Nice embedded device there...
...shame if something were to 'update' it.
Quote: "for a fee users can join the Long Term Servicing Channel (LTSC) and avoid feature updates"
The Microsoft world was awash last week with the wailing and gnashing of teeth over what many of the more vocal in the development world regarded as the big bad corporate wolf chowing down on the fluffy sheep of open source as Redmond picked up GitHub. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and soon-to-be GitHub CEO Nat Friedman went …
"Which is not meant for standard desktops, and on which Office is not supported, and the latest Office version wont even run on."
LTSC is fine for desktops. You'll be just missing the fancy metro apps, Edge and store. Perhaps it's actually even better than the vanilla versions then?
Office 365 won't run, but Office 2019 (PKC, volume) will run just fine. Lack of 365 could be problematic for many orgs, I'd agree.
It's not "fine for normal desktops" if It doesnt run a supported version of office. Microsoft are very clearly targeting it at kiosks, ATMs, medical devices, etc.
From your own link:
"Effective January 14, 2020, ProPlus will no longer be supported on the following versions of Windows. This will ensure that both Office and Windows receive regular, coordinated updates to provide the most secure environment with the latest capabilities.
Any Windows 10 LTSC release"
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Metro (UWP Adver-Tiles ex. Candy Cush Saga), Cortina, Edge, and the (Cr)AppStore to rule them all. Aren't the kind of "Features", that most People would welcome. The added Telemetry, (i.e. Spyware), is of course mearly a courtesy detail.
Yeah now tell me again how this is better then Windows 7? Please note I don't currently have any need of DirectX12+ as I'm not one to subscribe to the PC MASTERRACE culture.
Interesting that MS recognises that their bi-annual updates are a risk to stability and reliability, hence you can pay more if you want a more reliable and dependable Windows 10 (for your IoT device).
Yet if you have a normal PC, or even a typical business PC, MS doesn't offer the "reliable" option. Why doesn't MS see reliability as a marketable feature for normal PCs?
Why doesn't MS see reliability as a marketable feature for normal PCs?
By "normal" PCs I assume you mean PCs sold to ordinary consumers as opposed to business PCs.
The explanation is simple. Ordinary users are Microsoft's gamma testers so MS can deliver reliable s/w (at higher prices) to businesses.
Ordinary users are Microsoft's gamma testers so MS can deliver reliable s/w (at higher prices) to businesses.
Most of us are also business users (or specifiers, installers, maintainers, etc) and I've not heard anybody describe the Windows desktop estate as reliable. It's just the same as for home users - chock full of shite nobody asked for, more holes than Swiss cheese, unsafe and dysfunctional without third party add ons, and always struggling with some aspect of interoperability with another MS product.
I mean almost all PCs to be honest. MS's LTSC version of Windows 10 is deliberately crippled in many areas to try and dissuade businesses from using it on anything but mission critical shop-floor machines. Your standard office PC will be on the Current Branch for Business, and hence will still get bi-annual "feature updates" even though 99% of businesses couldn't care less about a new version of 3D Paint.
Of course, many of them do care about their PCs being down for 90 minutes or so whilst the update applies, and many of them also care when a handful of PCs break during the update process. Hence my question as to why MS doesn't see reliability as a marketable feature for PCs - home as well as business.
> Win10 bi-annual updates
These are no "UPDATES" - these are new Windows releases!!
For stupid reasons M$ switched from normal updates to whole new releases. So every bi-annual "update" is a whole new Win10 release!! So it's like installing Windows 8 over Windows 7!! No normal Windows user would do that, we all know it's best to re-install from scratch a new Windows. Yet M$ releases Windows 10.1, 10.2, 10.3, 10.4, 10.5, 10.6, etc. are each a new Windows release - meaning resetting/destroying the Windows registry, aka forgetting the settings and drivers. Facepalm.
And the inbuilt surveillance, means Win10 is a no-go. I will stay with Windows 7, it works great on AMD Ryzen with 64GB mem by the way (despite big lies from M$ PR that it would not). Win7 runs circles around the slow Win10 spy-shaft.
"Why doesn't MS see reliability as a marketable feature for normal PCs?"
You're asking the wrong question. Micro-shaft sees SLURP and TRACK and ADS and FORCE-YOU as a strategy to PWNING you and CONTROLLING you, which (as THEY perceive it) pays BETTER than providing something that the CUSTOMER wants.
And if you PAY EXTRA (this includes 'Enterprise' editions as well as this new IoT pay-for-it option) you can "opt out" of SOME of this.
We have a situation where we pay for a product and update support but we then have to *pay* to not use the support we have already paid for, strikes me that it's dangerously close to unfair practice ...
Perhaps Ford will start charging if you don't use the can of puncture repair gunk they put in the boot of a new car ... ?
And as for start-up/repair disks - you have ten weeks to use them or we'll charge ...
Visual Studio 2017 is just unstable, it keeps crashing and giving all sort of errors and more Microsoft releases patches and worse it gets.
Visual Studio 2015 got much better in a shorter time. What happened then? Nardella happened! Way worse than Ballmer!
Visual Studio 2019 is going to be only worse.
New versions are useless and not needed! Why the heck releasing a new version to add more bugs? Fix the damned issues with the current version instead!
To be honest, I'd like to think that "Fix[ing] the damned issues with the current version" is what they're at least attempting to do, but rather than do that as an update, they're bringing it out under the new name. Perhaps the attempts at fixing the current version are so much under the hood that it would be a new version anyway, or perhaps it's a marketing/sales issue, but still... Of course, whether they SUCCEED in fixing those issues is another matter to be seen once 2019 launches.
but rather than do that as an update, they're bringing it out under the new name.
Of course....
1) Launch half-assed product early to much fanfare.
2) Wait feedback for exactly how bad it is in the press
3) Fix small subset of the most glaring problems, introduce three times as many new features.
3) Rename product to give the impression it's much newer than it is
4) Return to step 1.
Using windows for embedded is kinda silly anyway, ESPECIALLY when Linux is FREE.
/me points out that if you have issues with GPL, then you can use FreeBSD instead. It's also FREE.
(even if you obtain it with a 'free' license, you can see that Micro-shaft is crafting new ways for a 'free IoT' version to actually COST you)
I've got one of those adaptive function bars on my old(ish) Thinkpad X1 Carbon. It is ergonomically dreadful (it works as intended but I can't understand why anyone would think working like that was a good idea). Lenovo saw the light and got rid of it as soon as they could with the next generation of X1.
There have been keyboards available for a number of years where each keytop has a small screen, so you can reprogram the symbol on it.
And um Office on Iot devices? Like I really need a word processor and spreadsheet on my toaster. Wait, spreadshit toaster, the more bread you got the less shit you gotta eat, ... I need sleep.
"According to Microsoft, Gadgets were discontinued because they have "serious vulnerabilities", "could be exploited to harm your computer, access your computer's files, show you objectionable content, or change their behavior at any time"; and "an attacker could even use a gadget to take complete control of your PC"[1]. Gadgets were completely removed in Windows 8. However, with the launch of Windows 10, widespread support for Gadgets led to their revival as third-party enhancements to the new operating system, which adjusted to take account of them, including a link to the Gadgets Sidebar in the Windows Control Panel.[2][3] Many hundreds are now available from a variety of sources and more are in active development."
What was old is now new again!
(But some of us still remember)
Sorry, microsoft, but your touchscreen trackpad system has no chance. Apple actually had a chance with their touchbar--sure, nobody wanted it, but they could ensure that all the macs available would have it, that all the apple software would make it useful (sort of, but at least it would do something), and that people who were doing development and wanted or needed a new mac would have it available. You can't do that. The little touchscreen is going to cost money to make, so nobody buying their machines on a budget will have one. It has no business case, so people buying laptops for employees won't use one. The pad is now a selling point for the machines it's shoved into, and there really isn't enough use case for people to buy it. If you really want to see it succeed, start forcibly attaching it to all the models you can, especially the surface. Then, you can actually say that [some large number] of these pads have been sold. However, don't assume that their sale means anyone's using them, because they're not.
The questions asked the MS employees and their responses on work/pay satisfaction ( re: CNBC link in the article) has only one question that references dealing with customers. It had the lowest of the lowest scores.
The question: Processes and procedures allow me to effectively meet my customers' needs .
The 47% and 49% (2015, 2016 respectively) is abysmal. However, it looks as though the company stepped up in 2017-2018 and things improved, however if is still only a few percentage points over 50%. .New technology and associated services can not be fully embraced unless MS resolves conflicts and creates meaningful protocols. The Cloud and AI business is a competitive space, so they had better, or their customers will get their needs met elsewhere.
The question: Processes and procedures allow me to effectively meet my customers' needs .
It would be a lot lower still if it said "...my customers' needs as defined by themselves." It's easier to meet someone's needs if you get to decide what those are, and MS is far too arrogant to ever think the customer has any insight into what he needs. He might even decide he doesn't need two new versions of Windows every year!