Windows 12: Savior of PC makers, or just an apology for Windows 11? Microsoft is betting the farm on AI apathy not hitting before it makes a return on its investments. This is positive and negative news for PC makers and points to what might be Microsoft's next major Windows release. Windows 11 continues to be a less-than-stellar success for Microsoft. The most recent set of figures it …
Amen 100%
Back in the dark and distant past... i.e. Pre the founding of Microsoft, I wrote an essay on the role of Operating Systems as part of my degree in control engineering. In it I said the following.
- OS's should get out of the way of the user and prevent the user programs from doing their job.
- The Operating system should support the goal of the business not hinder it or even stop it from doing business.
At the time, the OS that I used the most would let me know when I did something stupid with an error message like
F342-Odd Address or other trap 4
Well, with 28kWords of Ram and 1.2Mb of hard disk, there wasn't room for much else.
The film 2001 was still fresh in my memory when I wrote that. The infamous 'I'm sorry Dave' could well become one of Arthur C Clarke's most prophetic phrase.
Then along came Clippy and the world went to pot.
OS's should get out of the way of the user and prevent the user programs from doing their job.
I think you meant to say "get out of the way of the user and NOT prevent the user programs from doing their job."
Understandably a bit too "festive" when posting... ?
Step 1. If windows 12 forces people to a set interface it will die on it's ass. The entire shell needs to be replaceable with a fully functional reskin (no restrictions on what can be replaced_ WITHOUT having to still run the original shell underneath) (causing overheads). This way third parties will do the work of creating a better control panel system etc FOR FREE! (think how many free minecraft mods there are that improve everything by a great amount)
Step 2. Subscriptions. If windows 12 is subscription based for AI, that feature is NOT going to be popular. Maybe in 5-10years when AI is everywhere people will pay for a substantially better one, but currently the average user doesn't care enough to see AI as useful.
step 3. Always-on Internet. If any features (such as Copilot) stop working when the internet is down, people will rapidly grow to hate it.
that we are ALWAYS CONNECTED to the MS Mothership so that they can get all that lovely telemetry (or slurping of what we do)
You can see this with their push to make everyone use Office 365 in the cloud. No Internet means No Documents, No Presentations, No Spreadsheets, NO NOTHING.
Others will be following suit.
If you are a Windows user then you had better get on message PDQ.
"You can see this with their push to make everyone use Office 365 in the cloud. No Internet means No Documents, No Presentations, No Spreadsheets, NO NOTHING."
This creates a huge problem for industries that are legally required (ITAR, etc) to secure their data. Companies with important trade secrets should also be very wary of data slurping by OS companies. If the formula for Coke got leaked, that would be a big problem for them as any big box store could brew up the same stuff and sell it for 1/4 of the price as they already do with their house brands.
I would never put my accounting online for all of the reasons. The big one has to do with Mr. Murphy, the Net would be down when I'm trying to get my taxes done at the last minute (the same as many others) or to get paid I have to deliver an invoice and can't because of connection issues. I have to admit that some of the programs I use and have paid for exist on my laptop as hacked versions that don't require connection to the vendor. I could lose a lot of money by having a program go into a limited mode while on a job with no way to connect.
> If the formula for Coke got leaked
Oh please, that formula is in the public for more than 100 years, including the variants and changes over time. But that formula is copyrighted of course. Pepsico is simply perfect at keeping that "of course only two people know the formula!" myth alive. 110% marketing / public relations / PROPAGANDA (<- as it originally was called).
"But that formula is copyrighted of course."
A recipe is not subject to copyright.
There's also a big difference between a recipe and the 'method'. Many bread recipes have the same ingredients in the same measures, but the end product is different due to the method of making the bread. When I mentioned the formula for Coke, I was also including the method. If all of that was public, why wouldn't somebody such as Tesco make an exact duplicate for their house brand cola? Many of the house branded colas I've had taste different than Coke and mostly the same as if one company was making it for many (likely the case).
Windows supports an alternate shell, and has done so since forever. Now, can you show an example of a full replacement shell that is still being developed and has any significant usage? There are a few extensions like Open Shell or Explorer Patcher, but those only hide or fix small parts of Explorer.
> Now, can you show an example of a full replacement shell that is still being developed and has any significant usage?
No, but up to W'10 (stretching a point) just replacing bit of Explorer was enough. So any other more complete replacement shells were just fluff and had nothing that could tempt a big enough pool of users to warrant continued development.
But if the UI is made even worse than 11's fixed task bar, there will be much more motivation for users to want a replacement and so be more worth while developers dragging one out of the vaults.
Fingers crossed. Unless everyone takes your (apparent) attitude of "we tried it once, nobody wanted one, not worth trying again", ignoring the fact that the situation has changed.
I have already anticipated that Micros~1 is proceeding over the cliff while going in the wrong direction, and I have allowed MSDN (or whatever it's called now) to EXPIRE. All of the old tools etc. will still work along with WIndows 7, and so I won't concern myself with 11, 12, or even 10 except for when I need to do taxes. For less than the $800/year subscription renewal cost I can get a low end PC with no monitor if something like tax software MANDATES it.
I'm DONE with Micros~1 *WRONGNESS*, from the 2D FLATSO TIFKAM interface, mandatory updates, strong-armed "cloudy" login and ADVERTS on MY computer, to their general attitude of "The BORG is always RIGHT and you will be ASSIMILATED"
> For less than the $800/year subscription renewal cost I can get a low end PC with no monitor if something like tax software MANDATES it.
Why a PC? I'd recommend a cheap x86 laptop for that stuff. Less than 800$, monitor included, easier to put away once done.
Did not want a laptop though.
I already have kb's and monitors. I might need an upgrade to the KVM, but with a small (possibly used or reconditioned) PC stand-alone I'd save the most $.
I have had pretty good success with used and re-conditioned PC boxen from E-bay and other places.
"For less than the $800/year subscription renewal cost I can get a low end PC with no monitor if something like tax software MANDATES it."
I have a few older computers in my closet so I can keep using W7. One of them belonged to the actor that played Ferris Bueller's dad. I have an 8x10 portfolio picture of Lyman from the same estate sale and I'll hang it over the computer if I put it into service.
Microsoft needs to lose the attitude that they alone know what is best for their users. The OS should be a hihly flexible interface to a set of services which users can mix and match to their own requirements. I've managed to beat windows 10 into submission, more or less, but from what I can see Win 11 would be more difficult and ive me nothing new that I want at the end of the process
Wish I could upvote more than once, here too I have had to beat win10 to within an inch of its life to make it nice to use - and stick to 7 where possible.
If 12 needs MS account to log on etc then that will still lie dead in the water for me - everything I have uses local accounts
Is online only likely to be mandatory? That's going to be difficult for the sort of kiosk mode applications I look after, unless, I suppose, Windows Server is still a thing?
It'll be mandatory for Home as it is now. I suspect you'll need the professional SKU or above like you do now to avoid it.
I assume you're going to be very heavily pushed towards it, however I can't see them cutting off their face to spite their nose completely, so I expect there'll be some domain joining dance you will be able to do to avoid it, as there is now. (Not all uses of windows are appropriate for online accounts and MS know that).
Either that or they'll do a 'Military and Government' SKU that doesn't need it?
I'm already looking at how practical it could be to migrate to something where I have a little more control, but my Linux experience is purely as a home user and I've no idea how easy or otherwise the sort of central account management Windows Server facilitates would be (perfectly honestly I could use some centralisation at home too!). Problem is many of our apps won't run well under Wine (I'm already experimenting) but then again, some of them refuse Windows 10 too, due to incompatible proprietary drivers... (and they nearly all rely on Director, Flash and Quicktime)
M
For the centralised management replacement, maybe look into something around LDAP? It's a protocol widely used for central admin stuff, and there are several projects that can potentially provide the management GUI and pieces you need.
None of them seem super user friendly though, but they do tend to work ok (after some learning).
For the Wine problem, maybe try Lutris? It's kind of like an open source Steam running thing, but it supports using Proton instead of Wine (so more complete support of windows) and you're not limited to just games. You can install any kind of Windows application into it, define the dependencies (msvc10, msvc12, dotnet42, etc) and things will run ok.
It also has a learning curve, but tends to work pretty well once you've gotten the hang of it.
My goodness, I thought I dragged my Flash/AS2 work out by making it last upto ~2013. I didn't think anybody would still be maintaining Director projects for this long. Hats off to you, fellow Macromedia project maintainer!
Though perhaps it's time to pull the plug and redevelop them with more modern, more flexible approaches. Such as web applications using Node.js/Bun, or Rust and Rocket. And then host them on Linux and point the kiosks to the respective web pages.
That's the conclusion I'm coming to, but unfortunately this place was built using lottery money and there is absolutely no budget to do anything more than replacing the odd bit of failed hardware (where possible - have you tried finding a motherboard with Windows XP drivers these days? I have a stock!)
There is the more pernicious problem which created the whole edifice in the first place - management believes they have no expertise in the matter and so will inevitably outsource any replacement installations, which will undoubtedly therefore consist of more proprietary locked-in bespoke applications written by "specialists" with a vested interest in a maintenance contract.
M.
> Not all uses of windows are appropriate for online accounts and MS know that).
Not all geographic locations are appropriate for online accounts . Microsoft forgets that
(They should get some of their people to try working in a "third world" country for a while.)
If your kiosk applictions have web interfaces, you should be able to port them to linux pretty quickly.
I recommend doing that. Chromium has "kiosk mode" and there may be something similar in Firefox. Worst case you can write a webkit-based browser in just a few lines of Python code. Good denough for a web-based touchscreen hierarchy, run Apache+PHP stand-alone on Linux. On an RPi even...
As mentioned earlier, Director, Quicktime, some bespoke .exe.
Web tech wasn't up to the job in 2008, especially as some "kiosks" are connected to each other for group-play (as it were) and several have two screens (monitor / projector). I've also had trouble with Elo touchscreens under Linux (an older type is ok for position and left-click, but not dragging, a newer type works upside-down (Y-position reversed, X-position is fine) and I've not been able to flip it...
M.
Wish I could upvote more than once, here too I have had to beat win10 to within an inch of its life to make it nice to use - and stick to 7 where possible.
Sometimes it's just easier to give in.
"He was walking down the white-tiled corridor, with the feeling of walking in sunlight, and an armed guard at his back. The longhoped-for bullet was entering his brain.
He gazed up at the enormous face. Forty years it had taken him to learn what kind of smile was hidden beneath the dark moustache. O cruel, needless misunderstanding! O stubborn, self-willed exile from the loving breast! Two gin-scented tears trickled down the sides of his nose. But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother."
> Microsoft needs to lose the attitude that they alone know what is best for their users.
I wholeheartedly agree, but actually they don't give a damn about their users customers: What is important to them is their bottom line, nothing else.
Marketing lives on buzz-words. Remember a couple years ago when everything was "tablet"? (The new computing paradigm, it's the end of desk/laptops, they will go the way of the Dodo!) Couple years later tablets have found their real use, watching cat videos and reading stuff in your couch, and people still use desk/laptops to do serious work.
Nowadays it's "AI": AI will replace everything, do everything, you need AI, lots of AI! Cue forward a couple years and AI will have found its place (writing homework for the terminally clueless/lazy?). In the meantime, they will try to make you buy things you neither need nor want, by repeating long enough that "that's how the cool kids do it", and that you desperately need their stuff, even (especially) if you didn't realize it yet. They'll repeat this until the more weak-willed cave in and start believing (buying) it.
The problem is the market model that says making a decent profit is no longer good enough and companies need to make ever increasing profits. It didn't used to be that way in some sectors it still isn't. I bought a Rega record deck in 1991. Since then I've bought one replacement belt and based on the performance to-date I might buy one more belt before I pop my clogs and pass it on. I assume I'm not a special case and there aren't many people buying a new Rega set-up every couple of years, but somehow Rega is stil lin business, still making enough money to keep its owners happy by making products that keep its customers happy. Microsoft and all the other subscription robber bastards only get away with it because they can and because the markets demand that they increase their profits year on year. Once they've exhausted the forced inclusions and add-ons they'll just put up the subscription prices until the pips squeak and they start to lose market share; only at that point will the "shareholders" stop demanding more profit. It's a shit shit shit shit world. Happy Christmas!
> , still making enough money to keep its owners happy by making products that keep its customers happy.
There is the problem: so many companies have shareholders than owners, and, worse, shareholders for whom "whatever the company makes or does" is *totally* irrelevant, only the ever increasing dividends are important, otherwise the companies are "not acting in the best interests of the shareholders" and need to be punished.
Gone are the days of raising a subscription to pay for something that the public actually *wants*.
I assume I'm not a special case and there aren't many people buying a new Rega set-up every couple of years, but somehow Rega is stil lin business
Presumably they're priced as such though? Spinning a wobbly disc is a fairly well solved problem, so the extra you're paying over the manufacturing costs are because you'll only buy one in your lifetime.
Microsoft does have the opposite problem to some extent, people don't actually want to pay for their OS.
"When it debuts in February, Windows 2000 Professional will sell for an estimated retail price of $319, the same as its predecessor, Windows NT 4 Workstation. An upgrade from Windows NT will cost $149, the current price to move from previous versions of Windows NT, the company said yesterday in a briefing.", which is about $560 and $260 respectively.
Compare that to now, Windows 11 is a free upgrade for most if your hardware supports it, as was Windows 10 before that, and if you want to buy it outright it's a lot less than $500. (RRP seems to be around $200).
So if you want to keep the gravy train running you need to extract money in a different way.
"Compare that to now, Windows 11 is a free upgrade for most if your hardware supports it, as was Windows 10 before that, and if you want to buy it outright it's a lot less than $500. (RRP seems to be around $200)."
The vast majority are corporate users, who are already paying an annual subscription. It's not free for them.
That's what I thought when I had the misfortune (while I was at the Grandkids house) to see a TV AD yesterday for Currys/PC World (UK electronics and white goods retailer).
They were advertising a Samsing TV with an 'AI powered processor'.
Why the hell does a TV need anything related to AI?
Ok, I get it... AI is the hot buzzword this year but seriously, can someone explain why I need AI to watch TV? Is it for more of the Amazon, 'We think you might like this...' (and invariably shows something that you recently bought so no AI needed there)?
Sony and LG have been doing that for ages, but Sony calls it a "Cognitive Processor" instead. For the most part it's just predictive upscaling, interpolation and grading but it's all the same processes they've always used. Technically they do use a form of tinyML just like your phone has done for years for digital signal processing, but it's "AI" in an even more limited definition than ChatGPT.
I have no major complaints with Windows 11 Pro. It works just as well as Win 7 or 10 did, as long as that TPM/hardware requirement is met.
I used to look for separate drivers when installing Windows. Motherboard chipset, CPU, audio chipset. Not needed anymore. Even HP Laserjet printer works after three clicks: add printer, select found printer, OK. Games run fine. Hyper-V virtual machine for banking tasks to keep them separated from other apps. Windows sandbox for opening suspicious links or meme sites found in Reddit. I encrypt my documents locally before syncing to Onedrive (there's an open source app for this).
For coding stuff my projects live in Ubuntu WSL that runs containers and linux apps, and VS Code integrates with them. Microsoft has done good work improving WSL under Windows.
Could I do all this with Mac OS or Linux? Yes, absolutely.
Can't agree. Pretty much everything is wrong with M$ - ever since Win 7, up to and including 11. And yes, I can do everything I need with Linux. And I do.
Why should I want to use anything else, when everything just works - smoothly, reliably and FREELY, without subscriptions, data slurping or special hardware requirements? Plus dramatically better updating processes and easy maintenance.
Life with the Flintstones may have had some quaint charms, but that does not mean I want to return to them.
"[...] as long as that TPM/hardware requirement is met."
Which might be a problem for some public sector/government organisations with large installed estates.
Hopefully a non-ai version of Windows 12 will be available without requiring another forced hardware refresh cycle for client machines that are basically used as dumb terminals to networked databases.
Have a Merry Christmas and a reassuringly calm uneventful new year
I'd agree with 90% of that really, windows generally does just work.
WSL is lovely, and provides a nice bit of Linux if you don't actually want to run Linux. (It's ever so slightly easier to do some things under WSL for me than it is to use X and a remote SSH session). I also make use of sandbox, I think that's a little gem to be honest.
However......
Even HP Laserjet printer works after three clicks: add printer, select found printer, OK.
Yours may well do that... mine I find is more 'It may work... it'll certainly tell you it's there.. it might print... but more often than not if you've not printed in a while you'll have to do some re-installing for no apparent reason....'
But it's like that with macOS too, so I lay the blame squarely at the feet of HP. :)
I just took possession of a i9 PC/server 16GB Ram about 5 years old - No OS\HDD.
I wanted to install a OS after fitting the HDD, I ended up downloading the W11 ISO (Reasons) then burned to USB with RUFUS.
To my surprise RUFUS asked me to select a whole load of options including:
Remove requirement for 4GB+ RAM, Secure Boot and TPM 2.0.
Remove requirement for an online Microsoft account to be able to create a local account during the out-of-box experience.
Create a local account with username and specify the account name if you want an installation with a local account instead of a Microsoft account (not recommended).
Set regional options to the same values as this user’s.
Disable data collection.
So far running smoothly (Not my first W11 machine), still does take a bit of getting used to.
I cant say I like it over 10 nor loathe it either.
Icon as its 2.30am - Merry Christmas
This.
I’ve got some quite ancient hardware happily running Windows 11 without a TPM thanks to Rufus. It’s…. fine.
I tried the same thing in some even older hardware. It’s happily running Windows 10, I tried an in place upgrade with a Rufus’ed windows 11, fail. Nasty blue screen of death on first boot. However, Windows still managed to automatically roll back to Windows 10 with no problems. I was simultaneously disappointed and impressed.
> Nasty blue screen of death on first boot.
There is quite often a partitioning issue during the upgrade. If the BOOT and or Windows RE partition is too small the upgrade will fail since it simply running out of diskspace. So take, for example, a gparted boot CD, make those partition roughly double in size, and it may work.
Other known things: Old BIOS, old drivers, and odd software which installed upper and lower filter driver into disks, network cards and so on. Like AV software, or virtual-CD-emulators, Anti-Cheat software etc.
Most of us are not long past getting everything onto 10.
There is no obvious attraction to moving to the next one. Eventually, something is going to give and a couple of big names are going to upgrade away from MS products.
The more they squeeze out of us, the sooner that will happen!
Anyone else remember the days when the slogan was 'nobody got fired for buying IBM'? Microsoft are treading the self-same path and like every other instance they seem to believe they have a magic way of not crumbling when the masses get fed up with other people's hands in their wallets.
Companies mostly don't do that. Big companies especially. But then they don't keep machines that log either, unless it's in a development environment like mine where the machines we do the main development on are 10 years old and the laptops we only use for email and documentation get replaced with decent new machines every three years. But then we also run RHEL on the development machines.
I am not sure if this is appropriate, but isn't what Microsoft are doing an abuse of power, or possibly cartel behaviour ?
A quick glance of EU law (i am in the UK, outside the EU, yet our government are shite) indicates that what Microsoft are doing is not illegal.
Microsoft are essentially forcing people to purchase new hardware to run the latest software (claimed security) which is perhaps not entirely essential. At the same time obsoleting perfectly good hardware creating landfill or costs to the consumer on a grand scale. It benefits the PC makers and Microsoft, but not the user/customer.
This definitely looks like cartel behaviour and abuse of power/dominant market position.
Will any of the authorities tackle this issue, educating as a minimum that other operating systems and ecosystems are available (Linux).
Maybe Google or other are missing a trick - they could advertise a Linux based OS claiming that old hardware is perfectly adequate so no need to spend on a new PC when you don't need to.
This is something I've pointed out in the past
Just how much E-waste will be generated just so m$/intel/nvidia can generate even more profits where a PC from say 10 years ago can do what 95% of the people using PCs want to do on it.
And just how much of a waste most of the new PCs will be when a nice thin client will happily use VPN to the cloud and use the computing power there instead of trying to use a desktop for it.
As for google et al missing a trick with Linux, take 1 old'ish PC unable to use win11(or 12) because it does'nt have the TPM that m$ are demanding to protect their crummy product, next take the average user, and see if they can install linux(this is a no) , so you'll need to spin up a linux distro/install file that people will be able to click on and it installs/configures a linux for them before modifying the MBR so windows cant start.
Then deal with the complaints because "My internet is missing because the blue icon has changed to an orange one"
Microsoft are essentially forcing people to purchase new hardware to run the latest software
Forcing people? How are they doing this?
It seems to me in 2023 that I have a pretty healthy choice of systems I could use, I could do the majority if not all of my work in Linux or macOS, and my work is fairly atypical (I rely on some crusty old windows software), most developers would have zero issues.
Same with my home computing, even the gaming now is getting more and more Linux support (Thanks valve).
Windows 10 is supported (for free) until Oct 2025, at which point that brand new machine you bought to run Windows 11 will be 4 years old. You also have the option of paid support after this date.
You have always had to buy new hardware to run the latest and greatest? The difference this time is it can be persuaded to run on older hardware, for now. But I don't really have a problem with MS setting a base spec going forward, depending on your views the TPM requirement is either good or bad (or both) for security going forward.
The windows 11 base hardware has given MS a platform they can rely on any post windows 11 versions running on. Personally I assume they're taking the pain now, so they can do stuff with it going forward. Some of the encapsulations tech they were touting for Windows X for example.
"Forcing people? How are they doing this?"
Microsoft are forcing people because the masses do not understand PC's and Microsoft are setting the next hardware requirements to exclude many PC's that are more than adequate to perform the function that they require and runs Windows 11. Peoples lack of knowledge will mean that they refresh their hardware.
Microsoft disgraceful behaviour conned people into installing Windows 10, so they have a reputation of underhand tactics.
I asked someone who is reasonably tech savvy whether they would upgrade their PC with and SSD and install Linux when their PC is not receiving security updates in 2025, and they replied they will purchase a new PC, despite that they do not need to.
That is why Microsoft are forcing people. They are relying upon people being ignorant about PC's to con them.
Well, on the flip side to that, it is going to force my parents to replace their 10+ year old "all-in-one" HP device that originally came with Windows 7... the hard drive on that thing sounds like it is ready to seize up any day now, so I'm just hoping it holds together long enough for them to wait out the forced refresh and buy as late as possible. But they and many others are long overdue for a replacement, if only because that old hardware is very power inefficient compared to modern stuff, and reducing the power loads/bills is always a good thing.
Fair enough for very old hardware that is near its end of life limit.
Yet what Microsoft are doing is curtailing reasonably new devices which are more than adequate to run Windows 11.
The power efficiency is a null statement. If you examine latest Intel processors they have a greater power consumption than previous units. That is the problem, as highlighted by the current energy problems and cost of electricity. I am looking for the "T" versions of intel processors to ensure lower power consumption for desktop units (self build).
> If you examine latest Intel processors they have a greater power consumption than previous units.
Well, you examine the "we have to beat AMD no matter what the (energy) cost" line of Intel. I love beating on Intel, but you should take the actual mass market CPU. Which is the middle i5 CPU for business.
But while we are at Intel bashing: Or the i7-Ultrabook CPU line, which is actually an i3 with a low power limit on top. With a marketing i7-*****U name slapped on it so sales droids can push their "I have an i7 ultraaaa !!!!11!11!1oneleven!!! and you only i5 !" into their tech people faces, while the tech people grin and know their non-ultra i5 has the double CPU core count, at least double cache size and higher frequency on top.
All Microsoft had to do was to fix bugs in WIndows 10.
But they seem to have lost their sense of purpose and run like headless chickens clinging on to one buzzword tech or another.
The whole AI concept in the OS seems misplaced, because if OS starts doing thing without user control or knowledge you will only create confusion and loss of productivity plus a ton of work for customer support.
Imagine clumsy user deletes or saves their home work somewhere to cloud. They are certain they saved it to documents, but file is not there. They can't find it. They'll blame the AI.
If the search is going to work as it currently works in Windows, they won't find that file anyway.
TLDR; If Windows 12 doubles down on the Windows 11 hardware requirements madness, Microsoft is in for a rough ride.
"Microsoft and OEMs' clearly hoped affected customers would buy new computers to make the upgrade – but instead many have chosen to stick with Windows 10."
Bolting AI on here and there is going to make the hardware gap worse not better. And for what? Copilot has no relevance for the average consumer -- yet. Windows 10 EOL will be a massive opportunity for ChromeOS, and Linux will see some converts too.
I remember when home PCs were offline and networking was hard. Microsoft said "the network is the computer", but it took 10 years before that became widespread in the consumer world, and 20 years before "everything" was networked. Maybe they are right that AI is the future, but it's too soon. Just like networking, business will adopt it first and only later will it be useful for consumers. Trying to force everyone to be an early adopter will backfire. Hoping for the business refresh isn't going to work out for them, either. Too expensive. Big business will go with cloud compute and thin clients. Medium business will jump on Windows 12 for their AI but early benefits will be meagre. Small business uptake will be all over the map.
Internet explorer is how Microsoft brought great innovations to the internet, which we could not live without today!!!
- Support for VBscript inside pages (as opposed to doomed to fail javascript)
- Support for VML (Vector Markup Language ) in pages (as opposed to doomed to fail SVG).
- Support for ActiveX and Browser Helper Objects inside the browser!!!
- Support for Conditional Comments (<!--[if gt IE 11]>Bring back Ballmer<![endif]-->)
- Support for DirectX Filters(as opposed to doomed to fail CSS filters).
Not MS. Apple had networking (slow, crude, annoying, but _cheap_ networking) built into every Mac starting in. 1984. Sun had networking (slow, but much faster than Apple, crude, annoying, and _expensive_ networking) built into most/all Sun thingies at around that time. (Yes, you read that right. Apple had _cheap_ networking. AppleTalk was 230kb/s, but it was incredibly cheap, and it worked. As long as you weren't going past 32 nodes on your network. Sixteen nodes if you didn't want the already slow 'speed' to fall off a cliff. In 1986, I had groups of 8 Mac Pluses and Mac IIs talking to LaserWriters and doing actual real work; getting network cards for DOS systems was... not happening, even if I could get permission to hook the DOS boxes up to the real network, which definitely wasn't happening. And if I could find network-capable software for DOS. Windows? Wha' b' tha', laddie? A hole in th' wall with a lot o' glass, ain't it?) It was a loooooong time before MS woke up to networks, and when they did, they wanted NetBEUI. Which was so successful that it opened the way for Norvell. And irritated the hell out of generations of WinNT server guys.
And now people are actively NOT networking (to the world) their kit just to keep the Ad slingers and data slurpers at bay.
I moved everything but one laptop and one Linux box onto a separate network that has zero access to the internet. FSCK to the ad slingers and slurpers.
The Linux box runs a small website which despite over 4000 rules blocking IP ranges still gets at least one scraping attempt every week. That website is not broadcast to the likes of Google yet... hacking attempts are a daily occurrence.
"TLDR; If Windows 12 doubles down on the Windows 11 hardware requirements madness, Microsoft is in for a rough ride."
M$ isn't, the users are. The newest version of a program you need won't run on 11 so you have to update to 12 whether you like M$ or not. Entire companies will switch so the latest version of Teams will run properly. Or Office, Project, etc. Microsoft gets paid for an OS license for every PC that rolls off the line of a major manufacturer so the more times they can force you to buy another, the more money they make while at the same time moving your data from your machine to theirs where they can have a good rummage through it.
At any one time I typically have around 4 PCs, usually 3 laptops and 1 desktop. 5 years ago they were all running Windows. Today it's 1 Mac, 2 Ubuntu, 1 Windows. If they withdraw support for Win 10 then that PC will go to Ubuntu also. I tried Win11 for a week and was appalled at the blatant attempts to pull me into the Microsoft ecosystem. That ain't going to happen. I don't trust Microsoft enough.
It kept adding things I didn't ask for and didn't want (and in a really half-assed way that sort of worked, sometimes) while at the same time repeatedly failing to fix long standing problems.
The end result was an OS where sometimes the setting you wanted was in one place, sometimes it was in another, sometimes it was just gone and there was no way of getting it back.
Occasionally GPOs would simply stop working for no obvious reason, and then you find out that as if the latest point release they took that feature away.
Sometimes the only way to achieve the desired result was through powershell, but the same shell commands wouldn't have the same result on different windows versions.
It was a mess.
If they can't sort out that, then there's simply no way I'm ever going back.
They made MacOS - dear god they even made Linux - the less frustrating user experience.
So. Microsoft, I don't want AI. I don't want subscriptions. I want a CONSISTENT USER EXPERIENCE! That's all I want from you, and if 12 can't give that you'll just keep losing more and more customers like me who are just trying to get things done and want their OS to get out of the bloody way.
You seem to think that Linux provides a difficult user experience, It doesn't. You can set things up so it provides a similar user experience to Microsoft before the latter went off the rails with a few actual improvements that Microsoft took uears to catch up on. Useful things such as multiple virtual desktops. And you can have the long terms consistency.
I've been using Linux as my primary work machine for well over a decade and always had a few Linux boxes floating around at home over the course of the last 20 years. I'm well aware of what the user experience is like, both for better and worse.
What is insane is that Microsoft, which is one of the largest corporations in the world, somehow can't do a better job than a foss ecosystem which provides dozens of different competing user interfaces - it's inconsistent by design and it's still better. Not least because you can actually pull out and replace entire components that aren't fit for purpose.
Over the last decade Linux desktop environments have gotten better and better, where as Windows has gotten worse and worse.
I started to explore Linux at the start of the pandemic, when I had plenty of time on my hands. Windows 10 (W10) was becoming an advertising mess,and eventually Windows 11 (W11) consolidated that. W11 also degenerated the GUI to something on a toy (Apologies to Fisher-Price). I get the impression that the UI was entrusted to children/interns who had an Apple fixation.
I have been using Windows since MS-DOS 3.0 and Windows 3.0. W11 was something I installed after imaging W10 to be able to roll-back in excess of 10 days. I persevered with W11 for at least a month and then rolled back to W10. At this point I also installed Linux Mint as a dual boot. It's not difficult people (I'm 77 and can do it, so can you)
Now I run Linux 95% of the time and boot into Windows 10 to game occasionally. I'm not going to be bothered with W11 or Windows 12 (or whatever it gets called) when W10 is EOL. I'll just delete Windows from the machine and sail on with Linux.
This was essentially me back in 2018, except it was a W7 laptop before it [the OS] became end-of-life.
I started things as a dual-boot experience – mainly by partitioning free space on my physical disk using the “Install along side another Operating System” option. Since mid-2020, I've gone full-on Linux desktop after hardly using the Windows partition in the space of about 12 months after first dual-booting, then never using the Windows partition for pretty much all of 2019.
I've used W10 and W11 in the last two years (for work usage) and it has been a horrible, productivity-killing and frustrating experience, especially when I'm stuck at the “Getting Windows Ready” screen for prolonged periods on a regular basis after choosing “Shutdown”, not “Update and Shutdown”.
In comparison, Linux desktop distros have been a breath of fresh air in recent years, to the point that I now have family members either using one, or looking to try one, with some looking to return to Linux after getting newer W10/W11 laptops/desktops, all because Linux keeps out of the way of what they want to do, unlike Windows 10/11 which is ‘really invasive and needy’ according to my 18-year-old step-daughter who previously used Windows but finds Linux distros more intuitive, and considerably better at respecting users and their choices. She's dreading the thought of having to tolerate W11 and its annoyances whilst using the university campus IT equipment...Ooof!
Windows 11 UI is bloated, macOS is a lot more minimalistic. Most Linux DE's are minimalistic in comparison to the hogwash mess that is Windows 11 and soon to be W12. Windows has turned into the early 2000's Internet explorer toolbar hellscape we all loved.
The only thing keeping Windows around are the companies still sitting employees across a Windows powered computer. Those same employees go buy personal computers running Windows because it's familiar. The world runs on Linux backends.
> You seem to think that Linux provides a difficult user experience, It doesn't.
Nope. After 30 years of using it, I can confidently say the Linux user experience is absolute crap.
For example, GIMP is the only program I think I've ever encountered that doesn't let you save a modified file on exit. I can talk about other stupid Linux UI tricks ad infinitum.
But it's still better than Windows.
"...GIMP is the only program I think I've ever encountered that doesn't let you save a modified file on exit..."
But the unsaved state is caught and I can cancel the exit. Same idea just upside down logic? Sort of like ed with the ? when you q with unsaved changes.
But I agree doing what t'other programs do would help consistency.
User experience crap? Wrong Linux. Try Mint. Not perfect, but what is?. Built by a small but highly responsive team, user feedback says it is just what they want, with a bonus that most keyboard shortcuts are the same as in W7...
I, for one, would never go back to any version of Windows.
> Sometimes the only way to achieve the desired result was through powershell, but the same shell commands wouldn't have the same result on different windows versions.
This is why Powershell 5.1 is a must. Came with Server 2016, and is available down to Windows 7. Powershell 5.1 is a somewhat "feature complete usable" version consistent along all platforms, which is still the default PS version up to the newest insider build. Up to now I only found one thing where PS 5.1 on Server 2008 R2 behaves different from Server 2012 R2 with PS 5.1: Collecting all trust information from AD and the domaincontrollers for each trust. One of the important milestones PS 5.1 brought: Can handle long directory and file names, over 32000 characters long. Why they did not add long path support with PS 2.x is a mystery to me...
If you are not on PS 5.1: Yep, you have a problem. I insist on at least PS 5.1 due to a lot of annoying bugs fixed I don't want to waste my time on.
If, as has been suspected, W12 is a subscription service it's more likely to be the death knell. I suppose Microsoft might boil the frog a little more slowly - still a perpetual licence but it will do even less without a 365 subscription. The one after that will be full-on Windows 365, neatly avoiding having a Windows 13. You know they'll never introduce a W13, don't you.
I have Windows7 and Windows10 on three Lenovo machines, in a dual-boot configuration alongside Linux (for a "...just in case..." situation). Have never used the Windows installations; never needed to. Been using Linux since before Ubuntu went all crazy, and before Linux was declared to be "...a cancer..." by Steve Balmer.
Every time I think of Windows, I think of the song "Up Around the Bend", written and sung by John Fogerty of Credence Clearwater Revival, and particularly the end of the first stanza, which states
"...Come away, come away if you're goin';
Leave the sinkin' ship behind."
Several years ago I invested in an Enterprise version of Windows 10, allowing me to avoid the ads, the Microsoft account requirement and having more control over my PC. I am glad Microsoft is allowing more apps and features to be uninstalled or turned off, I have no need for the majority of the features they have added since introducing Windows 10 and the perpetual carrot to try and lure users over, especially now with Windows 11's low adoption rate. With AI being the focus of Windows 12 I wouldn't be surprised if the CPU compatibility shrinks dramatically. It is a safe to say some update of Windows 12 over it's fiver year life span or the next big Windows release will require CPUs with a dedicated AI processor. Consigning even Windows 11 compatible hardware to the e-waste heap, with Microsoft and the hardware vendors in bed together trying to boost PC sales despite the ecological impact of more toxic e-waste and microplastics. I would think a $2 trillion dollar company could afford to allow Windows 10 to live on. Or does that cut into the thin $211 billion dollar profit margins of 2023 or force Microsoft to dip into the meager $143 billion cash reserve? Oh the hardships!
Recently tried to install a Linux distro to experiment with, even installing it has become a bigger pain than Windows ever was. It is said in all the comments I read "Linux just works". Then why all the fiddling needed in getting it to install and run on my barely two year old hardware? Hard pass!! I don't use the integrated Linux subsystem in Windows 11 because it effectively doubles to the attack surface of my system.
You've hit the right trigger for downvotes :D (not from me BTW). The problem with Linux is: WHICH Linux did you choose? There are ~10 easy to find to choose, from. Over 20 if you search more. So you should have mentioned what you tried. And you should mention in more detail what hardware you used, 'cause some are VERY Linux unfriendly. Typical example is hardware without a ROM, where the driver uploads the firmware at every boot (cheaper that way), which is not available to the public.
The integrates Linux Subsystem is no active by default, you have to activate it. That part of your comment is wrong, you don't double the attack surface "by default", you have to double it manually :D.
Personally I stick with what is based on enterprise Linux, i.e. RHEL and SEL. So that's Alma/Rocky Linux (mostly for servers) and openSUSE Leap (for the desktop).
And there isn't really any other Linux distro as user friendly as openSUSE Leap.
This week, I bought a really nice ultraportable, a Lenovo Yoga 6. I had to experience Windows long enough to turn off fast boot (which involved logging into my Microsoft account), I attempted to install Debian. No luck there, needed some custom wifi drivers. Rather than mess around doing that, I installed Ubuntu. It installed flawlessly, and (although I'm not a Gnome fan) came up with an entirely usable user interface (which I'm replacing, of course). I don't think Ubuntu is the sole choice (though it makes sense for me as a Debian user), but there are a number of very polished distros that install cleanly and are usable by non-experts...and cost nothing.
One person's bloat is another person's indispensable feature. Take the calculator app for example. Maybe all you need is your basic arithmetic functions, so the scientific, graphing, and programmer modes are basically bloat. The next person might need to use tangents every day in their work, so a calculator without scientific functions is completely useless to them. Someone else may need to plot function graphs every day, so any calculator app that can't do that is useless. Going the other direction, plenty of people can go years, maybe even decades, without needed a calculator of any kind, so the mere fact that the calculator app is included, even if it's just your basic 4-function calculator, is bloat. Where do you draw the line? Microsoft's job is to make an OS that appeals to the broadest array of people possible. It's a lot easier to simply ignore things you don't need than to try to seek them out if you do.
Which all well and good
Except the calculator will play 30 secs of 'ads' and send the result of every calculation back to HQ in order 'to give you a better calculating experience' (oh and fine tune those 30 second unskippable ads)
PS have you seen those ads? "One wierd trick to reduce your heating bill" click on the link and firefox goes Patooey ... possible scam site procede at your own risk......
That is not new and well documented. The "simple" mode invisibly always hits "=" if you hit a +-*/ etc key. Doesn't make it good, but at least it is documented. And valid down to the calculator of Windows 3.1 (and NT 3.1 and probably for Windows 2.x and 1.x too). Complain to David Plummer if you want to :D. He was involved in the calculator, task manager and so on. I think the explanation was that those table-printer calculators common back then behave that way since they always immediately print the result.
I still want to see a "killer app" for AI that justifies it on the consumer side. For drug researchers or other technical fields that may involve chewing through large amounts of data or a lot of trial and error, sure. It's easy to see the potential benefits there. But for Joe Q Public, I haven't seen anything that is even remotely necessary. Sure, AI image generation can be a fun way to kill some time coming up with funny photos, and college students can have ChatGPT write the foundation of a term paper for them and then make some modifications if they don't really care that they're basically mortgaging their future so they can go party with friends this weekend. What's the value of AI for the average office drone?
Right now it seems like we're sort of in the early stages. People hear "AI" and think of sci-fi movies and TV shows where there's a sentient computer program that can think and reason just like a human being, or at least something akin to the Star Trek ship computer that can understand and deal with ambiguous requests. We're not even close to that level yet. Right now, AI isn't much more than a glorified macro to automate complex tasks. What is the point of it for me and the millions of other average people? I'm sure some day someone will figure out what that is, but trying to shoehorn it into the OS before that day arrives seems like a bunch of middle managers at Microsoft are afraid of missing the boat again like they did with the Internet, so now instead of rushing to play catch up like in the 90s and 00s, they're jumping the gun.
When the ordinary non-technical moron wants a computer to do something for them, they cannot use a CLI because that would involve knowing anything and they cannot use a GUI because even that would involve some level of understanding of the problem to be solved.
The solution is an AI voice recognition system. The user can say "How can I, like, make my company more profitable and stuff while putting and end to war and hunger and all the bad things and also have bikini models find me attractive? The AI will then confidently respond with whatever its sponsors are pushing that day.
I use Linux for home and for work. Whatever happening in the Windows world has little effect on me.
Nevertheless, I am indirectly influenced by the Win11 hardware requirements. When I buy used parts for my toy projects, for example a Proxmox server. I still prefer to opt for specs which is Win11 compliant.
There are plenty of Dell optiplex with Intel 6th gen for $100. Instead, I bought a used motherboard with intel 11th gen for $150 + reusing old parts at home.
I have also sold 2 old motherboards in home computers (11 and 15 years old). Then replaced by 2nd hand mobo + Ryzen 5xxxG. Main reason is ecology. The old ones either too energy intensive or doesn't handle well sleep state.
Nevertheless if I have old computers. But green enough and which can handle sleep state ok. Maybe starting from Intel 3th gen? And there are many hundreds of those which are no longer Win11 compliant. Those computers are perfectly fine to run Linux. And in fact maybe even better than a more modern Win11 or wven 12.
Not for me.
If Windows on ARM progresses, it will mean that my specific requirement for processing video 24/7 on a lower energy usage CPU lowers the electricity bill. This probably will require the application to be re-written to ensure the H.264 codec specific capability is used.
Intel seem to be increasing energy consumption with their later CPU offerings, which is what i don't want.
The only actual mistake was killing Windows Phone. Especially when considering that it made its way into aviation and was used on tablets there... (Throwing away here maps was another mistake).
ARM versions will come to the public, they are used a lot inside Microsoft. But not yet released to the public due to support cost on so many possible platform variations.
Windows Phone died because it was part of the Windows-on-ARM failure.
Consider: the only time Microsoft had a significant presence on ARM devices was when they were using a custom-built kernel (called “Windows Mobile” or “Windows CE” or whatever it was). Once they switched to the full-fat Windows NT kernel, they completely lost that market.
Coincidence? You be the judge.
Windows on phones and tablets died because Microsoft was several days late to the party. Once the iPhone took off, and MS was left flat footed with nothing that could really compete, by the time they could put something together in response it was already too late. Windows Phone was considerably better than iOS and Android at the time, but that didn't really matter when they ran into the chicken and egg problem. They couldn't convince app developers to port their apps because there were so few users of the platform, and it's hard to attract new users without apps. They tried paying people to release apps, but didn't really think it through, so all they got were a bunch of really low effort and overall shitty apps from people just looking to make some quick cash.
It is a pity really. If you ever used Windows Phone, it really was a lot better. It still is better than iOS and Android quite frankly. If they would have been willing to keep developing it, even if it lost money for several years, they probably could have turned it around. Though, considering they were hit with an antitrust lawsuit for using the profits from Windows and Office to subsidize IE, I can understand why they did what they did.
You forget that Microsoft had “Windows Mobile” devices right from just about the beginning of the concept of “mobile” devices. Don’t you remember the Comdex keynote that BIll Gates gave in 2001, introducing Windows XP and claiming it it was designed specially to run on tablet-type devices? And he predicted that in five years, that would become the dominant type of computing device in America?
Don’t try to say that Microsoft was “late” to anything. Its Windows-based technology was just mediocre, that’s all.
WindowsCE was designed around the idea of a stylus because no one had really bothered to put in the time, effort, and money to make touch interfaces work well until Apple forced them to. Microsoft had to completely rethink the entire UI for touch, and what they came up with is still better than anything else out there, but by the time it was ready it was waaaaaay too late and the market was pretty much stitched up already by Apple and Google.
Windows CE/Mobile devices did actually sell for a few years. Then Windows XP, based on the NT kernel, came out for touch devices, and that flopped. As I said.
Windows Phone was an exercise in doing something different for the sake of being different. The idea of turning icons into mini-thumbnail windows as “tiles” sounded interesting, on the face of it. But in typical Microsoft fashion, they botched the implementation.
I remember a clip of a Nokia executive giving a demo, and I see some of the icons dancing about on the screen of the phone in his hand. A great way of attracting attention to indicate something is happening, right? Except the email app tile—just one example that I noticed—is doing its animation even when it has nothing new to report—no new mail, yet it is still saying “look at me”. Why? So near, and yet so far ...
There were other stupidities. You could blame the XP-era devices for failing because they were still ultimately x86-based and therefore unwieldy, heavy and battery hogs. The switch to ARM fixed that. But it opened up another abyss of sadness for Windows, namely that every non-x86 port of the NT kernel had failed by that point. And so the Windows ARM ports followed that same pattern, right through to the present day.
Microsoft don't make money from free upgrades, so they need to force people to buy a new version. Most people only upgrade when they buy a new PC, so it is logical to bump the hardware requirements for Windows 11 and tell people their computer is too old...
I don't know what crystal ball Reg "Richard Speed" is using, but it must have some serious cracks.
How I know that 24h2 will be Windows 11 and nothing else? Just looking regularly at Windows Insider Program Blog is already enough. 21h2 is build 22000.*, 22h2 is build 22621, 23h2 is build 22631. About the time 23h2 was released to the public, 22635.* builds start to appear in public beta channel since 10th of October (which still has my personal pet bug, reported countless times since June 2022). 22635 will probably be the future Windows 11 24h2. Else MS would not introduce such an in between build if there was no use for it.
Dev Channel is currently 23606.*, and the "canary" with the newest stuff of everything is 26016.* . I suspect the 23606 is the Windows 11 25h2 path, though Windows 12 might be possible, but the 26016 looks more like a Windows 12 path or maybe a "creators update" of Windows 12 in three years.
This is what my crystal ball says, just be interpreting the blogs of Windows Insider (and Server Insider). And trying some those builds of course.
Version numbers don't really mean anything. Vista was version 6.0, and Windows 7 was version 6.1. Windows 8 was just version 6.2. Windows 8.1... you guessed it, 6.3. Microsoft could pick any random build, slap the Windows 12 branding on it, and voila, Windows 12 is born.
You did not read my comment, or if even remotely understand it. Else you would have noticed I am mentioning build numbers and not what the "cmd" command "ver" says. Your list is missing Windows 10 and 11, both say "Version 10". On top I constantly mentioned Windows 11 on that post, not a single word about the previous versions. Not even Windows 10. Looks like you are many years behind if you are still running Windows 8.1.
Build numbers and version numbers, in the context of this discussion, are the same thing. As I said, MS could pick any random build, slap the Windows 12 name on it, and boom, Windows 12 is born. It's all completely arbitrary. Wouldn't even matter if there were a more recent build. If MS decides Build 123456 is going to be christened Windows 12, it makes not a bit of difference that there's also a 123457 build.
You may want to see someone about that paranoia. I guarantee you no one at Microsoft knows who you are, let alone gives two shits about you. There's not some weekly meeting where a bunch of people get together and say, "How can we make life worse for that Doctor Syntax person on The Register forums?" All those things you seem to think are personal slights are really just coincidences. Think about how much you think about some random person you pass on the street. That's still more than anyone at Microsoft spends thinking about you.
I’m done with Apple, too.
I’ve moved on to Linux and run Proxmox server and virt-manager for other OS environments.
I’ve also reverted to Windows 7 for my legacy windows applications (minus the network connection, to avoid their security problems.)
Steam is dropping support for Win 7 so I’m dropping them first.
No AI in this household. And that's the way it's staying. No software as a service either, we don't do subscription software. Period. We also don't touch printers that have DRM on the media. And we don't have anything voice activated. I already dual boot to Linux anyway, and I've used it for work for 25 years. If MS Windows ceased to exist it wouldn't really inconvenience me.
I can't wait to see what it does playing with itself confined to its own cyberspace!... I'll make sure none of the programs I buy don't require a connection to the internet... I need a computer and an operating system to do the work I need and not wholesale spread of crumbs from my personal information....
I run Win 7 on an old laptop because it has some legacy software on it. It's also absolutely fine for doing basic tasks like report writing (most of what I do). My kids as why the Win7 desktop looks like XP - the answer being because it's clear and it just works without getting in the way.
I also have a more modern HP laptop running Win10 on an AMD A8. I'm absolutely fine with Win10 now that M$ have stopped breaking the printers with updates. I'll be even happier when it reaches end of support. Mostly I work on a Fujitsu Q520 i7 running Linux Mint. I also use LibreOffice on the PCs and only use Word/Excel for some specific customers.
SWMBO has a new Dell with Win11 - which I've tried and utterly detest. In particular because I'm one of those heathens who likes the taskbar on the left hand side of the screen. It's been there since I used Win3.11 and I can't be bothered having to download another app to make the interface do what I could do in every version of Windoze since 1992ish.
I fully subscribe to the concept that the operating system should be there to facilitate getting work done and not to getting in the way. Something which M$ seem to have lost sight of.
I will be retiring shortly and my current PCs will see me out. It's extremely unlikely that I will ever need Win11 :D
I've never upgraded windows for any reason other than having to. WinOS is just something you begrudgingly put up with to use your computer, not something exciting. And making the new one radically different from what you're used to, something you use every day and have a work flow with, always seemed *really fucking stupid*.
WTF is this?
Phone hardware support roll back
Follwing Monday
A new button for start menu is not start menu, roll back again.
Following week, trying again, this time I stop it and say leave at 10.
I can't handle the UI changes. too confusing.
Not everyone is a 12 year old excited for useless changes.
I would be happy with 7 or Mint.
I support a small group of Windows 10 and 11 PCs for a charity. Users do simple stuff, mail, web browsing, printing, making posters and the odd video from a slide deck. Trying to administer this lot using MS admin tool set is like trying to crack a nut with a Wurlitzer. It’s too bloody complicated. And why should we fork out for new hardware when the existing kit has a good 10 years life in it?
I’m very familiar with Xubuntu and Ubuntu server, and seriously considering ripping all the MS stuff out and replacing it with Ubuntu stuff including groupware. And no it’s not complicated.
User acceptance is key there. Maybe at first migrate just one PC. The charity will see the world didn't end, allowing them to make rational plans for future kit. Another big question in small business support is what happens when you leave. Will the next person, who may be someone on staff there now, be able to handle Linux admin tasks? "And no it’s not complicated." Mostly agree, but what if their next admin is Yoshi? ( https://www.theregister.com/2023/12/22/on_call/ ) The worst of all worlds would be for you to migrate them to Linux, then after you leave they "have to" replace all the PCs with brand new Windows 11 machines.
An image of Dr Phibes out for (Bloody Stupid) Johnson's blood.
Did the good doctor's second wife die from a preventable covid infection?
I would avoid airborne Unicorn heads if I were Boris.
I imagine a good (sic) many of Boris' colleagues would also be on the list.
"Ghastly," continued Marvin, "it all is. Absolutely ghastly. Just don't even talk about it. Look at this" ... Windows 12.
Edging ever closer to the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation☆ which might be the ill begotten progeny of a future merger of MS and the Muskish empire of X.
The prescience of Douglas Adams never ceases to astound.
If its all the same at this juncture I think I might begin to panic.
☆"The corporation is not known for the quality of their products, and almost all of their known inventions are faulty.
Their primary claim to fame seems to be constructing just about everything with (unstable) advanced robotics and software."
I have 11 running on a 2012 dual core i7 laptop. Rufus stripped out the cruft that made it uninstallable. It runs fine. Is it as fast as a new system? Nope. Is it perfectly usable for 95% of what most people use a computer for? Yup. This is a case of forced obsolescence, nothing more.
- Recreate Windows 11 all in rust (Don't walk the rust line, dive into it)
- No preinstall apps, onedrive, candy crush etc
- Installation that is nothing but Partitioning and a quick and simple Local User creation with the OPTIONAL network connection and online profile resync.
- Call it Windows 12
Windows 11 was Vista all over again, now instead of downscaling into a W7 like W12... It's Vista Ultimate Plus Pro Max
"No let's just keep burning it into the ground. The potential popularity of Linux rising among the common folk isn't a concern"
"macOS on arm running x86 Windows better then Windows can run Windows isn't a concern"
Oh, yeah, AI will be the saviour! Or to be more precise - "AI". Yeah, Sure. Totally. Especially after the stupid nothingburger that 11 has been. Yeah, I'm sure of it, that's JUST the thing everyone needs - better yet, what everyone WANTS, indeed. Especially if it remains as limited as it is, if at all available, depending on where people live or what language they use. Even more so if they tie pretty much all of it to another subscription - or several other subscriptions. Yeah... genius thinking there.
But honestly, we shouldn't be surprised. 11 felt like it'd been designed by interns as their first ever work project - interns who'd never even seen, much less used any previous Windows version.
And with all the immense amount of "telemetry" they've been siphoning over the years?
They decided that arbitrary hardware restrictions are a way to go - for "security", which it still fails to provide, because those measures that allegedly require those are still hacked anyway. They deemed features and options "unimportant" and "underutilised" so that they could outright strip them from the system, and then - what, half a year? in preview? and two years since actual release with people complaining about them, and only now are only some of those getting back in. They decided that everyhing needs to be designed with a focus on touch interfaces, again. They decided that everything needs to be a web app because "platformless is good" - and so they keep making everything objectively worse and even more resource hungry, in reality just so they can push ads and "curated content" literally every-damn-where (in a paid product, in many cases with the active subscriptions!). The history of desktop gadgets/widgets over various Windows versions, as well as their current state, gives a pretty clear illustration of how lost they are, imo. And remember the "displaying seconds in the tray clock is too resource intensive" bs? Gimme a break.
I'm praying the AI apathy hits just as MS prepares to launch its supposed AI-heavy new Windows version - and I pray it hits HARD. (Tbh, I'd argue it's already hit, but that's another discussion.) Just looking at Edge lately, they learned nothing from IE (or they're getting senile and forgot the lessons). Looking at UI, they learned nothing from 8, or indeed from Vista onwards. Looking at unnecessary, unwanted features and apps, they learned nothing from 10. I shall not be sorry if this whole "AI"-nonsense ends up being just the next thing to kick their teeth in.
The requirements for extra hardware still put me off - I haven't read anything about how TPM 2 stopped this hack, or prevented that ransom demand. And far from being happy that AI may contextually work out what I'm doing and give it a bash, I fully expect to come home from the shops one day to find my PC telling me that "Someone from Russia called and said he's writing your obituary, so I gave him as many personal details as I could find, including all your bank logins."
And it is not Windows based.
It will be a bit of a process to migrate from the old Windows laptop to the new MacBook. And it will be a learning process for my wife to get an understanding of the different UI. For her primary usage of email & web browsing, why not?
This wasn't really intentional or a planned in-your-face Microsoft rebellion. She just got tired of all the bloat & garbage included in Windows. Win10 was bad and when she looked at Win11 she said 'no way'.
Yeah, Apple isn't a saint either, but they are far less annoying compared to Microsoft.
My mom migrated to macOS (my brother-in-law's idea) a couple of years ago, and never had any big issues(*). If it doesn't do what she expects, well then neither does the latest version of WIndows. The biggest problem is over the years she has been beaten into submission by Windows, to the point where if she can't get it to do what she wants, she just assumes it's not possible and gives up. And she's no dummy, having taught herself accounting because she couldn't afford the tuition for a degree.
(*) Little issues are more down to unfamiliarity rather than inferiority of one OS to another. Trying to get her preferred icons always available in the dock, for example, is just slightly different from pinning an item to the taskbar. Although the taskbar has changed greatly in Windows 11, and I suppose will change again in Windows 12. On the score of (lack of) pointless UI changes macOS will be better for her.
"Despite a looming end of support for Windows 10 - although customers can pay for an extension - the OS remains dominant, and Windows 11 trails behind where its predecessor had been in terms of installations at the same point in its lifecycle."
Might that be because Win10 fixed the clusterfeck that was Win8? Win11 doesn't fix anything. I'm still trying to figure out what value added Win11 brings to me over my Win10 installation that worked perfectly well.
Meh!
AI is just an uncontrolled way to end up in an abusive relationship with your own data - I like to keep my data private, except for what I choose to share. An OS just needs to take care of multitasking and leave the content alone. I'm too old I guess, what's that privacy thing anyways...?
Much like how they liked to demonstrate how much contempt they had at Microsoft for gamers a couple of launches back, are they still going to be demonstrating how much contempt they have for power users?
If you're a normie and really don't care you're using Apple products, if you're a nerd you're already on Linux - power users are all MS have left; when we go MS's desktop business model is completely shot, so why they keep trying to drive us away is beyond me.
Or put another way: I have a super-ultrawide, please stop turning my task bar into mystery meat (and other legitimate gripes).
Microsoft are fully aware that some of their biggest corporate licence customers officially have a policy of being one major release behind the bleeding edge.
It's a good policy, somewhat enforced by the untested and unfinished shambles that 8, 10 and 11 have been on release.
If you want people to become evergreen then the bleeding edge needs to be blunted and considerably more stability and longevity baked in. The very thing that MS don't want it's customers to have or they will sit on XP for 20 years.
The business model seriously needs a rethink, foisting buckets of services onto users that aren't compatible with common sense and risk averse business practice is akin to throwing shit at the wall to see what sticks instead of really understanding what businesses and users want.
In my current gig MS offered up a free trial of Co-pilot notionally for our Project Engineers to ask questions about our Technical Specifications rather than having to learn the spec. This is a disastrous idea, not least because a PE that doesn't know the Spec is not a PE at all, they are nothing more than a glorified administrator. Secondly, and more importantly, if copilot only offers answers to what is asked, as opposed to what the PE needs to know...
I am sure the tech will get there, at which point my role as a policy writer will become obsolete. That's fine, I have quite a few years in the bag for a decent VR payoff. But it's not ready, yet. 5-10 years away by my estimates.
There is an oddity that if such tools become ubiquitous, policies cross-nation state might ironically come into alignment because the same tool is writing them in common rather than biased individuals under each flag (and their commercial interests).
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