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Microsoft confirms it’s already cancelling its newest version of Windows

Which flavour of Windows 10 is going to ship on those ARM abominations?

Re: Windows 10 S

lol

The original plan was that Windows 10 S would be a "lite" version of Windows that would only run Modern Apps from the store; but that would have the full Windows 10 components built in so that they could be activated, for a fee, making whatever device is was installed on a full Windows machine.

Now the plan (apparently) is that Windows 10 will have an "S mode" that disables everything except the ability to run Modern Apps from the store.

I don't see the difference. In both cases, it's the full code but with only limited functionality; which means that in both cases, it's taking up more space on your device than you'd like; which kinda misses one of the main points for having a slimmed-down version of the OS in the first place.

Sort of a step in the right direction for main-stream distributions IMHO, where the OS support of legacy apps is what makes the OS power hungry and space hungry. Start making the user aware of what an old, clunky application will do to your battery life and memory footprint, and perhaps app developers will start to scrape off some legacy.

With that said, it will never fly in the engineering community. For this you MUST have a non-S OS. To remove support for legacy apps like compilers, simulators, CAD tools, etc would be far too expensive of an NRE to throw at developers.

liquidsquid wrote:

With that said, it will never fly in the engineering community. For this you MUST have a non-S OS. To remove support for legacy apps like compilers, simulators, CAD tools, etc would be far too expensive of an NRE to throw at developers.

Well of course it won't work for engineers. I don't think many Eng. schools or students are going to be too upset about paying the "extra" for full fat Windows though. I suspect most of the Eng. orgs will spring for Enterprise though so this isn't really an issue for the type of people and communities you speak of.

My school (specifically EE and CS where I was) had linux (Gentoo at the time ~2004) on >= half of the computers in that particular building. It was great to have the choice between Linux and Windows. We even had a few Macs floating around in there too.

Ben Funk is on point.

Chrispy_ wrote:

Ben Funk is on point.

/flex

Apparently, it'll now be free to switch between S and other versions. I guess that's a better setup than the 50 bucks it was previously.

They tried this once before with Windows 7 Starter Edition. That one got out the door, but it didn't go very far. A few cheap netbooks used it, and then netbooks died and nobody cared.

Microsoft should really be focusing its efforts on retaining business and power users, not chasing after a non-customer base that's never going to buy Microsoft under any circumstances. If they aren't careful they're gonna wind up with nobody at all.

Microsoft has no idea what it's doing. It constantly creates or buys software and then kills it. Maybe it's being run by a hydra?

edit----------

It actually happens within windows itself. I don't recall which version, 8 or 10, but I was installing a driver(maybe?) with the 8/10 interface which was failing so I went to the next step which was just what the previous windows version looked like which also failed and I kept going to what looked like W95. It's like I was time traveling in the OS. There is no consistency, no sense. It's some mashed up mess made by people who change their minds every 10 mins.

cphite wrote:

The original plan was that Windows 10 S would be a "lite" version of Windows that would only run Modern Apps from the store; but that would have the full Windows 10 components built in so that they could be activated, for a fee, making whatever device is was installed on a full Windows machine.

Now the plan (apparently) is that Windows 10 will have an "S mode" that disables everything except the ability to run Modern Apps from the store.

I don't see the difference. In both cases, it's the full code but with only limited functionality; which means that in both cases, it's taking up more space on your device than you'd like; which kinda misses one of the main points for having a slimmed-down version of the OS in the first place.

The difference is, I can go out and buy a PC with bog standard Windows on it and convert it to S mode if I want to. I don't have to go out and hunt for a PC with Windows S on it which outside of the Surface Laptop range is pretty rare.

You might not want to be restricted to Windows Store apps, that's fine and good, but there are a lot of people out there who could find this useful.

NovusBogus wrote:

Microsoft should really be focusing its efforts on retaining business and power users, not chasing after a non-customer base that's never going to buy Microsoft under any circumstances. If they aren't careful they're gonna wind up with nobody at all.

This is primarily for the education sector, a market they require, and they're up 6% yoy in market share. So...
I agree this needs to lose more code, but that's the next version of S where that occurs, not this one. This one is about locking Windows down and giving control to institutions, next one is stripping code.

That being said, I'm skeptical S will take off in the way they're hoping.when i saw the name of this thread I knew it was eu. Out of context and negative, just as you like it

Pretty much expected.

sweatshopking wrote:

Out of context and negative, just as you like it

Not sure how "context" factors into it.

Negative? Hell ya! Microsoft keeps doing dumb things at the low end. They should be moving Windows forward.

End User wrote:

sweatshopking wrote:

Out of context and negative, just as you like it

Not sure how "context" factors into it.

Negative? Hell ya! Microsoft keeps doing dumb things at the low end. They should be moving Windows forward.

The context that they aren't really cancelling anything, just making it accessible in a different manner to more hardware?

Truth is, it was blown out of proportion by the media so I can't fault you for that.

LostCat wrote:

they aren't really cancelling anything

Windows 10 S has been cancelled and has being replaced by Windows 10 Home (with S "Mode").

S "Mode" is garbage. S "Mode" on ARM is even worse. One would be better off getting a Chromebook or an iPad. This piece of crap is still available for pre-order with Windows 10 S. It is an absolutely laughable state of affairs.

I just ordered a T480 with Windows 10 Pro. Thank heavens I can run apps sourced from outside the lame Microsoft Store.

End User wrote:

LostCat wrote:

they aren't really cancelling anything

Windows 10 S has been cancelled and has being replaced by Windows 10 Home (with S "Mode").

S "Mode" is garbage. S "Mode" on ARM is even worse. One would be better off getting a Chromebook or an iPad. This piece of crap is still available for pre-order with Windows 10 S. It is an absolutely laughable state of affairs.

I just ordered a T480 with Windows 10 Pro. Thank heavens I can run apps sourced from outside the lame Microsoft Store.

$1000 for a Windows 10 S system? Who in Hell would spend that kind of money for a piece of crap?

End User wrote:

Windows 10 S has been cancelled and has being replaced by Windows 10 Home (with S "Mode").

I understand that, if you're being pedantic, it's absolutely a different scenario in which the end result is nearly 100% the exact same thing.

So, you know, effectively replacing Windows 10 S with Windows 10 S, acquired via a different method.

End User wrote:

Windows 10 S has been cancelled and has being replaced by Windows 10 Home (with S "Mode").

S "Mode" is garbage. S "Mode" on ARM is even worse. One would be better off getting a Chromebook or an iPad. This piece of crap is still available for pre-order with Windows 10 S. It is an absolutely laughable state of affairs.

I just ordered a T480 with Windows 10 Pro. Thank heavens I can run apps sourced from outside the lame Microsoft Store.

This is only partially correct. S mode will be a mode that Home or Pro PCs can run, and switch back and forth between the two as the user pleases at no charge. It's not just Home as you state above.

And listen dude, of course S mode to powerusers isn't going to appeal that much. It will to some market segments though. I am totally willing to back you up, and I think everyone else is too, that the Windows Store is completely barron and awful as it stands. Tough to get more devs to make apps for it if you don't give some incentive and accessibility though.

DancinJack wrote:

I am totally willing to back you up, and I think everyone else is too, that the Windows Store is completely barron and awful as it stands.

Hell no. I like using the Store for everything I can except Gears of War 4, which so far I have not gotten to actually work. Haven't tried recently though.

Everything I use except Google stuff is on there, I already have a few AAA games, and a lot of music apps I use are on there too.

Except for Google Chrome and gaming in general I have no reason to use anything but the Store anymore, and I like it that way. (Well, technically still waiting for iTunes to hit it. But I'm not married to iTunes, I just liked the Apple Music sub.)

LostCat wrote:

DancinJack wrote:

I am totally willing to back you up, and I think everyone else is too, that the Windows Store is completely barron and awful as it stands.

Hell no. I like using the Store for everything I can except Gears of War 4, which so far I have not gotten to actually work. Haven't tried recently though.

Everything I use except Google stuff is on there, I already have a few AAA games, and a lot of music apps I use are on there too.

Except for Google Chrome and gaming in general I have no reason to use anything but the Store anymore, and I like it that way. (Well, technically still waiting for iTunes to hit it. But I'm not married to iTunes, I just liked the Apple Music sub.)

I'm happy for you. You're one of like, ten people, who can actually do that.

DancinJack wrote:

I'm happy for you. You're one of like, ten people, who can actually do that.

And you're one of like a billion people who haven't even looked at the store recently.

LostCat wrote:

DancinJack wrote:

I'm happy for you. You're one of like, ten people, who can actually do that.

And you're one of like a billion people who haven't even looked at the store recently.

I have looked at it as recently as today, FYI. This thread prompted me to earlier today.

edit: BTW, it's things like this that keep me away from the Windows Store.


Also the fact that some things just don't work with Windows apps. Like for instance logging into ESPN in the app uses your internet connection to detect who your account is with. It won't let me log in with my actual cable provider so I can't use the app to watch any games. How convenient! Another half-assed UWP version is Discord. No mIRC. No Battle.Net. No full version of Foobar2000.

Like I said. I am glad that the Windows Store works for you, but it doesn't work for me, and a lot of other people, in its current form.

DancinJack wrote:

Like I said. I am glad that the Windows Store works for you, but it doesn't work for me, and a lot of other people, in its current form.

I'd never say it's perfect for everyone. Just that a lot of what people need to do in Windows is there already, and it's growing considerably every year.

Your joke about me being 'one of ten people' might've been relevant in 2016. At the end of 2017 to now with so many mainstream apps and games having just showed up, not so much.

I fear I'm spawning a bunch of grammarian posts here, but considering Edge has ~4% of the market share I'm not sure I'd call even that "mainstream" anymore. It's their prerogative if Microsoft wants to continue to beat this horse in the hope they'll be able to make something out of the store. I can only imagine that they hoped for that to have happened already, because it's completely ridiculous to release a version of Windows dependent on the store when the store can't fill its intended role.

Redocbew wrote:

I fear I'm spawning a bunch of grammarian posts here, but considering Edge has ~4% of the market share I'm not sure I'd call even that "mainstream" anymore.

It isn't, but it's mostly irrelevant to that discussion since it's not in the Store or updated via the Store. Though, yes, I know it's the only S browser.

Honestly I'm as confused about Edge as everyone else is. It's pretty decent now, usually...but what the heck are they doing that even I can't be bothered to use it.

I suppose it's irrelevant given that Microsoft wouldn't care about the other browsers anyway, but that's kind of the whole point here. Allowing Chrome and Firefox into the store might just be the single biggest thing they could do to make S Mode a viable alternative instead of this weird, limping, undead thing.

LostCat wrote:

Everything I use except Google stuff is on there

That one example is enough for me to despise S Mode and the Microsoft Store.

LostCat wrote:

and gaming

You are killing me.

You've just proven how bad the Windows Store is.

LostCat wrote:

with so many mainstream apps and games having just showed up, not so much.

Only one of my apps and games is sourced from the Microsoft Store (Tweetium). Every other app is a classic Windows app sourced directly from the original developers site or through a 3rd party service.

The Microsoft Store lacks important apps such as Firefox, Chrome, and Photoshop. That is enough for me to pronounce the Microsoft Store as a dead end. Any version of Windows that prevents the installation apps such as Firefox, Chrome, and Photoshop should be ignored and mocked.

As a PC gamer I view the Windows Store with utter contempt. Any version of Windows prevents the installation of Steam/Uplay/Origin/etc should be ignored and mocked.