Win 10 Anniversary: 'We're beginning to check in final code' says Microsoft Microsoft has released build 14383 of Windows 10 Anniversary, for both PC and mobile, in preparation for its public launch on August 2nd 2016. Most "Insider" builds feature a watermark on the desktop, showing the version and build number, but that has gone in this build. "This is because we’re beginning to check in final code …
I would ever use Windows 10
It's a non-expiring beta where they can add or remove features at will, the telemetry is deeply buried and well over the top and normal people can't turn off automatic updates.
How about listening to your customers ..... novel idea indeed.
They may well be listening to their customers, but they are certainly not hearing them. They are ignoring anything that they don't want to hear. Such as, for example, customer resentment of spyware, bloat and bandwidth consumption. Just to start a very long list.....
I'm increasingly happy that I have nothing to do with M$.
Indeed. MetroUI and Privacy invasion killed Windows. When will Microsoft understand this?
I really don't want advertising tiles about why I should pay for Xbox Live flipping around distracting me. Windows 10 is a cluttered mess. It wouldn't be so bad if all the crud could be stripped out, and there was an edition that didn't have the privacy invasion, the MetroUI was binned, and it came with a simple Windows7 shell.
In other words, Windows 7, but with Windows 10 inner performance improvements, but no spyware, no failed UI experiments....
In other words, Windows 7, but with Windows 10 inner performance improvements, but no spyware, no failed UI experiments....
It's called Windows 8.1.
No, really. Check it out. It's got the stability, performance and security improvements of W10, but you can turn off the spyware and control your own update cycle. And for all the hate directed at Metro, you can live with it for the few occasions when it actually appears. Well, I can.
So you'd rather the OS stay exactly the same and not get any new features throughout its lifecycle?
To be fair the Operating System shouldn't ever change that much. It's the next few layers of the onion skin which could be updated.
The problem with Microsoft seem to think that it's either in the Cloud (Good Thing), a user application running on the desktop (soon to be updated to a Good Thing) and the Operating System.
Years ago I studied Lister's book on The Fundamentals of Operating Systems and then I try to compare that fine manuscript with what we are seeing here.
"...So you'd rather the OS stay exactly the same and not get any new features throughout its lifecycle? ..."
Yes well...how else can people complain about MS software being so bad when they last used to 20+ years ago?
Heaven forbid that MS do change things.
Not that I am saying all the changes are needed. wanted or appropriate but there is certainly a level of damned if you do, damned if you don't from the folks here.
So Microsoft has now upped their game by pushing Windows 10 upgrades even on domain computers, whose group policies were explicitly configured to deny upgrades.
Having these forced upgrades is bad enough, but as a sysadmin who is ultimately responsible for the computers at our company, the fact that Microsoft is trying to force it's way around my authority makes me livid beyond words. Not only that, their behaviour speaks volumes as to what we can expect from them in the future.
I have a small deployment of Windows 10 going, as an experiment, but it will never go beyond that.
Never is a long time.
Ultimately I'm willing to be that your company is very invested in the Microsoft stack and to replace it wholesale is cost prohibitive. You will eventually upgrade because there is no desktop experience that matches it.
I agree that the pushing out of upgrades in the manner that is happening is undesirable but when you are over a barrel. What can you do ?
I am my company, fortunately. What I'm doing is walking away from my investment in Windows software. And even as a solo pixel-wrangler it's going to cost me a fucking stack; both in abandoned software and time.
The thing is, it's going to cost whichever way...either now in retraining and lost productivity whilst switching or over time with licensing and time lost due who Microsoft switching things around without notice.
Placing your bollocks in another's hands is never advisable; and that goes double for business. Especially when that 3rd party has repeatedly demonstrated that not only do they not have your best interests at heart; but that they will not hesitate to fuck you over if it's in their short-term interests.
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All the comments above are valid - and do state each persons situation - and grievances. Not sure why the downvotes for these people.
…because to them, only the opinion of the anonymous downvoter matters. Everyone else's experience is invalid. Effectively, "we're using it wrong", to paraphrase a former Apple CEO.
Well that's the point, really. You're going to have to put the time and effort in either way and -even discounting Microsoft's douchebag behaviour which is a big damn discount- I want to wake up tomorrow knowing everything's going to work more-or-less the same as today. You get that with Mac (if you let someone else go first with updates and read the reviews) and you definitely get that with Linux. There's no such assurance with Windows.
Even if a business is totally dependent upon a Windows stack, anyone who isn't planning an exit, or at least planning a survivalist-style Plan B to keep basic functionality is very foolish indeed. It's not even that difficult - a couple of VM Win 7 images with essential software would do it as a temporary measure, just to keep you in business.
With Win 10 -quite apart from the surveillance aspects and the complete lack of ethics- your business can be blown out of the water at any time on someone else's whim. Or by accident, which is probably more likely. It's not a position I'm prepared to accept.
And you said it all.
As a software developer myself, my biggest worry at this point is that Microsoft will eventually succeed in breaking Windows in such a way that I can't work around it anymore (and their push for UWP apps so they can kill Win32 and have their own walled garden would do exactly that).
I think most developers are on the same boat as you and me. Long gone are the times of Steve Ballmer shouting 'Developers Developers Developers' on a stage. It was all BS anyway - Microsoft simply cannot be trusted anymore.
there is no desktop experience that matches it.
That is probably the one thing you have right. No desktop experience matches the pain, the frustration, the constant feeling of being watched, the constant feeling of being an experiment, that only comes from a modern genuine Windows desktop installation.
Linux might be an experiment too and isn't without its hassles, but without you being on show at the same time.
"there is no desktop experience that matches it"
Which Windows desktop experience are you thinking of? There are several, but if you're staying current it's Microsoft's choice. There are also several Linux/Unix desktops but then it's your choice. That's a big difference.
"I agree that the pushing out of upgrades in the manner that is happening is undesirable but when you are over a barrel. What can you do ?"
Easy - set up a dual boot with the Linux flavour of your choice then keep Windows 7 offline permanently.
Or, set up Windows 7 in a virtual machine inside Linux (once again keeping Windows 7 offline).
I prefer the first option (I'm really liking the new Linux Mint 18, by the way).
I dual boot and run W7 on my desktop, but the lappy is permanently Mint only. I spend hardly any time in W7 these days.
While my optometrist was running the fundus camera via XP in a VM on OSX, he appeared to be running W7 in a VM on his lappy. He mentioned several Linux distros that I might find interesting in the more restricted environment of my lappy.
Of course the downvoter of my earlier comment would no doubt splurge a six figure sum on a new fundus camera to keep MS happy rather than turn a far less expensive, older machine to good use.
"What can you do ?"
Maybe I can help you on that one. At our company (~55.000 employees globally) we have now shared with our MS representatives that we are no longer interested in extending our MS Server contracts. In addition, we also questioned whether we want to extend our desktop and productivity software licenses. Surprisingly, we are now offered "free acclimatisation contracts", i.e. aimed at staying on MS products for 2 years. Of course it'd be silly to say this was driven solely by W10, but it did play its part. Or as our CIO worded it; looking at consistency, expectations, and cost, there are always more creative, valid solutions to the same issue...
"At our company..."
Well you should tell Microsoft that you're leaving in any event so you get a better deal. If you actually take up the offer though; consider how entrenched you'll be in 2 years time and how difficult extraction will then be. Businesses are at a decision point now; because if you think switching is tough and expensive now, that's going to be *nothing* compared to how things will be a couple of years down the line.
For a start, we can currently encapsulate most essentials (for W7 for sure) in a VM. Expecting to be able to do that in future is (dons Mystic Moiety wizard hat) a poor bet. Having an easily-available and free mechanism to switch in a relatively painless fashion is something I have every expectation of Microsoft addressing as a priority.
Seems an odd sequence of events to be killing the 'free' Windows 10 Update, 3 days before releasing the Windows 10 Aniversary Update. If you are still on Windows 7, the idea you need to 'rush' now to install a 4GB download, only then have to wait a further 3 days to install a second large xxGB Aniversary update.
Maybe this 3 day spacing is taking into account how long borked Windows 7 takes to get updates, of late, so in fact its actually to make things appear seamless*
Microsoft never make things simple (or properly think things through).
(*Yes, I know you can install Windows 10 directly, without updating Windows 7SP1 beforehand, but many attempt to update Win7 anyway, coincidently, with 3 day waits to install updates)
Penguin, because well, you still can - anytime (no hoops to jump through).
"Penguin, because well, you still can - anytime (no hoops to jump through)."
honestly, I don't disagree by much (and want very much for Linux to succeed as a regularly used desktop OS for non-geeks). And now the "big but": BUT, you have a lot of windows-only software out there that won't run with Wine. For those software packages, you (unfortunately) need a winders box.
It's a note to software devs to "get hot" on Linux versions, to help CREATE the migration. Because, WHEN it happens, YOUR package will be the one people will migrate TO [edge on competition].
But yeah, Micro-shaft's "underwhelming" Win-10-nic is just plastic flowers on the grave. Or lipstick on the boar. Whatever.
If there was a large consensus towards Linux Desktop, MS would have to unlock the Microsoft Office 201x Linux compiled version, we know they have locked up somewhere :).
The idea we're forced to use Windows 10 because of MS Office, is only in our minds, so to speak. If Admins make the move towards Linux, in preference to Win10 - so would MS for the major apps.
MS is a cross platform company now, and if there is money to be made selling a Linux version of Office 2016, THEY WILL. MS would likely profit because I'm sure MS's support costs for MS Office 2016 on Linux would be cheaper in the long run too.
For most users anyway, Libre Office 5 is as good as any of the iOS / Android versions of MS Office 2016.
You don't provide MS SQL Server for Linux, without providing MS Office 201x for Linux, hence my belief, its coming.
Dunno about that - A lot of the properties of MS Office are antithetical to many of the reasons for going with Linux in the first place - cloudy; subject to design whims; someone else controls access to your data etc.
Sure MS would do it if there was money to be made; but I'm not convinced that there is.
>> Linux to succeed as a regularly used desktop OS for non-geeks
Not going to happen without some big corporate getting behind it to give some semblance of predictability and supportability, which will bring instant revile from the OSS community. You can have a hobby OS, or a successful (desktop) OS - not both.
> Not going to happen without some big corporate getting behind it to give some semblance of predictability and supportability,
ChromeOS is the desktop Linux with "some big corporate" behind it. It is happening.
IBM, Red Hat and SUSE are corporates behind server Linux (and desktop). Google is behind smartphone Linux
> which will bring instant revile from the OSS community.
Didn't happen.
Well Whooppeeeeee do.
What do youy want me to do about it eh?
Do you want me to run naked round my town in celbration?
honestly and seriously, who the hell cares.
Checking in code is done all the time. I commited a lot earlier today. Nothing to celbrate about at all.
Now if you released some software and said 'go break it, tell us about the problems and we'll fix them' I know a lot more people would be interested.
Just checking in code is so 'Meh'. Real devs do it all the time
Sheesh.
I am either an unlucky reviewer or some bugs remain, because I soon hit unexpected behaviour.
All expected behaviour.
Problems installing/uninstalling, or even recovering to a known good situation?
Expected behaviour, of course.
Windows becomes an annoying piece of buggery where form dominates function but fitness for purpose is AWOL?
Expected behaviour.
Windows-managed Death Star explodes during routine military operations?
Expected behaviour!
You are entombed in the center of four decaying walls
> Wake up
You try to moan but only silence emerges
> Look
The walls are covered with what looks like pieces of bubbling flesh growing out of the concrete.
The fluorescent light gives off a flickering Azure glow and emits a menacing buzz.
There is little 10'' x 10'' window in the corner, apparently leading to nothingness.
You can either [C]rawl through it or [S]tare at a wall.
> Wake up
You try to moan but only silence emerges
> Help
Help is not forthcoming
> Inventory
A small plastic penguin figurine is all you have. It seems to emit a warm, yellow glow.
Yesterday The Git had his biennial eye test. His optometrist has retired and been replaced by a franchise. The new optometrist used all the "latest" automated gear before a final check with glass. The Git noted that the software was running on WinXP and the optometrist pointed at the Mac Mini where it's running on a VM. After the receptionist's computer had been pwned by MS, it seemed safer to do that rather than risk continuing to run Win7. He said that luckily the software running in reception continued working, but the software that came with the hardware is non-upgradeable.
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If you want to run Windows 7/8/10 on top of Linux then you will need a virtual platform/machine manager that such as VirtualBox/Parallels/VMware to name a few popular platforms.
However, I suspect that what you are wanting to do is to run specialised application software, in which case you may be able to get away with simply emulating the windows API, which is what Wine does. I suggest you also look at PlayOnLinux - which may help with getting your applications to install correctly with Wine and CrossOver Linux (basically a commercially supported version of Wine).
A word of advice would be to first install the version of your application software that was developed to run on versions of Windows earlier than 10 ie. XP and 7.
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"The concern is that if i purchase a copy of Windows 7 or 8.1, will it still be able to be activated ?."
The answer is yes, but maybe not officially. You may find a search for removeWAT to be interesting (W7). Even if you can get it officially authorised, though, based on current form you can expect attempts to poison your installation...so get it and your software running in a VM, then save that as your 'golden ISO' so you don't lose any capabilities.
Another solution is to use a dedicated machine, and either isolate it from the net or only have it accessible through your local net. Not sure how much firepower your software requires, but you can save a bit on hardware if you only have a specialised program to run because there's a lot of stuff you can turn off. I've got a Compaq Armada running XP feeding my (vintage as these things go) laser engraver. No net access, so I only have to worry about hardware failure.
The whole point, of course, is not losing capability. By eliminating net access, you save yourself a whole lot of brain-damage, like updates and the possibility of being remotely torpedoed.
NOTE: If you're going the vintage machinery route; make sure you have either the drivers and install disks (OS and software) available or some sort of clean slate installable backup. It all gets harder to find as time passes
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Be careful, though...your essential programs may themselves require internet to function or -if it's some sort of fingerprint-of-the-machine based licensing- then that fingerprint will not be the same inside a VM; or may change if you twiddle with the VM settings.
Might be in idea to say you intend running the apps inside a VM before doing anything irrevocable with licensing. And/or if you don't intend to let the machine/VM access the internet. Problem here is with whatever they're using for DRM...a lot of DRM systems don't take being put into a time-capsule gracefully. Try a support ticket to each of the programs and ask if there will be any problems.
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Welcome. It occurred to me after the first post that when you started talking about Matlab and similar that DRM could be a problem; whereas I just covered making the OS happy in my initial post (W7, specifically). Hence the addendum. Something as simple as giving the VM a bit more RAM with the slidey thing, or renaming your VMs to try and organise things can mess you up.
I tend to avoid programs with overly-enthusiastic DRM and plain don't bother with DRM'd file formats (except very briefly for the time it takes to strip the DRM out and convert them into something universal); but it occurred afterwards that not everybody is as paranoid as me.
I have to do without some things that might make life easier; but then again my personal data will play on any OS and no bastard can take it away from me, so I'm probably ahead on points.
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Re: Matlab and Mathematica
Given these are available in both Windows and Linux versions, I assume you are looking at whether you can transfer your licences that were attached to a native Windows install, to a native Linux install.
My understanding is if you are unable to do this then your best bet is to run these in a VM as then (with the right VM player) you can allocate them multiple CPU's, my understanding is that Wine is limited to a single CPU which means the performance of these applications can suffer...
This would seem to only leave the PCB design program, which if there is no Linux native version, I suspect may also benefit from running in a multi-CPU VM.
A year ago I purchased on ebay a dual Xeon (quad core) workstation system for a couple of hundred GBP, this with 32GB of memory makes an ideal platform for running multiple VM's which I suspect you will find yourself having to do.
A slightly less performant platform, but a portable one, is the Dell XPS-18 mobile AiO/tablet with Intel i7. However this was limited to 8GB of RAM and a relatively small SSD and Dell for reasons best known to themselves no longer sell this 18-inch tablet...
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Hi Shadmeister,
Doing something else and came across this article that stirred the grey matter.
"Want to run Windows in VirtualBox? for Free?"
http://pclosmag.com/html/issues/201309/page15.html
You may already know about this, but if not, it may make it easier for you to evaluate the running of your application suite in a VM.
... is that you don't own said software to begin with. It's no longer a piece of code which you bought (in reality: licensed for usage) but it has now become something in the likes of television. Meaning that you have no more control over the thing you're using, because all you're doing is renting it.
And if you don't think that companies would do this: change aspects of something over time, then I suggest you take a close hard look at the PS3 and some of its games (though I'm sure the same can be said about the XBox I'm only using PS3 because I know this for a fact): stuff changes.
Even though I bought a PS3 to play with (so I was happy with the way the PS3 worked - at that time -) they continued to change stuff. Sometimes for the good, but more than often also bad stuff. Like getting a new option for some stupid commercial game ("sing a long") which you can never remove. You can remove the game trial, but that stupid icon always remains.
Lets talk games: I bought GTA V. And I play GTAO (Grand Theft Auto Online) which somewhat makes it a service. Well: one of the things I like doing are gang attacks. You drive around the city, see a red circle and once you step in it a fight can break out and dozens of baddies try to shoot you. Even after R* has abandoned GTA V on the PS3 they still kept changing stuff in GTAO: amongst which the removal of several (popular) gang attacks.
Gran Turismo 5. A racing game on the Playstation. Version 5 has been completely obsoleted so: no more online gameplay for me. They simply disabled the option, gone, p00f: "go buy the new version you cheapskate!".
If all of that can legally happen with stuff you actually bought, then one can only imagine what might go wrong with software you're going to rent. Lets not forget that this is Microsoft we're talking about. These are the "geniuses" which deemed it a good idea to remove the color from all icons in their developer suite (making it pretty much unusable). The same "geniuses" who figured that a developer suite should follow desktop standards, even though there's no saying that the program will actually be used on the same desktop OS.
If Windows 7 eventually does run out of support and no liable alternatives are present (I might consider going Apple though, anything is better than Win10 IMO) then I think I know what I'll do next: I'll probably convert to FreeBSD entirely, while making sure to keep VirtualBox around in which I'll be running my current Windows 7 environment.
Seems to me, with all the different meals (“I don’t think he’s heard of 2nd breakfast, Pippin!”), Hobbits must have spent longer on the bog than, say, Elves, Men, or Wizards. And – given they ate the British-diet – farted a lot! Of course, there was no such person as ‘Christ’, so Strider wouldn’t have been continuously gagging and fanning the air away saying “Jesus!”. One can easily imagine Gandalf saying “I wish I’d never brought you along, Bilbo Baggins!”. Legolas getting pissed off being so fleet of foot yet constantly having to wait while any one of four Hobbits squatted behind a bush. Arwen apoplectic at Sam wiping his arse with a handful of Kingsfoil (and the Lady Galadriel giving him not rope, but toilet paper “It’s wonderful stuff, this Elven toilet paper, Mr Frodo! You can use it over and over!”).
Satya is telling it like it is. He may not talk the talk but he does walk the walk. Not many of us would watch a movie if we knew in advance it would be mostly characters taking a dump.
“Don’t take me for a fool, Master Hobbit! I know full well the one who said ‘the one who denied it’ was the one who supplied it! Simpleton!”
“Bilbo is here? I want to see him!”
“I’d give it 10 minutes if I were you!”
"I am either an unlucky reviewer or some bugs remain, because I soon hit unexpected behaviour."
The good news is that all this can be easily remedied giving a robust and reliable operating system...by converting to Linux Mint 18 (which also happens to be nicely free of slurpy surveillance).
Win 10 Anniversary: 'We're beginning to check in final code' says Microsoft
Superb! Now please make it REALLY final, and never write another line of code ever again. Not neverevreverneverevrevr!
And then the world shall finally be free of MS crapware, yaay!
(snore...muttering, rolls over..)
Huh? Oh, darn, I've just woken up, havne't I? And it was such a nice dream! Sigh... :-}
Hi, my name's Kim and me and my crew of marketing sociopaths have just banged on your life, big beats style!
We've got hella checkins, hot bugs, cool datah slurping, the best broken promises, and this year we're cracking open the Yammer forced upgrades again!
HELL YES TO LOSING YOUR PRIVACY ON A MONDAY NIGHT!
is how they should've announced it.
For the second time in the last 10 months, Windows 10 bricked my netbook for several days after, I presume, an update.
One morning it would not turn on. After 10 minutes of nothing, I gave up.
Tried again a few days later. Nothing. Black screen.
About 3 weeks later, on about the 5th try, it woke up as if nothing had happened over that time. No - Sorry, got a little busy there. Sorry you were without your netbook for 4 weeks. This is a came with W10 netbook.
My other came with 8.1 which I inadvertently upgraded to W10, is constantly slowed by the compressed memory system task. I cannot type on it - there is a 1 second or longer delay between displaying key strokes. Now and then the cursor freezes for 30 seconds.
If I could put W7 or WXP on these I would.
MS is in a death spiral.
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