Microsoft slashes Windows 10 long-term support by half:
In a Feb. 18 post to a Microsoft blog, Joe Lurie, senior product marketing manager, announced that the next iteration of Windows 10 LTSC, aka "Long-term Support Channel," will be released in the second half of this year. That timetable means the next LTSC will be pegged as either Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC 2021 or Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC 2022.
That was expected: Almost two years ago, Microsoft said it would deliver another LTSC "toward the end of 2021."
What wasn't anticipated: The massive reduction in support. "Windows 10 Client LTSC will change to a 5-year lifecycle, aligning with the changes to the next perpetual version of Office," Lurie wrote.
Past editions of LTSC will be unaffected. Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC 2015, 2016 and 2019 will get support until Oct. 14, 2025, Oct. 13, 2026, and Jan. 9, 2029, respectively. (Before 2019, Microsoft labeled this version of Windows LTSB, for Long-term Service Branch. Whether Branch or Channel, they all got at least a decade of support.)
[...] Although the first rationale for the support change that Lurie mentioned last week was to align its lifecycle with that of "the next perpetual version of Office," it wasn't the only reason.
[...] Microsoft has a tendency to leave the obvious unsaid when it alters policies, as it has here. LTSB/LTSC was always anathema to a foundational tenet of Windows 10, that the OS was a constantly changing software-as-a-service, and best licensed through subscription — not through outright purchase. It's no coincidence that LTSC doesn't fit a subscription-based worldview.
Windows 10 LTSC's support reduction is simply a part of Microsoft's continued deprecation of on-premises, perpetually-licensed software. (LTSC is not a licensed product; it is simply a release mode of Windows 10 Enterprise, which can be licensed via subscription, say, within Microsoft 365, or via traditional perpetual licensing.) The reduction, then, can best be seen as a warning of Microsoft's plan to eventually discard the option for client-side devices. A five-year support loss today will almost certainly be followed by another, matching reduction that will excise the option.
When that happens, Microsoft will probably assert that LTSC served its purpose — a bridge between a former release model and the current one — and so can be dropped, even if there are customers still keen for such an option.
Microsoft Announcement:
The next Windows 10 Long Term Servicing Channel (LTSC) release
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 24 2021, @04:27PM (3 children)
They looked at RedHat pulling these shenanigans with CentOS and thought to themselves: "Hey, we can fuck over customers this way and they still won't leave us" and thought this was a good idea to do themselves as well. Now if only it stayed at that, but unfortunately, that one go-getting MBA overheard this and is already thinking about all sorts of other ways to fuck the customer over because "where the fuck will they go anyways?". That MBA worked at EA for some time, mind you!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 24 2021, @06:58PM (2 children)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 24 2021, @09:57PM (1 child)
Microsoft mostly caters to business users, not consumers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 25 2021, @02:31AM
XBox is “mostly catering to business customers?” Could have fooled me.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 24 2021, @04:36PM (2 children)
I thought they just released it and let customers find workarounds for any flaws.
(Score: 3, Funny) by DannyB on Wednesday February 24 2021, @05:41PM
Yeah, but Microsoft supports customers with thoughts and prayers in their efforts to work around Microsoft's flaws.
Every performance optimization is a grate wait lifted from my shoulders.
(Score: 2) by driverless on Saturday February 27 2021, @11:05AM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 24 2021, @04:46PM (4 children)
Don't think I'd heard "next perpetual" before.
Looks like Microsoft can still innovate after all.
(Score: 4, Funny) by DannyB on Wednesday February 24 2021, @05:48PM (2 children)
Next perpetual comes right after Previous perpetual. What's the problem?
Think of it like how the universe works.
Spoiler (How the universe works)
Yes, that infinite stack of turtles has a first turtle and a last turtle. The stack is infinite somewhere in the middle.
The previous perpetual is infinite, but after its final day of support, you begin the next perpetual.
Every performance optimization is a grate wait lifted from my shoulders.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Wednesday February 24 2021, @11:13PM (1 child)
You forgot Dark Matter on your list of things. :)
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday February 25 2021, @03:37PM
Yeah, I forgot it on this post [soylentnews.org] too.
Every performance optimization is a grate wait lifted from my shoulders.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Thursday February 25 2021, @01:12PM
Unless you reject the possibility of the existence of more than one perpetual thing.
Or you don't believe perpetual things can have a starting time.
Or you don't believe that things with starting times can be ordered by those starting time.
All of which are perfectly sound.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 3, Insightful) by looorg on Wednesday February 24 2021, @05:01PM (1 child)
So Microsoft doesn't like it, no surprise there. Also it was not intended for normal (ok nerds) to use it -- but they do cause they didn't want all the shit .. oh sorry "Features" that normal W10 offered, or shoved down your throat. So now they want to get rid of it and are engineering it's demise. Make it less important or usable and eventually they can claim they have data that shows that the customers doesn't want this product and then they can cut it. That said I think a lot of organizations and people will continue to use the LTSC/LTSB long after they claim it's dead and gone just like there are still about 20ish % or something around there that are running Windows 7; extended support ended two years ago and Windows 8 was released ten years ago. I guess the customers knows what is good and works and what is a shitfest they dont even want to poke a stick at.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Joe Desertrat on Wednesday February 24 2021, @08:00PM
Note that this will coincidentally align "with the changes to the next perpetual version of Office", which is I believe Microsoft's biggest profit maker now. My thinking is that they will make a full featured Office only available with Windows Next (whatever name they give it), in order to force full slavery, er, better allow customers to experience their products.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 24 2021, @05:26PM (1 child)
I don't get it guys. Someone please explain me, is this something good or should I start bashing Microsoft with the Halloween papers?
(Score: 3, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 24 2021, @07:02PM
It’s good - for Microsoft. That should tell you all that you need to know for how bad it is.
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Wednesday February 24 2021, @05:48PM (16 children)
What is the market for LTS releases? Is it embedded systems (I'm thinking ATMs, advertising screens, etc)? Is it consumers?
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 24 2021, @07:16PM (2 children)
Officially, the market for LTSB/LTSC is primarily devices that have a long certification or test requirements that make a twice-a-year feature updates infeasible. E.g. Industrial control machinery, ATMs, medical devices, etc.
The problem with that is that some organizations see the opportunity to go 10 years between windows feature updates and want to do that. They want to deploy LTSC to end-user devices the same way they deployed Windows XP, and that's a terrible idea. Microsoft* adds security features in every new version of Windows and wants people running high-risk workloads (e.g. common attack vectors like email and the web) to use these new security features. If you aren't checking email/browsing the web/running Office on a machine then LTSC is fine.
My *opinion* is that the TCO of doing once-a-decade forklift OS upgrades is huge compared to taking regular future updates. If you're running LTSC in either version on end-user PCs then you are shooting yourself in the foot.
* Full Disclosure: I work for Microsoft as a Platforms Customer Engineer (PFE), therefore my opinion is invalid.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by PiMuNu on Wednesday February 24 2021, @07:52PM
I am a bit confused. I run a LTS for my linux install, because I like stable. I still get security fixes, but I don't get the shiniest GUI stuff and other BS. That's okay, I wish everything just worked like Win XP anyway. Does MS not push security fixes to its LTS installs?
Meanwhile, all the new shiny GUI stuff and cloud thingamies are just new and poorly tested attack vectors.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Wednesday February 24 2021, @11:17PM
Thas funny shit, there. Funny, funny shit. So Windows ISN'T the security nightmare of Operating Systems? It ISN'T the most insecure operating system ever?
Funny, funny shit.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 0) by Ethanol-fueled on Wednesday February 24 2021, @07:34PM (12 children)
Don't know. I'll bet it's because a frightening amount of military systems, even hi-rel stuff like missile defense or space systems, run desktop-style Windows. That in addition to all the other government and corporate Windows accounts.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Subsentient on Wednesday February 24 2021, @08:06PM (11 children)
A lot of that shit isn't just running Windows: It's running Windows XP SP2, or even Windows 2000. I'm not kidding. It's terrifying.
People never learn.
There's this big resistance to updates, but for most things (e.g. code dependencies, Linux distros) the key is to just update often and fix it when it breaks, because when you update frequently, the breakages are few and far between, and of manageable size when they do occur.
My projects are designed to pull in the very latest versions of their dependencies, and if there's API breakage, I fix it, commit, and now I'm on the latest version of that library. Sure, you have to fix the breakages, but it's when you resist the little breakages that you end up with a huge pile a year down the line that takes 3 weeks to fix. So do it now, not later.
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." -Jiddu Krishnamurti
(Score: 5, Insightful) by mhajicek on Wednesday February 24 2021, @08:29PM (10 children)
When you update frequently, the breakages are frequent and discovered at the worst point in time, when you absolutely need things to work.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 2) by Subsentient on Wednesday February 24 2021, @08:40PM (8 children)
That hasn't really been my experience. The breakages are perhaps once a month, and are usually easy fixes.
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." -Jiddu Krishnamurti
(Score: 3, Informative) by edIII on Thursday February 25 2021, @01:06AM (1 child)
I've happily left MS for a few years. However, when I had to support their shitty servers what I noticed was that something broke *EVERY* update. That's why I disabled updates completely, and not just from MS. Whenever I had updates to apply, I had to do them on Sunday. If the business software was updated by an executive, or some dumb fucker from the vendor, then I had to rush in and fix everything again.
So my experience, was every fucking update broke the whole business.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2) by Subsentient on Thursday February 25 2021, @07:18AM
Well, Windows update nowadays is an entirely different beast I'll admit. What's ironic is that before they made them mandatory, updates didn't used to break your shit constantly. Now that you are required to install them, you better be afraid to.
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." -Jiddu Krishnamurti
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 25 2021, @02:38AM
If the toilets at work broke every month and you had to close because you would be in violation in f health codes, you wouldn’t update every month.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Thursday February 25 2021, @02:57AM (1 child)
A breakage once a month may be no issue for you. It certainly is an issue everywhere where a fix needs several months to be approved.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by Subsentient on Thursday February 25 2021, @07:08AM
True. I'm lucky that I work for a small company with a boss who is receptive to my input. All the code that I write for them is consistently using the latest stable versions of all its dependencies at the time of release. I can only imagine how many security issues that's prevented.
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." -Jiddu Krishnamurti
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Thursday February 25 2021, @04:36AM (2 children)
You contradicted yourself. Monthly breakages are pretty frequent. How often would things break if you updated every other year?
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 2) by Subsentient on Thursday February 25 2021, @07:06AM (1 child)
Once a year. And you'd have a big horrible hard job getting it all fixed, instead of a 5 minute fix for each little issue.
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." -Jiddu Krishnamurti
(Score: 3, Insightful) by FatPhil on Thursday February 25 2021, @01:26PM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 25 2021, @08:09AM
A friends work switched to office 365. Her msword freezes repeatedly, won't unfreeze, so basically she gave up and now mainly uses wordpad. How many times can you handle Word just not working before you change how you work?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 24 2021, @06:03PM
They realized they don't need as much support staff now that the three letter agencies can maintain their targ.. cusstomers systems in repair with all the remote management tools provided.
(Score: 2) by progo on Wednesday February 24 2021, @06:32PM (1 child)
Does that mean all the cases where I built a project under duress using tools someone else decided upon for the wrong reasons -- I can stop supporting these after 5 years?
"Sorry, as it clearly says in the README, I don't have to support this project after go-live date + 5 years."
(Score: 2) by ElizabethGreene on Wednesday February 24 2021, @07:27PM
The lifecycle for the current versions of LTSC aren't changing. If you build something with LTSC 2019 you will still have the current extended support end date of 01/09/2029 per https://microsoft.com/lifecycle [microsoft.com].
(Score: 5, Funny) by progo on Wednesday February 24 2021, @06:36PM (1 child)
By the 2030s, what's now Windows will be then some kind of ChromeOS or browser-like environment where updated code is streamed down as it's published or when it is called upon, with no version numbers. And most of the Windows kernel will still be there.
Even on industrial controllers running Windows will work like this. Get ready.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 25 2021, @02:41AM
Sounds like they’re rediscovering the idea of Java, with code (class files) downloaded and run as needed.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 24 2021, @08:12PM (1 child)
Does this mean my Windows 7 machines are even more dead, or less?
I hope they don't change their support policy for Word2000, I'd be in real trouble.
(Score: 2) by Nuke on Wednesday February 24 2021, @11:14PM
They are dead, but they won't lie down.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 24 2021, @10:20PM
into "medium-term support".