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 butthurt on Thursday May 11 2017, @01:36PM
Earlier this month, I read otherwise, specifically about Chrome.
/comments.pl?noupdate=1&sid=19322&page=1&cid=503865#commentwrap [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Thursday May 11 2017, @01:40PM
"New Windows 10 S Only Runs Software From Windows Store"
/article.pl?sid=17/05/03/0037231 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 4, Insightful) by kaszz on Thursday May 11 2017, @01:44PM (13 children)
The next move is to lock down UEFI such that you can't escape Microsoft and by extension its store. That way only approved developers can make only approved software.
(Score: 2) by Geezer on Thursday May 11 2017, @02:06PM (4 children)
OTOH, that would open a market niche for a line non-UEFI CPU's and mobos, from AMD perhaps? Gamers and power users will always drive a niche segment.
Whatever happens to general-use office and home machines doesn't bug me much, and the PHB's will still blindly follow the MS piper. Hell, I still game high-end MMO's happily on a patched Win 7 system, and from the looks of things I probably will till I die.*
*Not all that distant, old age and cancer being what they are.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 11 2017, @04:05PM (1 child)
My guess is that at that point they may try to push for legislation to make producing such devices illegal.
(Score: 1) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Thursday May 11 2017, @04:52PM
They tried it 10 years ago. Going as far as advocating an "internet license", and having the hardware attest as to who is using the computer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 11 2017, @04:45PM (1 child)
And what happens when Microsoft drops support for non-UEFI/non-locked down CPU's and mobos? Might still be able to run Linux on them, but "nobody" would buy them, so hardware vendors aren't likely to supply such boards.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Saturday June 03 2017, @06:40AM
The Chinese Longson, Russian made ARM, Europe etc will advance to take a stab at the new market.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 11 2017, @02:58PM
I predict they'll lock down the OS in ROM sometime in the future, like my old HP Jornada 820 that had WinCE embedded in ROM.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DannyB on Thursday May 11 2017, @03:14PM (6 children)
By the time UEFI, and Management Engine, and Advanced Management Platform has locked down PC hardware into a total prison camp, it just won't matter.
There are already more devices in the world using ARM processors, under license but manufactured by different companies. And ARM processors inevitably run Linux. Not that Microsoft hasn't made a failing try to get Windows on it.
I somehow think that Raspberry PIs are only the first "desktop" computers -- even though that isn't their primary purpose. And Chromebooks have outsold Windows laptops on Amazon for years and years now.
Windows really is the past. The prison camp UEFI and management engines just don't matter.
This was true more than a decade ago, but people just didn't realize it: Trying to stop the rise of open source is like trying to stop the incoming tide with your hands.
But . . . Microsoft Loves Linux
Yes, and Sharks Love Fish, and Foxes Love Chickens, etc.
Microsoft will either adapt or end up in the dustbin of history. And I hear IBM may not be doing quite so well as its monopolist fortunes once were. These things don't happen overnight. But they happen.
Poverty exists not because we cannot feed the poor, but because we cannot satisfy the rich.
(Score: 2) by Nerdfest on Thursday May 11 2017, @03:23PM (3 children)
IBM has been taking a very long time to die because of the blind corporate "nobody ever got fired for buying IBM " fanboys. The lock-in, the douche-baggery, the fanboys .... they're truly the original Apple. I hope the downfall of both is painful, as it's deserved. Microsoft is pushing Azure in a *huge* way these days. Unfortunately, the corporate crowd is falling for it again, not realizing the lock-in is inevitable.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday May 11 2017, @03:31PM (2 children)
Speaking of Apple fanboys. I once was one. Apple once was a great company. Sometime about the early 90's BYTE magazine described the history of the microcomputer industry as an effort to keep up with Apple. It was true. Apple fanboys, including myself, were smug. Because we knew what we had was great.
Of course, I didn't have to pay for any of this outrageously expensive equipment myself. I lived in an R&D playground.
When Apple began losing its way by the late 1990's, I moved on. There was this new Linux toy and it was exciting. I had to suddenly learn about PC hardware which I had never needed to use before. It made me appreciate how simple Apple hardware was. But the software was beckoning me to Linux.
I still had fond memories of Apple and wished them well. Then Apple became evil.
Poverty exists not because we cannot feed the poor, but because we cannot satisfy the rich.
(Score: 3, Funny) by butthurt on Thursday May 11 2017, @11:55PM (1 child)
> Then Apple became evil.
In my opinion it began when Steve Jobs joined Apple:
In 1997, Apple merged with NeXT. Within a few months of the merger, Jobs became CEO [...]
-- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Jobs [wikipedia.org]
Bringing in an outsider to run a company is often a recipe for failure.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 12 2017, @03:11AM
I always thought it was when the Apple II was discontinued back in the early-mid 90's. After that it was just the Macintosh, a closed, propriety platform.
Eventually they moved to a BSD-based system, but really that was out of necessity as MacOS was stuck in the late 80's and everyone else was in the 2000's. However, the walled garden remained. Not a whole lot has changed in the Mac would, other than Apple pretty much completely abandoning the Mac as they found it much easier to build a walled garden around a smartphone than a computer.
(Score: 2) by bradley13 on Thursday May 11 2017, @03:25PM (1 child)
Windows really is the past.
I have to agree. If it weren't for the fact that Windows is still locked into most businesses, making it familiar, private people would have already abandoned it.
It's not clear to me how the Windows 10 S strategy is going to match up to businesses. No business with brains will leave the App Store available on individual PCs, and essentially all businesses have a pile of legacy applications that require Win32. If Microsoft makes the consumer experience too different from the business experience, then they really will lose the consumer market entirely.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday May 11 2017, @03:34PM
One business that Microsoft could retreat into, and continue to milk for decades is its Enterprise software.
Here's hoping they seriously screw that up. Sacrifice it on the altar of Windows 10 S and locking consumers in.
Poverty exists not because we cannot feed the poor, but because we cannot satisfy the rich.
(Score: 2) by linuxrocks123 on Thursday May 11 2017, @01:58PM (7 children)
I'm not particularly interested in hearing about Microsoft's latest fad API. Yesterday it was Metro; today it's UWP; tomorrow it will be some other fad. Why do we care?
(Score: 4, Informative) by DannyB on Thursday May 11 2017, @02:57PM (5 children)
Microsoft latest fads and promises.
Promise: Use Plays For Sure DRM! It will be great! Available on all devices.
Reality: Replaced by Zune. DRM servers shut down, abandoning all users, and all manufacturers who invested in building devices with Plays For Sure.
Promise: Use Zune DRM! It will be great! Available in beautiful dark brown!
Reality: I mention the failing Zune, my teenaged (at the time) daughter says: the failing what? Replaced by nothing. DRM servers shut down abandoning users' investments. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, er . . . um, you can't fool me twice.
Promise: Develop with COM
Reality: just wait until the .NET announcement, which is so muddled that it takes a long time before anyone even understands exactly what is being announced.
Promise: The internet is a fad -- Bill Gates.
Reality: OMG! We've got to get a TCP/IP stack built in to Windows, and acquire some company that makes a web browser. Internet applications could legitimize other OSes! Buy SpyGlass browser for $100,000 up front plus a royalty percent of sales. Rename it to Internet Explorer. Guess how many copies of IE were ever sold? Then invest $150 million into IE development to make it seductively appealing to developers in a way that will break cross platform compatibility -- and this investment into a product that doesn't make a profit or a single sale.
Promise: VB6 is great
Later: Abandon VB6 and use VB.NET. It's superficially similar, but you have to re-think your code.
Promise: XAML, Silverlight
Reality: Abandoned only a few years later to the new fad of Metro
Promise: Ignore the iPhone. Move along, move along. (Ballmer laughs at iPhone [youtube.com])
Reality: OMG! The market has left us behind. Soon the number of smart phones including Android will vastly outnumber Windows PCs
Promise: Invest your development efforts in Windows Phone 7
Reality: Just as you got screwed if you were a Win Phone 6 developer, you'll soon realize . . .
Promise: Invest your development efforts in new Windows Phone 8 -- incompatible with Win Phone 7 !!!
Reality: Even rats know when to jump off a sinking ship. Don't be seduced by the nice Nokia hardware. It's a trap!
Promise: Metro UI is the future, invest your development in it. Oh, and that XAML, Silverlight stuff, just pretend that didn't happen, okay?
Reality: Microsoft is trying to force everyone to "like" it's failing Win Phone 8 UI by forcing it down the throats of everyone. The revolt soon happens when people realize a cutsie interface for phones is not usable by people who are trying to get actual work done, and were happy by a UI designed by people trying to get actual work done that had several decades of experience and evolution behind it.
Promise: Windows OS X, er . . . um, I mean Windows 10 is the future! Forever!
Reality: We're going to force it down everyone's throats whether they want the upgrade or not. We don't care what it breaks. And we're bringing the desktop and start menu back, but not admitting any mistake, and pretending like this is still the same UI by making it look superficially similar -- even though windows chrome and borders are harder to distinguish how. Oh, and we'll make sure the elements of the OS desktop, and its controls are much louder and distracting than the application content you are trying to focus on.
Now back to your question
The Microsoft is your friend!
Trust the Microsoft!
The psi corps is your friend. Trust the corps.
Poverty exists not because we cannot feed the poor, but because we cannot satisfy the rich.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Thursday May 11 2017, @03:49PM
Promise: Windows OS X, er . . . um, I mean Windows 10 is the future! Forever!
Ha, I didn't notice that until now. It almost sounds like a strategy to try to confuse people into using Windows 10, if not for how basically Microsoft's entire business model is centered on knowing you're using Windows...
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 11 2017, @04:50PM
Great listing, thank you! And to beat a dead horse, behold the old sins: https://web.archive.org/web/20101218210434/http://msversus.org/ [archive.org]
I think this is a wonderful opportunity to ditch Micro$oft. Something I myself did for good more than 10 years ago.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 11 2017, @07:02PM
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice,
Pause. Thinks (smoke starts coming off the back of his head).
"...you can't get fooled again." [google.com]
SpyGlass browser [...] Rename it to Internet Explorer [...] doesn't make a profit or a single sale
...but they did screw SpyGlass Inc. out of making any residuals.
(...and, amazingly, companies are -still- doing deals with M$.)
...and this whole deal assumes that a monopoly on the 'Net wasn't M$'s aim from the start of the maneuver--even if IE had to be a loss leader.
Soon the number of smart phones including Android will vastly outnumber Windows PCs
Last month, one of the marketshare data aggregators said that Android alone has a larger online presence than Windoze. [google.com]
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Thursday May 11 2017, @09:46PM (1 child)
Apple or Google should hire you as an evangelist. Good coin in that, if you're pitching to corporate customers.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday May 11 2017, @10:00PM
Happier writing code and using SN to bitch about things. :-)
Poverty exists not because we cannot feed the poor, but because we cannot satisfy the rich.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by SomeGuy on Thursday May 11 2017, @03:29PM
Because sometimes these fads gain enough momentum that they steamroll anyone who isn't on board with the fad. And in those cases it can take quite a while before common sense returns. Sometimes these fads also have subtle long term consequences that remain a pain in people's asses long after the fad has died down.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 11 2017, @02:15PM
Removing store from 10 and 8.1 is already a thing. And who is this guy? I don't see any quotes from MS in that article.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday May 11 2017, @03:03PM
The more you tighten your grip, the more developers developers will slip through your fingers.
Remember when someone let slip that the reason behind Windows Subsystem for Linux was to bring developers back?
How many broken promises have you made to developers developers?
Let me tell you a story of the Surface. Ballmer's master stoke! It alienated developers developers, OEMs and customers all at a single stroke. It alienated developers developers because they had to sell through the Windows Store, hmmm, that sounds familiar. It stabbed OEMs in the back by Microsoft competing directly against them on hardware. And it alienated customers . . . because that's what Microsoft does! It has the Metro UI. The Surface RT won't run your legacy Windows applications. Etc.
Poverty exists not because we cannot feed the poor, but because we cannot satisfy the rich.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 11 2017, @03:04PM (7 children)
this is exactly what is needed to move developers and users off of windows. It's funny too b/c MS had to remove the legacy support to bring security up to snuff. Unfortunately for those slaveware peddling whores, it's one of the main reasons people stay on windows: some (mission critical) piece of shit only runs on windows. With MS removing that option these "devs" and their users may finally be forced to other platforms. Maybe manufacturers will be forced to create APIs so that apps can get parts data, etc. without some exclusive pact between slavetraders.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 11 2017, @03:12PM (2 children)
The problem is... what other platforms are viable? macOS? Bwahahahaha. Linux? How's systemD working out for you? Sure, there are some Linux distros that are sans systemD, but they're not exactly user friendly and are a non-starter for the average Joe. The BSDs are in the same boat... great operating systems, but non-starters for the average Joe. Microsoft holds the "average Joe," government, and enterprise sectors firmly, and they know it.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 11 2017, @03:44PM (1 child)
Still far better than Windows.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Thursday May 11 2017, @06:12PM
I actually get less calls from my parents, now that they run Mint.
They got used to it pretty quickly (because does behave like XP/7, what most MS customers want), despite being low-tech and in their 60s.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by DannyB on Thursday May 11 2017, @03:21PM
What you say is similar to why I predicted a few years back that Surface RT would fail. The entire value of Windows is one thing: the legacy applications.
Take that away, and Windows has NO VALUE. In fact, maybe negative value.
Microsoft's attempts to modernize it's system are the very thing that will destroy it.
There are 20 year old business applications that people need to run. And of those aren't or can't be ported, the users of those applications will look for modern replacements. And those inevitably will be . . . ta da . . . web based! Meaning Windows just doesn't matter. On the server, and on the client.
Apple realized that moving to a different microprocessor, like Surface RT, meant you MUST have a robust emulation solution that just works, for everything. Apple realized that when moving to an entirely new OS API, you needed to have a legacy emulation solution, at least for a few years. Microsoft has been a monopolist for so long it believes it can get anything it wants by signing executive orders . . . oh, wait.
Poverty exists not because we cannot feed the poor, but because we cannot satisfy the rich.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 11 2017, @03:34PM (2 children)
There is nothing wrong with making a platform shift in your OS. You can always include a VM system with the OS to run the old OS alongside the new. (Apple did this when they transitioned to OS X.)
The problem is you can only do this VERY INFREQUENTLY, like not even every 15 years. Microsoft needs to figure its shit out and commit to it. That is all.
(Score: 1) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Thursday May 11 2017, @04:59PM (1 child)
They actually included a Windows XP emulation layer with Windows 7 Pro.
Why it was not part of the Vista roll-out, I don't know.
I have a guess: they thought licensing DRM would be more profitable than making a system that was actually secure.
They could have required all CPUs running Vista to include visualization extensions. Instead, they require all video cards to include HDCP. That broke video drivers enough that they had to re-launch Vista as Windows 7.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 11 2017, @11:55PM
"They [Microsoft] included an emulation layer..."
Yes, but an emulation layer probably won't let you make a *complete, 100% break* with the previous OS, right?
A VM would let you run a completely different OS, no connection to the old.
I understand the VM approach wouldn't be as "seemless" to a user, but at some point I think they will have to bite the bullet and go the VM route to run the old OS during a transition period to the new OS.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 11 2017, @03:41PM (3 children)
Significant socially irresponsible choices like this call for strong measures.
Intellectual Property Rights are a deal between makers and users.
They can be trumped by overriding public need.
(I think the library of Congress has a mechanism to do this?)
There is a LOT of critical stuff depending on that family of operating systems.
If Microsoft decides to orphan this stuff, then perhaps the Copyrights and Patents protecting this OS should be opened to the public.
This might make Windows an opensource operating system.
(Score: 1) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Thursday May 11 2017, @05:04PM (1 child)
Did You Say “Intellectual Property”? It's a Seductive Mirage [gnu.org]
As I commented to another AC, trying to lock down industrial protectionism is what got us into this mess. Microsoft spent a lot of money securing Windows Vista: the only problem is that they were working against the user instead of for the user.
(Score: 2) by Pino P on Thursday May 11 2017, @05:13PM
Allow me to make the minimal changes to comment #508133 to bring it in line with FSF goodspeak:
(Score: 2) by Pino P on Thursday May 11 2017, @05:10PM
Intellectual Property Rights are a deal between makers and users.
They can be trumped by overriding public need.
(I think the library of Congress has a mechanism to do this?)
A taking of a U.S. copyright or patent pursuant to the Fifth Amendment [ipprospective.com] looks plausible. The applicable statute [concurringopinions.com] appears to be 28 USC 1498 [cornell.edu].
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 11 2017, @07:41PM
Do they think we're idiots?
For security, sure. Sure.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Thursday May 11 2017, @08:23PM
Let's hope they put Microsoft Security Essentials for Endpoint Intune Forefront Sharepoint Protection in the store so when you scan for a virus you know you'll get one!
"I think my computer's infected..."
"I know mine is: I use Microsoft antivirus!"
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 11 2017, @08:35PM
By far the biggest problem Microsoft has right now is that they do not want to be in the Operating System business; they want to be in the subscription services business. You can sell subscriptions to Operating Systems but, for the average consumer, there is no market. Red Hat, Suse, and Ubuntju have been in that business for years and they have shown where the market is. Consumers are not going to pay for OS updates; they might need them but they are not going to pay for them. So, Microsoft is trying to change their market; the OS is becoming a subscription delivery platform.
The crux of the problem is one analysts have been harping on for years: Win16 and Win32 keep users on Windows; Win16 and Win32 also cause design compromises that keep their platform from substantially changing and becoming the captive subscription delivery platform Wall Street wants them to be. There does need to be a clean break at some point; that does not mean Win16 and Win32 in Windows should cease to exist. It just means that there needs to be another product. I personally believe the analysts also got it right when the said the biggest mistake Microsoft made with Windows RT was putting "Windows" in the name. They should have created an independent product line. People did not expect their iPads or Androids to run Family Tree Maker but they did expect their Surface RT to do it because it had "Windows" in the name.
I think Microsoft is making the same mistake again. They really need to push out an independent product and force it to stand on its own by creating a compelling use case. The new Surface Laptop has a "free" upgrade to Windows Pro available because they know that, without Win32, it is just an expensive tablet with the world's crappiest app store. Outside of Netflix and some of the TV channels, nobody but spammers are authoring Windows Store apps. They have not demonstrated by a Windows Service delivery platform is worth the price of admission. Until they do, Windows will continue to be Windows.