Microsoft adds features to Windows 11 monthly – managing it is your problem Microsoft has quietly announced a change to the feature release cadence for Windows 11: it will add features every month, if it wants to. News of the change came in a February 28 post titled "Continuous innovation coming to Windows 11 in March." In the post, product marketing manager for Windows Commercial, Harjit Dhaliwal, …
I need to invest a bit more effort in getting games running reliably on linux then move permanently and totally to that platform.
And surely an enterprise platform should above all things be stable. Which business wants to have the expense and difficulty of answering mirriad "yesterday it worked, today it doesn't" queries on a monthly basis.
If you are a business IT admin, you are going to have to upgrade from W10 when it goes out of support!
Well, unless you want to end up getting the blame if there's a malware attack and the cyber insurance refuses to pay out (which it probably would - most policies now have a clause about software patching).
Yawn.
Why is it that some on here think that 'just move to Linux' (or occasionally 'just move to Apple') is the anwer to every Microsoft issue? Here in the real world (you may never have visited...) it's simply not an option: we have systems which have evolved over many years and are quite complex. We have users with widely varying level of IT literacy. We only have sufficient IT capacity to manage what we have and implement gradual changes. This situation is replicated in thousands and thousands of businesses and organisations across the world. The idea that you can just design and implement a complete replacement system in a short time period, and deliver the massive amounts of users training required, is just nonsense. Even if we were daft enough to try to propose it, it would certainly be refused by the directors.
Plus of course there are many line-of-business applications which rely of a Microsoft back-end, and use plugins for the Microsoft Office programs. But presumably the 'just use Linux' advocates think that we should replace them all with something 'open source' (which won't actually exist in many cases), and deal with the big jobs of data migration and user training as well?
Honestly, for a site aimed at IT professionals some of the comments on here are absolutely clueless as to the situation in the real world!
And accusing me of panderig to the Microsoft marketing department is just risble - if you look at my comments you will see that I am regularly very critical of Microsoft. But I am also perfectly well aware of what the actual realities are in most ordinary organisations.
> we have systems which have evolved over many years and are quite complex.
Ever thought that might be the problem? Or are you too busy coping with the shifting sands of Microsoft's policies, updates, bug fixes, etc.? That's not the real world, it's something quite distinct.
Don't quite know what you were smoking when you posted this, but whatever it was, I want some, because it appears to be quite hallucinogenic. Now that you (may) have come down a bit, you should notice that there was nothing about Linux in the thread up to your post.
Fanbois gonna fan, I guess.
If every business in the land tells MS to get stuffed, I think you'll find that it's MS that will have to change their practices.
XP and 7 both got significant stays of execution because of this. Unfortunately, the outcomes of XP and 7 at an organisational level have driven windows into a permanent beta state in order to enforce upgrading.
The only way out of this is, therefore, to ditch MS. (Insert evangelical OS preference of choice).
It happened with Vista, and Windows 8.
It will happen again if practical deployments of 11 are, as they happen to be, impractical.
Rolling release is even more of a nightmare in terms of costs because continuous E2E testing dumps a bucketload of ongoing opex onto already cost challenged businesses.
I can say businesses WILL look at total cost of ownership in the MS Ecosystem. I have done so myself, and there are ample examples of other operators (usually, smaller businesses) that have also moved.
In cloud obsessed land tbh, any device that runs Chrome (or other browser of choice) is good enough for vast majority of cases. Heavy Windows overhead? Meh. Not needed anymore.
Businesses with either go for W11, or if the take-up remains low then Microsoft will release 'Windows 12' or whatever they call it, without the major annoyances. Either way, the majority of companies will stay on Windows, it's just a case of which version. i.e. similar to what happened with Vista and 8.
I don't particularly like W11 but I made the decision to start rolling it out at work (we have somewhere arond 200 client machines), onto the newer laptops - our equipment is very spread out, we have a small IT department and I didn't want to leave it until the last minute in the hope that W10 support was extended. I've had a good go it it with Intune in various ways to make it look as close to W10 as I could manage and it's not been as painful as I expected - the users largely don't have issues, and it mostly works OK with just a few things still to iron out. Going to have mixed versions for quite a while though as I definitely won't be trying to run it on non-compliant hardware. I suspect this is what is putting most businesses off - they prefer to cut over to a new version in a fairly short timeframe (as we have nomrlally done in the past), and that won't be possible here unless most of their hardware is fairly new. It also really doesn't offer much over and above W10 so there is no significant incentive.
Yeah, because SystemD and Gnome/GTK are totally stable and never, ever break anything at all. Not. And the GPU drivers written by the vendors for Linux are fast, reliable and totally trouble free. Again not.
You'll not enjoy the experience.
How about producing a fairly stable, robust, easy to use OS that's good for up to 10 years without major and/or minor changes breaking it each month? You know, like XP or Windows 7? They had their issues as well, but are probably two of the best OSes ever put out by MS (just my opinion - I'm sure plenty will disagree). 10 and now 11 have been nothing but a PITA from an admin perspective to maintain with all the constant changes and almost monthly patch breakages.
Microsoft has forgotten all about stability. Granted MS software was never renowned for this, but XP and 7 were pretty solid platforms by MS standards. Since then, we've had the mess of Windows 10 and the various borks and broken updates, now we've got Windows 11 with Microsoft deciding they're just going to dick about with it as and when they please. Microsoft have completely and utterly lost the plot.
Saying that, this shouldn't come as much of a surprise. MS has spent over a year ignoring what numerous people are asking for with Windows 11 (fix the crippled taskbar and hopeless Start Menu) and instead spends their time faffing about trying to add Bing search boxes to as many parts of the OS as possible.
Microsoft: People don't want pointless gimmicks and features forced upon them in a regular stream. What they want is for you to get your shit in order and simply produce a solid, stable, usable and reliable OS. Is that too much to ask for?
Microsoft has forgotten all about stability.
Not sure it was forgotten as much as intentionally jettisoned in the never-ending quest for "increasing shareholder value" (e.g. the wholesale firing their QC department).
Is that too much to ask for?
Short answer: Yes. Next question?
That's why I miss Windows 2000, SP um ... 2. When I run it on Virtual Box, it is just a breeze and delight.
MS: This is what we want you to work on:
- Stability. Nothing that breaks between 3 yearly updates. I don't have time to test our application portfolio EVERY FREAKING MONTH.
- Fix the windows. How about being able to determine which explorer window is which, quickly and visually. You know ... some borders and colours.
- Concentrating on secure and efficient code. These machines of today are the things of science fiction 20 years ago, but do not actually run Windows appreciably faster. In many cases, simple operations are slower and harder to do.
> This is what we want you to work on
Ah, that's your problem there. You're under the mistaken impression that MS gives a damn about what *you* want.
MS is doing things this way because it suits *them*.
Unless you're a major business customer with a very large (and lucrative) licensing agreement, MS don't care. You'll get forced updates, spam links for the latest Candy Crush iteration and clickbait news articles shoved into your GUI and you'll like it.
- Fix the windows. How about being able to determine which explorer window is which, quickly and visually. You know ... some borders and colours.
Nope. That would offend the sensitivities of their Millennial/GenZ interface "designers". Couldn't have that, now could we?
I agree; quite often the test of anything is its greatest stupidity, because whilst unexpected reasonable mis-steps etc are forgiveable (if stepped back from once known), something like having all the windows with no borders and a white titlebar matching the white of underlying windows so you can't tell where anything is, begins or ends, is so obviously stupid to anyone that uses it for even a moment, it points to something very very serious going wrong with quality control. Presumably management/designers driven, I don't think programmers would have opted for it and probably resisted it unsuccessfully.
The colours can be fixed in settings + the registry (which gives more control) but clearly that should be unnecessary.
d
So, Borkzilla has officially adapted the "move fast and break things" approach to OS design.
I'm so glad for Windows 11 after all. At least all that shit won't be contaminating my work laptop.
Oh, and users can avoid things by setting the proper policies ? Don't make me laugh. Most users have trouble setting a network share, I don't see them setting policies any time soon.
And apparently neither does Borkzilla, which is why it has decided to do this.
> users can avoid things by setting the proper policies
"If your organization uses Windows Update for Business or WSUS to control which Windows updates are offered to your managed devices, you can use a new client policy to control the rollout of select features introduced via servicing," Dhaliwal's post explains.
IT can set the proper policy - normal Users don't even get that much freedom.
Missed the last bit:
“ will be off for Windows-Update-managed devices until they are released as part of the next annual feature update”.
So not only is the off temporary, but given MS quality control over updates all the features will be installed (just not enabled until the annual feature update), so MS have just enlarged the attack surface…
True.
I was just trying to keep as cheerful as possible, by sticking to the (all too) short term ignoring what was going to happen next.
But you couldn't let it lie. You couldn't let it lie.
Maybe the Dove From Above can lighten my mood now: coo, coo, coo.
In Windows 11 22H2 March update, even when a user toggles OFF the Win11 News Feed Widget in taskbar settings from the left side of the taskbar, it's still there, working in the background, immediately accessible with a touchscreen left sideswipe, with no explicit opt-out of GDPR data processing within the widget, before showing the 'user-insight' ad-generated content. There is no user generated way to actually turn it off.
This seems like a breach of GDPR, for the widget itself, showing web based content. The only way to actually get rid of the Windows 11 News Feed is to use a PowerShell command. One Drive has just reinstalled itself, after being previously explicitly removed. Windows 11 PC Health Check continually re-instals itself, after being explicitly removed. Apps in Microsoft Store, Phone Link etc, reinstall themselves after being explicitly removed.
We really need new laws added to the Equalities Act 2010, where forced coercion by companies like Microsoft is illegal in the online world, as well as the real world. Where the fundamental principle of being given the choice to disable a feature is an absolute right and any new features have to be explicitly enabled.
This new monthly feature creep being sold as 'innovation', is the slow boiling of the frog approach and seems designed to act fast and break things, to get ahead of the regulators and privacy laws. This is market abuse pure and simple, given Microsoft have such a stranglehold of the desktop market.
My only hope there isn't a tendency for Microsoft employees to take these type of rancid corporate workplace practices of coercion, manipulation and control, and apply it to their home life and families. The people at Microsoft behind this, really need to look at themselves, and regain a sense of self-worth. It's spyware, crapware, and junk PUP (Potentially unwanted programs) advertising.
Companies, at one time, used to get prosecuted for doing this.
Wait. People actually allow their Windows machines to contact Microsoft's servers? I thought people were joking!
How do you make sure you get the *correct* updates and security fixes if you don't do it manually? Are you telling me, people just connect these things to the internet and hope for the best? That's wild!!
I don't run a Windows system by choice at home; but the work laptop is infected by it. I also keep a copy of Server 2019 around for home lab experiments.
The PiHole blocks an awful lot of phone home crap originating on the work laptop. Functionality of the OS and applications are unaffected. What exactly are they trying to record?
In fact the only thing generating more blocked requests is my "not-so-smart TV" that is determined to serve up adverts. PiHole does a damn good job of preventing it from doing so.
Using Windows these days must be like sharing your car with another driver: each time *you* want to use it, you have to spend five minutes re-adjusting the seat, the mirrors and radio before you get going!
Perhaps the analogy would be better to liken it to using a hire car - because it's looking increasingly likely that OS rental is their objective.
Rental would be attractive, if for the base subscription they provided a basic rock solid OS.
However, I suspect MS have brought into the worst excesses of US sales culture and will constantly be in their users/customers faces nagging therm to take a new feature for only a few extra cents per month…
I’m glad Windows Server 2019/2022 runs on my laptop - maybe that’s the way to go if you have to use Windows…
They broke 2022 with last Patch Tuesday's update - affected all VMWare VMs witth secure boot enabled, plus random physical machines. MS admitted to the virtual machine issue, but last time I looked were still claiming it was VMs only, not bare medal installs. Workaround was to turn off secure boot. VMWare have since issued a patch to fix it properly, but physical machines which were affected still have no proper solution - I have a support case open with Dell about one of these.
So even the server OSs are not immune from borkage due to badly-tested updates!
Perhaps the downvoter could explain what they are downvoting? I've simply explained the issue, which (in the case of VMs) has been acknoweledged as an issue by both Microsoft and VMWare. As regards the bare-metal installs, Dell have acknowleged it as being a genuine issue on certain hardware. Is everyone just imagining the issue, do you reckon?
Not everyone experiences the problems, as Dell says "on certain hardware". I have been running Windows 11 since release and have not had the update related problems I read about online. Even on a VM or with VMware there will be incompatibilities. How does Microsoft test for all the possible combinations of hardware, software and configurations?
So you are basically saying that it's perfectly reasonable to downvote a comment giving first-hand experience, on the basis that you personally haven't encountered the issue because you don't have any affected hardware. Weird.
It appears to have affected all 13G Poweredge servers, for a start - there must be many hundreds of thousands, probably millions, of those out there in use. It also affects servers from other vendors. And seems to have affected every Server 2022 VM with Secure Boot enabled, running on ESXi 7.x or below. Must be milllions of VMs out there where this applies
If they'd tested properly, this should have been picked up before release - there are no valid excuses.
VMWare issued a patch rapidly. Microsoft only ever admitted to it affecting VMs running on ESXi, but the problem has mysteriously been fixed with the following month's Patch Tuesday update (for bare-metal installs on physical hardware as well as VMs).
Using Windows these days must be like sharing your car with another driver: each time *you* want to use it, you have to spend five minutes re-adjusting the seat, the mirrors and radio before you get going!
I married someone my height, so I get to skip most of that. The downside is she towers over me if she wears heels. ;)
Yes, you can, maybe, set some obscure policy that will, just maybe, temporarily stop the idiocy from happening. Until MS changes something else and you policies do not work anymore.
You have to pay for the enterprise version to have some policies to actually work. Some other seem to work on pro version, too, at least for now.
Oh, and if you happen to have the home version, then you are just screwed.
So you have to pay more (and spend a lot of time) to stop the shitload of useless "features" that MS is spewing out like crazy. And you have to keep up, because every day some new idiotic idea pops up and you get it in you updates. You cannot even go the wrong way and just disable updates completely.
Fully half of the Win 11 updates regularly break my corporate laptop in some way. Twice the update put my Dell into thermal runaway while it was sitting unattended overnight. Other times these messed up communications. And I hate the UI.
Traditionally, one 'Point Zero' Windows release in three is usable. That's why folk mutter about having software that requires an earlier version. They are hoping that the witless wonders will produce a version that is stable and usable before the last possible extension of service passes for the one that worked just about OK.
I'm surprised there has not been more of a shift back to dumb terminals (even dumber than Chromebooks). New MS gimmicks are generally irrelevant to most corporate implementations of Windows. If your stuff worked, you don't really need anything new. It's not like a corporate is going to dash to upgrade for any extra features. They are implementing retail consumer techniques for an OS supply chain that has no use for them. They could instead offer them as individual upgrades (and even charge for them) if they wanted, and most admins would be really happy not to have to worry about them.
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