Microsoft throws extended support lifeline for folk stuck on car-crash Windows 10 1809 Reports of the death of The Update Of The Damned (aka Windows 10 1809) appear to have been premature as Microsoft flung a lifeline to those with a little too much on their plate. A number of Microsoft products got a life extension late yesterday, but the most eye-catching is the move from 12 May 2020 to 10 November 2020 for …
... the benefit of access to the years worth of software written in good faith for Windows is finally outweighed by the cost of still running a Windows you do not own or have any control/say over.
Even ignoring the hidden costs like loss of ownership of your own data, business still seems to be willing to leap blind towards a MS which has lost what accidental benevolence they might once have had.
If Windows 10 is the best Microsoft can do they are finished......an unfinished not fit for purpose operating system that seems to hope that the customers will sort out all the problems....if Windows 10 was a car would you buy one? Not a chance, you have all been hoodwinked by the "free" upgrades.....I have stuck with Windows 7 pro and do not regret it one tiny bit. I dare Microsoft to make Windows 7 open source and then they would find out what an operating system should be.
It's not the best can do. It's the best they're willing to do. They're all about the cloud now, because now that we've renamed "someone else's computer out there on the internet", it's revolutionary and new, and the stuff that got them to where they are is just yesterday's news. They're going to do Windows on the cheap while simultaneously monetizing it like some cheap piece of freemium crap, and they're going to charge full price for it, as long as people tolerate it. I
t looks like they will tolerate that quite a long time, so Windows users have only themselves to blame for enabling this. Allowing oneself to be locked in to a single supplier always carries the risk that the product and terms you've been getting is not the product and terms you're going to get in the future. It's why the term "second source" exists. The supplier that has you locked in can alter the deal, and all you can do is pray they don't alter it further. Ignore it at your peril.
How do you explain any of this 1809 and 2004 bollocks to a normal person?
"Sorry, your version of Windows 10 is unsupported and needs to be updated"
"Oh right, which version will I be getting?"
"Windows 10"
"what?"
MS really backed themselves into a corner with this badly thought out attempt at dropping version numbers. They've just ended up with version numbers but ridiculous ones. And what hapoens when hardware becomes too old to upgrade?
Was it an attempt to copy ChromeOS?
It looks like an effort to copy Ubuntu.
Ubuntu releases twice a year, and the version number is in the format YY.MM. They've been doing it that way since the very first release... when was that, 2004?
Microsoft now releases Windows 10 twice a year, and the version number is YYMM. The only difference in the nomenclature is that they took out the period.
They also missed the part where every fourth Ubuntu release is LTS, with 5 years of support. According to Canonical, 95% of Ubuntu users are using one or another of the LTS versions. MS picked the 5% and forced that on nearly everyone (save the LTSB that's only supposed to be for embedded systems).
Don't know if trolling, or you genuinely don't know, but either way, the format is YYMM.
i.e. 1809 is 2018 September.
I think the idea was that you could see just how old your version of Windows was, by just looking at the version number. Granted it's probably confusing to some people, as you'd have to be told about this, or would have to read about it somewhere.
From what I can see, they basically copied Ubuntu, although at least they use a separator between the year and month, i.e. YY.MM that imho makes it a little more readable than the Windows numbers.
Also the plan was to release a new version of Windows 10 every 6 months, (also like Ubuntu), so you have a 1803, 1809, 1903, 1909 etc. Although they've delayed the latest update for some reason, so that is going to be 2004 rather than 2003.
As an example with Ubuntu you have...
18.10 is 2018 October
19.04 is 2019 April
19.10 is 2019 October
and so on, a new release every 6 months.
No I'm not trolling, and I'm well aware of how their versioning works, but the emphasis was on "a normal person", or perhaps I should have said casual user. The sort of person who doesn't know a lot about their computer but in the past knew perfectly well whether they were running XP or Vista.
What I'm getting at is that an OS with widespread consumer usage should have clear versioning. It helps people understand what version of an OS their machine is running once the time comes where their hardware can't support any more updates. It also helps developers clearly state what version of the OS is supported by their app.
The link to Unbuntu is spot on, but even they have the sense to put a dot between the numbers so it's a little bit clearer what's going on. And why would Microsoft choose to copy a company like Ubuntu which serves a somewhat different audience.
I just think they really screwed this up and there's no reason for it to be so awkward. It could have been a simple Windows 10.x numbering system although that is of course similar to macOS.
"We recognize," said Microsoft, "this is an evolving situation. We will continue to listen to our customers."
Except, presumably, those still clinging to Windows 7.
Or those who want to be able to control their updates as with every other Windows version. Or those using consumer editions who want to be able to turn off telemetry. Or those who wish to be able to have a UI that's designed for the actual hardware in question (nearly always a traditional desktop or laptop with no touch and a discrete pointing device with separate pointing and clicking events). Or those who don't want to have to update every six months because Microsoft said so.
And so on.
People have been asking for the things I mentioned for 5 years, and if Microsoft is "listening," they have to be doing it while pointing and laughing. Windows 10 is not designed to meet the needs of their customers... it's designed to serve Microsoft.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
