10 Pro, Education and Enterprise users on the CBB automatically will get new features on machines that are connected to Windows Update four months after those features are validated in the consumer market, said presenter Windows Senior Product Marketing Manager Helen Harmetz. Windows 10 business users that are connected to Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) will have an eight-month period before new features are pushed to them.

 

Under the CBB terms, administrators will have the option of skipping one push of these new Windows 10 features for a while. But once Microsoft pushes the subsequent set of new features, admins will have to deliver these to their WSUS-connected Windows 10 users or they won't get the next set of security updates, according to what Harmetz told resellers.

[emphasis added]

 

This is unbelievable -- every time you turn around, things get worse and worse.

 

Aero Glass or not, I can't see myself buying a Windows 10 machine. If a computer dies and I need to buy a new one, it'll be for purposes of installing Linux on it. Now that vendors will be allowed to tie the machines they sell to Windows (making it impossible to install any other OS on "your" PC), that'll be something else to research before forking over my hard-earned money.

 

--JorgeA

 

[Tripredacus]

And now Microsoft push Windows 10 directly into Windows 8.1 setup : http://www.winbeta.org/news/microsoft-now-offering-windows-10-upgrade-during-windows-81-setup-process

That's interesting. I was under the impression that the dynamic Setup pages was going to be a new function of Windows 10. This would indicate that it was already in Windows 8.1?

[rn10950]

So now you're telling me that WSUS users can't determine which updates to install? This is just getting sadder and sadder. And now there are going to be PCs without the ability to disable secure boot? What was U.S. vs Microsoft about again?

[vinifera]

that fiasco over metro crap fail is actually good news

means someone will again get fired on top of MS

new "strategy" will be formed

more people will be pissed off

and at the end win32 will win

[NoelC]

A friend has reported to me that he's seen the hard sell show up in yet another place on his Win 7 system...

 

 

-Noel

 

[jaclaz]

Well, the only thing they seemingly haven't actually done (yet )  is to hijack the home page of Ineternet Explorer to a page pushing for the update/reserve the copy, etc.  but I wouldn't be so surprised should this happen.

 

jaclaz

[Formfiller]

A friend has reported to me that he's seen the hard sell show up in yet another place on his Win 7 system...

 

 

-Noel

 

God. I thought it's a photoshop, but actually they are really doing this.

 

http://winsupersite.com/windows-10/make-your-windows-10-reservation-windows-update

 

I don't get this screen in WU. Probably because I have de-installed the GWX "update".

Edited June 13, 2015 by Formfiller

[NoelC]

Note how the visually styled Reserve button built a moat around itself to keep from being infected by the Metroness. 

 

Has this been there all along?

 

 

-Noel

Edited June 13, 2015 by NoelC

[xpclient]

Yes Windows 7 has always had 4 options which 8 reduce to 2 and 10 reduced to none. 

[JorgeA]

Yes, I have those same four options on my Win7 system.

 

Formfiller may be right: the Win10 push notification probably has to do with whether the user installed that GWX thing, or with one or another of the several Win10-related "updates" Microsofrt has been trying to sneak past the user.

 

--JorgeA