w10 - giving it away hasn't worked ?

[skomaz]

It's an irritating trend that the big software developers inists on guessing/telling users what they ought to do. Google and the latest Android versions are worrying examples. Soon (Android Nutella?) Google will take over and choose what phone number you should call.

 

Agree there - it's what irritates me about the newer OS's - I don't want the OS telling me what to do and which software to use - I'll decide that myself and invariably it's something simple and quick that does what I want it to do and doesn't try and second guess what I'm doing...

[gac]

I think the jump to the next Ops system largely depends on how many software vendors are in Microsoft pocket. For example we use Dassault Systems for our 3D design software. They insist on their customers using the latest or previous ops system So at the minute only 7, 8 & 10 are supported at the next release which is annual only 8 and 10 will be supported. They stopped supporting 32 bit and XP a few years back. I'm sure by doing this they must get a kickback from Microsoft. If we migrate our Design team onto Windows 7/10 It makes sense to do everyone in the company to avoid multiple configurations of everything. We are led by this otherwise we would all still be on XP.

 

Again though, it's not necessarily a kickback, if you do that as a company you're just making things easier for yourself. There's probably no technical reason that the software couldn't run on Windows 7 next year - however, by officially supporting it, they're having to open their tech support lines to a lot more customers, maintain test environments, do a lot more QA before releasing, etc. It's a cost to the company (although for what they charge you'd think they could suck it up).

 

I'm not saying I LIKE that approach and it's a bit short sighted to be dropping 7 support while it's still got a few years of life left with MS (you'd think they wouldn't do that until 2019/2020 actually came around) but I've dealt with vendors of that kind of software before and they're usually in a very privileged position because their application is highly specialised and it's not likely that you'll be able to simply pull out support with it and use something else so you'll actually comply with their conditions. Don't like Office? You could use LibreOffice, or OpenOffice, or the IBM fork of OpenOffice, there are some options. Don't like your specialist radio antenna design package? Tough, unless you want to write your own. When I still worked with people who did CAD stuff it was only ever SolidWorks or AutoCAD, with the decision usually made depending on what was used by anyone you collaborated with since the interoperability between the two was pretty much nil.

 

I've also worked with companies who have the absolute opposite approach; "what's that sir, you want to run our application on Windows 10? No, we don't support that, we're still developing on Windows 7 here with no plans to upgrade until it's end of life so that's the only platform that we can offer you support with, maybe if you try installing it on Windows 10 then you could let us know how it goes?". No, I'm not going to do your job for you, and I'm not going to put off all future upgrade plans based on your terrible schedule. I know which approach I'd prefer, personally...

[VWD]

Let's look at it another way. If W10 where any good, or any significant improvement over previous versions, Microsoft would be charging money for it, not giving it away.

The fact that take up of the free issue is poor tells us that it is not great also.

Point of my post . Giving it away hasn't worked, so IMHO scare tactics are being used . But ,how many firms etc want to spend time/money etc to upgrade S/W ,when theit networks will also need upgrading.

Someone mentioned the name change from programs to Apps. Takes me back to the early days of W95, when suddenly directories became folders, or the last firm I joined, where the bosses decided we needed to go on a computer course.  As the grandad ,it was assumed that I knew little , then we got looks of wonder when the bloke taking the course had to explain what .exe files and handshaking as about, after I'd mentioned it.

[gadgetman]

Trouble is firms need to ensure all their hardware and software works correctly. If support still exists for older versions of Windows, what is the benefit in upgrading?

As for kick backs, as someone else has posted it's more about support. Why support 3 different versions of Windows? How much extra coding is required to make their software work on Windows 7 or even xp over 8/10?

[VWD]

And how much extra training, for both the tech support and even those "driving" the PC.

[Chris GB]

I think that more than ever, the divergence of IT products has got to the point where MS need two OSs, one for the smartphone / tablet "civilian“ market and one for enterprise / serious IT users. Having some level of integration is useful, but in trying to make one theme fill both roles, the outcome is a mess.

[KenONeill]

Some businesses have computers that will never be connected to the Interwebnet. It's bad enough when an inability to phone home results in a legally bought copy of M$ Office claiming that it is "not registered", so just why would we want one that will demand "automatic updates"?

[gullyg]

With regards to some comments on the thread about windows 8 being unsuitable for business, I'd be interested to know what the difference between 7 and 8 that means that 7 is ok and 8.1/10 is not for an enterprise deployment?

I work for a very large company and most of the Office guys seem to have 8 now. I got a laptop issued with windows 7 but was offered a "customised deployment" of Windows 8.1 which I took as soon as I was able as I find Win 8 better at handling multi-monitor setup. In actual fact on my ageing laptop I found it quicker than windows 7. I've thankfully had a new laptop issued now with 8.1 as standard.

I'm much more *nix than windows (My work machine is simply a portal for get onto the "proper" computers ) but as far as I can see there's no difference between 7 and 8.1 as long as you ignore the silly "apps" and regard the start screen as a full screen start menu (or just pin all your programs to the task bar). Oh and they've managed to break the search...

I can understand more with the lack of control with 10 but my understanding was this wouldn't be the case with the enterprise versions where windows updates could still be completely controlled by IT.

 

I think that more than ever, the divergence of IT products has got to the point where MS need two OSs, one for the smartphone / tablet "civilian“ market and one for enterprise / serious IT users. Having some level of integration is useful, but in trying to make one theme fill both roles, the outcome is a mess.

 

I'm not sure how keen MS would be with that, after all that's what they used to do with 98/ME versus Win NT.

Microsoft's strategy seems to be one OS to rule them all which in some ways makes a lot of sense, in others it doesn't. I've always thought the ultimate would be to have a phone than as soon as you plugged it into a desktop setup via a dock (monitor mouse and keyboard) it became a full blown PC that way you have you data anywhere you go but with the move to "the cloud" I suppose this is becoming less likely.

[gac]

There are people (I've worked with them) who are over-sensitive to even the tiniest change, and I think it's those users that hold companies back (because if you upgrade then you cause people to complain "why are IT always changing things, it worked before, I can't use this", you then have to re-teach people how to do their own jobs on a new OS even though the applications they use haven't changed, there's the lost productivity while this happens, etc).

 

My workflow with Windows 7 was "hit Start button on keyboard, type name of app, hit Enter to launch"

My workflow with Windows 8 was "hit Start button on keyboard, type name of app, hit Enter to launch"

My workflow with Windows 8.1 was "hit Start button on keyboard, type name of app, hit Enter to launch"

My workflow with Windows 10 was "hit Start button on keyboard, type name of app, hit Enter to launch"

 

Yes, the Start menu looked totally different in all of those iterations, but it didn't affect the way I actually use my computer one bit. I can think of several people from my old job who would have fallen foul of hurdle number 1 in Windows 8 immediately because it didn't have an on-screen Start button and they don't know the keyboard "shortcut" of hitting the actual physical Start key. At the point they can't do that, they will instantly forget how to do everything else in this sequence of events, meaning a call to IT. Worst still, even when you've shown them how it works, they won't remember it for a long time and they'll be very vocal in the meantime about "ugh why do IT hate me by making me do this and learn new things when what I had before worked for me".

[Chris GB]

I'm not sure how keen MS would be with that, after all that's what they used to do with 98/ME versus Win NT.

The funny thing is, W10 is just NT with a load of crap hung on the front of it. NT was, like 2000, a bit of software that just let you get on with it. When software or an OS becomes a system that you need to defeat in order to just get the job done, it becomes something to be avoided. Having used 10 on a couple of other machines, I find that this is exactly the problem with it. It feels like even simple stuff is treated in ways where the OS tries to do something more than you want. MS generally has its peaks and troughs. The peaks are usually the simpler systems, the troughs the systems that try to do too much.

Have to say, for most use at home, I'm using Linux or android. I've got one PC running 7 as that needs to support RAW file processing software and it is fine. Putting W10 on this machine made the boot time go up from 12 seconds to 46. It was completely unstable due to video driver problems which I could not fix because W10 would not allow me the option of running an earlier driver. So in my experience, W10 is very inferior to W7, as I cannot use it, even though the really ****ing annoying upgrade reminder keeps telling me my PC is compatible and keeps trying to sneak on the upgrade with routine updates. MS, still ****ing its customers off after all these years. Business as usual!

Edited 6 January, 2016 by Chris GB

[Scribbler]

Well I don't like defending Microsoft because many of their sins have a special place reserved in hell the aforementioned Me being a prime example. That said with Windows 10 they have transformed my old tired 4 year old Sony VAIO laptop into a speedy puter. It boots in literally a few seconds now there is a pin start up and the sleep and wake function much quicker but most impressive is the increased battery life its back up to 4 hours and that's whilst in casual use. I got 1-2 hours max on Win 7.

I wouldn't advocate installing Win10 in an enterprise environment if you can't control updates with WSUS. but for home use if the drivers are supported and the majority are then I say go for it.

[Huskoda]

Basic economics tell me if they're giving it away for 'free' it is more in their interests than mine. I will wait thanks.

[KenONeill]

Well I don't like defending Microsoft because many of their sins have a special place reserved in hell the aforementioned Me being a prime example. That said with Windows 10 they have transformed my old tired 4 year old Sony VAIO laptop into a speedy puter. It boots in literally a few seconds now there is a pin start up and the sleep and wake function much quicker but most impressive is the increased battery life its back up to 4 hours and that's whilst in casual use. I got 1-2 hours max on Win 7.

I wouldn't advocate installing Win10 in an enterprise environment if you can't control updates with WSUS. but for home use if the drivers are supported and the majority are then I say go for it.

I can't say what the battery life on my (newish) work Dell would be under W10, but under W7 it tends to be about 6 hours

[Aspman]

MS is using W8 and now W10 to beat enterprises into submission with the rest of their product offerings.

 

In an enterprise you have to remember that you don't just need to buy the desktop software you need to buy a bunch of back end systems as well. MS SCCM, MBAM, Exchange, Domain controllers, Proxy servers, firewalls, remote access servers.

 

MS is making sets of these only compatible with certain versions. i.e. We use MS remote access solution DirecAccess (which is genuinely very good) but is only compatible with W8+.

 

You mange the network with SCCM, but to move to W8/10 you need to get the more recent version of SCCM.

 

These backend services cost A LOT of money. By 'a lot' I mean a staggeringly jaw-dropping quantity of cash. we can buy a work laptop for £300, the licenses to make it legal cost another £500.

 

Ms (and others) like to word their licenses so you are often forced to pay for the same product (like office or email) 2 or even 3 times over.

 

Also MS is trying to push everyone into using their Cloud based services (changing the CapEx to OpEx), cloud can work but in the EU it's difficult to use anything that shifts data or is accessed outside the EU and stay compliant with the Data Protection Act (the old one never mind the pending GDR), this is compounded with the Safe-harbour agreement being shown to be the fabric of lies it always was.

 

There are always EU compliance services but they cost more unsurprisingly.

 

Why not shift to Linux and Google? Well Google won't even pay lip service to EU law and if you're in a 99% Windows environment with 99% of staff that have never used anything else bar an iPad the cost to switch (in efficiency and or rejigging your 1749 ancient Windows apps) is astronomical.

 

Plus no one will consider anything else but Apple (shiny shiny) except Apple is **** in enterprise since everything wants to be tied to one user and an itunes account (then were back to the DPA again).

Edited 6 January, 2016 by Aspman

[Chris GB]

Linux can work so brilliantly in a commercial environment. Given simple GUI, it's easy for people used to windows to use it.

[swedishskoda]

Linux can work so brilliantly in a commercial environment. Given simple GUI, it's easy for people used to windows to use it.

To an extent... Linux's greatest snag is handling external hardware and this could be a challenge for the techies setting up the company network/system so that access to printers, projectors/external screens and so on will run smoothly.

Plus that there will always be one or two things that's nearly impossible to do running Linux. You mentioned RAW file processing - even if you can do a lot with UfRaw, Win (or Apple) applications can be a lot easier and more capable. I have an Epson flatbed scanner for scanning film/slides that runs beautifully with its Win application but is a terror under Linux. And while OpenOffice, LibreOffice and Softmaker offer office suites that can handle 99 % of MSOffice files there will always be a few files that will be distorted.

Edited 7 January, 2016 by swedishskoda

[Aspman]

Linux can work so brilliantly in a commercial environment. Given simple GUI, it's easy for people used to windows to use it.

 

Inertia is the problem there mainly. It would be a very large project requiring massive re-skilling and redevelopment of legacy applications.

If everything was web client based then maybe, but savings on desktop software are minimal compared to the backend stuff.

 

I'm not arguing that Linux desktops couldn't be used for a large percentage of desktop users. Rather the effort to get them to use them would be disproportionate to the benefit.

If you have a significant number of staff who are unwilling to change and who would use any change as an opportunity to raise merry hell it gets harder. Harder still when many of those user might well be in IT and they would be supported by the unions.

 

Plus senior managers would also be unwilling to change to anything (maybe to large iMacs) and they don't particularly care about savings since they are spending other people's money.

[VWD]

Linux can work so brilliantly in a commercial environment. Given simple GUI, it's easy for people used to windows to use it.

I DID NOT post  this as a WINDOWS VS LINUX trade off- so please stick to topic- It's about  W10 ,end of.Mods, can you please mod on this to stop large scale topic drift ,and possible problems

[Chris GB]

I DID NOT post this as a WINDOWS VS LINUX trade off- so please stick to topic- It's about W10 ,end of.Mods, can you please mod on this to stop large scale topic drift ,and possible problems

YOU ALSO DID NOT specify that us IT gents could not suggest alternative solutions. As I no longer own an IT company, I guess I'm not an IT gent either. Sorry to have derailed your thread.

[Damo]

I DID NOT post  this as a WINDOWS VS LINUX trade off- so please stick to topic- It's about  W10 ,end of.Mods, can you please mod on this to stop large scale topic drift ,and possible problems

 

No need for moderation, as you have made it clear that you want it to remain about Windows 10 from now on

 

Everything else was within the realms of relevance

 

 

Ok people, stick to Windows 10 as the OP requested please

 

Thanks

[Scribbler]

I DID NOT post  this as a WINDOWS VS LINUX trade off- so please stick to topic- It's about  W10 ,end of.Mods, can you please mod on this to stop large scale topic drift ,and possible problems

 

Calm down princess, someone mentioned another operating system don't get out your collar. Do you want to make a discussion or a statement? Less mod intervention is better if you want heavily censored topics move to china.

[mbames]

I've always thought the ultimate would be to have a phone than as soon as you plugged it into a desktop setup via a dock (monitor mouse and keyboard) it became a full blown PC that way you have you data anywhere you go but with the move to "the cloud" I suppose this is becoming less likely.

 

Far from it, I believe that MS have a phone (Lumia of some form), which does exactly this.  No idea if/when it would become reality, but the power of a desktop PC in something the size of your phone - that would be great.

[gac]

Far from it, I believe that MS have a phone (Lumia of some form), which does exactly this.  No idea if/when it would become reality, but the power of a desktop PC in something the size of your phone - that would be great.

 

Pretty sure it's already reality in Ubuntu Phone. I'd love to tell you about it, but we're not allowed

 

Seriously though, I don't think it's yet released but I've seen technical demos of it, and it is kind of cool - however I'm not sure how well it would work in the real world. Keeping battery life sensible requires a low-powered computer, I like to use a proper desktop for work. Even if I'm not doing one single computationally intensive task, I'm usually doing a lot of non-intensive tasks, and I wouldn't want that to suffer for the convenience of having my "computer" in my pocket. For me, it's trying to fill the same gap as corporate iPads, it'll probably work for some people but I'm not one of them and prefer to have a properly specced desktop, and a laptop I can take around with me.

[mbames]

Seriously though, I don't think it's yet released but I've seen technical demos of it, and it is kind of cool - however I'm not sure how well it would work in the real world. Keeping battery life sensible requires a low-powered computer, I like to use a proper desktop for work. Even if I'm not doing one single computationally intensive task, I'm usually doing a lot of non-intensive tasks, and I wouldn't want that to suffer for the convenience of having my "computer" in my pocket. For me, it's trying to fill the same gap as corporate iPads, it'll probably work for some people but I'm not one of them and prefer to have a properly specced desktop, and a laptop I can take around with me.

Lumia 950XL - I thought it existed, saw some demos a while back

 

"Connect your Lumia 950 XL to a Microsoft Display Dock and use it with an external monitor, a keyboard, and a mouse. Office apps and Outlook scale up to create a big screen-optimised work environment that makes you more productive. It's a PC-like experience that's powered by your phone."

I currently lug around a massive Workstation class laptop, where as something like this running Windows 10 would be perfect, that said I would never manage the spec I want, so I probably need a top-end spec surface pro/book and a dock at home and work.

 

So I think that this shows there is a future for windows 10, personally I'm a fan (I've had windows phones running 7 and 8) and all my desktops/tops run win 10 too (the only backward stuff is the company equipment at win7).

Edited 10 January, 2016 by mbames

[gullyg]

Lumia 950XL - I thought it existed, saw some demos a while back

 

"Connect your Lumia 950 XL to a Microsoft Display Dock and use it with an external monitor, a keyboard, and a mouse. Office apps and Outlook scale up to create a big screen-optimised work environment that makes you more productive. It's a PC-like experience that's powered by your phone."

I currently lug around a massive Workstation class laptop, where as something like this running Windows 10 would be perfect, that said I would never manage the spec I want, so I probably need a top-end spec surface pro/book and a dock at home and work.

 

So I think that this shows there is a future for windows 10, personally I'm a fan (I've had windows phones running 7 and 8) and all my desktops/tops run win 10 too (the only backward stuff is the company equipment at win7).

 

 

See I wonder if for a lot of people windows on a phone would be fine.  If you had enough oomph for web browser, a bit of video watching and office that would be a lot of people's total usage.  If you added something like rdp or citrix servers for your business apps I do wonder if a good bit of the enterprise usage could be accommodated without have to issue laptop/desktops (I'm a pure "user" when it comes to windows and business - no idea of the back end).

 

Certainly at home I could quite easily make do with a surface style device as long as it could support mutli-monitor using the dock.  Currently I use a Macbook as my "on the sofa" machine and a HP G1-260 Mini PC as my "desktop" so I would be able to get rid of a device straight away although if I'm doing anything more than web browsing/watching videos I'll be remoted via ssh or rdp'd into a server or VM.