| Title | Microsoft Slashes Windows 10 Long-Term Support by Half | |
| Date | Wednesday February 24 2021, @04:06PM | |
| Author | Fnord666 | |
| Topic | ||
| from the dept. | ||
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
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printed from SoylentNews, Microsoft Slashes Windows 10 Long-Term Support by Half on 2024-04-23 21:52:37