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[...] Microsoft is getting ready to replace Windows 10 with the Microsoft Managed Desktop. This will be a "desktop-as-a-service" (DaaS) offering. Instead of owning Windows, you'll "rent" it by the month.
DaaS for Windows isn't new. Citrix and VMware have made a living from it for years. Microsoft has offered Remote Desktop Services, formerly Terminal Services, for ages.
Microsoft Managed Desktop is a new take. It avoids the latency problem of the older Windows DaaS offerings by keeping the bulk of the operating system on your PC.
But you'll no longer be in charge of your Windows PC. Instead, it will be automatically provisioned and patched for you by Microsoft. Maybe you'll be OK with that.
January 14, 2020 is the last day Microsoft will provide security updates for Windows 7. According to Microsoft's estimates, there are 184 million commercial devices out there (as of April 2018 and excluding China) still on Windows 7. And 64 percent of those devices are more than five years old.
For Microsoft's reseller partners, that's a huge potential opportunity, as they heard repeatedly during Microsoft's Inspire partner show last week. Traditionally, end of Microsoft support for an operating system means more chances for partners to sell customers on migration, provisioning and other services.
At the same time, the way business customers are purchasing PCs is changing. By 2020 -- the same time Windows 7 hits end of support -- 30 percent of all PCs will be acquired via DaaS, or device-as-a-service, plans, Microsoft officials told partners last week.
[...] During the Inspire show, Microsoft execs worked to hammer home the idea that resellers shouldn't simply be selling Windows 7 users a new device running Windows 10. Instead, they should take the DaaS approach and set up a whole platform to lease new Windows 10 PCs to customers.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Nuke on Thursday August 02 2018, @09:04AM (5 children)
Ever since Win10 and Office 365, I have been posting on forums (including general interest ones) that this was the way MS was heading for everybody. The forced upgrade to Win10 gave MS the power to do anything they wanted with people's PCs. Eventually MS will do no further updates of Win10 unless you subscribe to DaaS, except possibly very basic security patches, and possibly even to downgrade it "in the interest of security". They will go on to leave non-DaaS Windows and apps behind and unusable by changing formats etc. With MS, it will become DaaS or nothing. No-one has wanted to believe it with comments like "People would never accept paying rent!" (a post here already saying that) and "Microsoft would not be thet wicked!".
The vast majority people of will accept it with hardly a murmur, like they have accepted patches that break things, updates occuring in the middle of PowerPoint shows, and the whole Win10 thing, because it's Microsoft and they know nothing else. To them, MS is like Uncle Joe Stalin was to the Russians - a strong smiling face that you gladly obeyed. Anyway, thanks to massive marketing pushes, renting instead of buying has become fashionable, as has paying by Direct Debit, because corporate accountants love those things. With so much resulting DD clutter on most people's bank statements (and they rarely examine the detail) the Windows rent will be lost in the noise.
(Score: 1) by anubi on Thursday August 02 2018, @09:19AM (4 children)
It would not surprise me at all if all prior versions of Windows ceased functioning one day, with the problem blamed on a virus running amok amongst unsupported machines.
We may be able to recover via backups and "Daz loaders"... but one would have to keep it off the net.
Until we could identify the bricking commands and filter them out at a non-microsoft influenced firewall.
Then figure out how to patch the machines against the kill code.
Who knows what sleeper cells lurk within Microsoft's proprietary binary blobs? Its their software, and they can do whatever they want with it, and legally, I don't think there is much anyone can do about it.
They have the Congress of the United States of America wrapped around their finger. No one can trust anything either does. But they have the guns. And apparently the system enable switch too.
I do know Microsoft bricked a lot of FTDI chips on purpose... through a "security" update. The company has shown they WILL do this. Now the big question... will they do it to YOU?
I simply do not trust them.
Not many options to this one.
Except jump ship.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 3, Informative) by Gaaark on Thursday August 02 2018, @10:23AM
Just jump: so glad I did it years ago.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 3, Insightful) by epitaxial on Thursday August 02 2018, @03:18PM (2 children)
Does anyone know what this term means anymore. You're computer isn't "bricked" if windows fails to load. Bricking means you need hardware intervention, like firmware reloaded.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 02 2018, @04:16PM (1 child)
Hmm, I'd considered it bricked only when it won't even accept a firmware reload. (So unrecoverable even with specialist tools and knowledge.)
To me bricking means that its only remaining use is as a boat anchor.
(Score: 1) by anubi on Friday August 03 2018, @07:23AM
I was referring to bricking my FTDI chips. [mspoweruser.com]
I had FTDI chips in my designs. I had to go through all of it and replace them with CH340's.
Although I expect this kind of stuff to run in "Business-Grade" systems, I will not tolerate this kind of thing in the systems I make.
My stuff is apt to end up on a farm somewhere in the middle of nowhere. Hardly the kind of area where I expect someone else to debug the thing.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]