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Microsoft's only choice to move forward is to throw the Win32 baby out with the bathwater. And that brings us to the introduction of Windows 10 S.
Windows 10 S is just like the Windows 10 you use now, but the main difference is it can only run apps that have been whitelisted to run in the Windows Store. That means, by and large, existing Win32-based stuff cannot run in Windows 10 S for security reasons.
To bridge the app gap, Microsoft is allowing certain kinds of desktop apps to be "packaged" for use in the Windows Store through a tooling process known as Desktop Bridge or Project Centennial.
The good news is that with Project Centennial, many Desktop Win32 apps can be re-purposed and packaged to take advantage of Windows 10's improved security. However, there are apps that will inevitably be left behind because they violate the sandboxing rules that are needed to make the technology work in a secure fashion.
"A casualty of those sandboxing rules is Google's Chrome browser. For security reasons, Microsoft is not permitting desktop browsers to be ported to the Store."
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Thursday May 11 2017, @09:09PM (1 child)
Obviously, I was generalizing. Not *everyone* is going to use Windows S; Macs are still around, for instance, and not likely to go anywhere. And there've always been people that never used Windows at all.
But the point is, if you're working in a corporate or government job, you're most likely going to have to use Windows S in the future, or find another job (or none at all). I've been waiting for almost 2 decades now for Linux to become a viable alternative, and I've been using it myself for most of that time too, but I don't see it happening, in fact I see things getting worse, not better. I remember when a lot of devs used to use Linux on their desktop/laptop machines. Not any more; now they've all switched to Macbooks. I sure don't see any major corporations or governments adopting it en masse, and instead, Munich Germany, a famous adoption case, (last I heard) gave up on it and is switching back to Windows.
Of course Linux is better than Windows; this has been true for at least a decade now. But it hasn't gotten much 3rd-party software support from places like Adobe or Autodesk (things that you can't do with a web app), which is essential for business adoption, and businesses haven't pushed it because they're too comfortable with MS Office/Outlook/Exchange/AD/etc. One problem for MS is with family/home computing, where it does seem like a lot of people have either abandoned PCs altogether, or are just continuing to use their ancient XP/7 PC (possibly "upgraded" to 10 back when it first came out and was forcing everyone to upgrade), and have instead bought tablets for their regular web-surfing, Youtube-watching uses. But that doesn't help Linux-on-the-desktop much, except for keeping IE from becoming the de-facto browser standard again.
Right now, I'm the only person I know who runs Linux on the desktop without some kind of VM, except for 2 friends who I set up with some old laptops running Mint KDE (who are both non-technical people and are humming along just fine with them, without having to ask me for anything for many months now; the only support calls were right at the beginning of this experiment for some minor issues and that was it). I just haven't seen any increase in desktop Linux usage at all, and in fact a backslide since the mid-2000s or so. Personally, I blame Gnome3 some of this; it just isn't a good UI for either new users (Windows converts) or for serious techies. It's slow, buggy, non-configurable, works completely differently from Windows and Mac, but somehow it's the "standard" for all of desktop Linux because so many distros have adopted it. It's not helping Linux adoption, and in fact is working against it. The only bright spot is that it's easier than ever to use desktop Linux full-time now because things have mostly gotten mature, the hardware support is great, and so much stuff has moved to the web (even taxes), and IE is dead with Chrome now the leading browser. So it's there for anyone who wants to free themselves from the monstrosity of modern Windows, but it just isn't getting much uptake.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Thursday May 11 2017, @09:42PM
I always take a throwaway laptop with linux and use that instead of the work machine they want me to use. I am far more productive with vim and my macros and settings and tools than it's worth quibbling with the bureaucracy that you have to hack through to get the same setup. I thought a lot of linux people did the same, not so much because I.T. dept.s are so hostile to linux anymore, but because traditionally they always have been.
The status quo is fine by me, though. I'm happy with most people trapped in Windows while our jolly FLOSS subculture hums along, getting all the real work done. The former provide a much easier target for nefarious parties than the latter, so they draw most of the criminal intent; it's sort of like the old joke about the two friends who run into a bear in the woods, whereby the one friend says to the other he doesn't have to out-run the bear, just him. It's also job security if your use of FLOSS makes you much more productive than the Windows guys, because when it comes time to downsize you have a better chance of survival if you're more productive than the other guys in the department.
Washington DC delenda est.