back to article Windows 10 to grow up, turn extra enterprise-y beginning this month

Microsoft says features of Windows 10 for enterprises that weren't available when the OS launched in July will begin rolling out this month. As was the case with the Windows 10 launch, subscribers to the Windows Insider program will get first crack at the late add-ons, which won't reach general availability until later in the …

  1. Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

    Ongoing feature innovations

    Quote

    As part of delivering Windows 10 as a service, enterprise customers can expect ongoing feature innovations

    In MS speak thise must mean more snooping probably at the behest of a TLA.

    This question remains

    Will businesses adopt this P-OS in a big way or will this be thing that makes businesess really beging to think that there are alternatives to Windows in their business.

    The jury is out on that at the moment.

    1. bobgameon

      Re: Ongoing feature innovations

      Considering that banks are some of the most secretive organizations in the world and Bank of America has already announced it plans to move to windows 10 ASAP. And the ATM industry association has given a big thumbs up to windows 10. I think some of the jury members have already begun casting there votes.

      BTW. Honest question though. Do we even know for sure that telemetry data collection or "snooping" is there in the enterprise version or not? It would be a really idiotic move by Microsoft to include that in the enterprise version of windows.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Ongoing feature innovations

        BTW. Honest question though. Do we even know for sure that telemetry data collection or "snooping" is there in the enterprise version or not?

        How will we know beforehand. Telemetry in the enterprise version to Insiders may, or may not mean a thing until it's in our labs or else with our lab rats Enterprise Insiders. And whither Group Policy in all this. I can see some knotty problems from here on interactions between the features let alone the previous cruft. [What determines who sees what apps in the Corporate Store. Allocation of and tracking bulk licenses for those apps. I'll stop there. (Do I even want to try this at "home"? ]

        1. Mark 85

          @Jack of Shadows -- Re: Ongoing feature innovations

          I would hope that the lab rats (good name) doing the testing in the company not only monitor the PC logs but also server logs and firewall logs. This beast is going to require some careful scrutiny by financial institutions, insurance companies, etc. If data leakage starts showing of personal data as well as corporate data, I would also hope (probably futily) that the various Fed regulatory agencies get involved to push MS to change the thing.

      2. Richard Plinston

        Re: Ongoing feature innovations

        > the ATM industry association has given a big thumbs up to windows 10.

        That is a little bit selective about what they said and why. The problem was that many stayed with XP for too long. """It was a tough lesson, and one that some banks learned the hard way—when they were essentially forced to upgrade or pay Microsoft hundreds of thousands of dollars in yearly support fees.""" They went to Win7 which ends support in 2020. The real message is giving """advice to ATM developers and manufacturers to skip Windows 8 and Windows 8.1.""" so that they won't be stuck with excessive support fees again quite so soon.

        They don't fully support Windows 10, though, except as a way of skipping 8:

        """But as ATMIA CEO Mike Lee explained: "For those deployers seeking alternatives, the association has a next-generation ATM architecture looking into such innovations as Linux-based ATMs or Android-operated ATMs." """

        1. bobgameon

          Re: Ongoing feature innovations

          Actually the advise was to wait for windows 10 if there ATM's are on 7 with the 2020 deadline already looming. But the XP people were told to upgrade to 7 immediately considering security risks. But the fact that this was said is enough of a thumbs up from an industry that moves very cautiously when it comes to upgrades.

          On the other hand their moving to Linux actually makes a lot of sense. Its free. They can mod it any way they like. And it will work on hardware made for windows XP unlike windows 10.

    2. Roland6 Silver badge

      Re: Ongoing feature innovations

      MS are just proving what everyone said, W10 wasn't ready for release and is potentially still not ready for prime time.

  2. djstardust

    Just working would be fine .....

    I upgraded a relatively new machine from 8.1 to 10. Once installed it had completely wiped my wifi card and even reinstalling the drivers did nothing. Unbeknown to me if there was VPN software installed (which I also didn't know about as it was put there by Lenovo) it does this. I then rolled back and it fell over completely so I had to do a full factory reset and reinstall everything again.

    How can such things get missed in testing and how can it be released in this state?

    If this is what it's like for home users I can't see enterprise putting up with this carp any time soon.

    I'm done with Windows 10 full stop.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Childcatcher

      Re: Just working would be fine .....

      "If this is what it's like for home users I can't see enterprise putting up with this carp any time soon."

      You might like to consider that "enterprise" will put up with Oracle Forms and ActiveX based web sites necessitating some horrendous hacks on the desktop end. Then there's the requirement for multiple ancient versions of Java and the servers with AV scanning switched off because some twat of a "support" operative once suggested it years ago as a "fix" for something.

      Enterprise does not always equate with enlightened.

      Never heard of an OS being compared to a fish though - that's a new one on me but could become a thing.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Joke

        Re: Just working would be fine .....

        Thinking about it some, it strikes me as appropriate that Windows 10 is very similar to a carp. Immortal bottom-feeder with little to no known utility but can have a pleasing appearance. Not sure if this is even a joke.

        1. herman

          Re: Just working would be fine .....

          No, you are being unfair to carp. Windows is more like a lamprey.

    2. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

      Re: Just working would be fine .....

      ISTR reading somewhere, probably here, that Lenovo wouldn't be pre-loading W10 yet because of driver issues or something like that.

      And the moral is: never be the first to jump.

      1. Roland6 Silver badge

        Re: Just working would be fine .....

        From the ad's it would seem that many OEM's aren't pre-loading W10 yet, instead supplying W7/8 with the buy line "Get windows 10 for free" ie. you can visit windows.com/windows10upgrade.

        This would make sense as it was always said that a major update to W10 would be released in the autumn and hence it would make sense to hold off until then before switching production over to a new build. Plus, it should be remembered many PC's for the retail channel are shipped via sea hence there is still potentially 6~8 weeks of production in transit.

        MS may not like it (but who actually cares?), hence why they are pushing GWX and related unimportant updates via WUP.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Windows

    I'm linking rollout to a h/w refresh

    I've pencilled in 2,000 users in my organisation getting new laptops with Windows 10 in 2017.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: I'm linking rollout to a h/w refresh

      Whilst I'm not a M$ lover (Linux Sys Admin me!) I'll rolling it out company-wide Q1/Q2 next year. Its either that, or we end up in a Windows XP scenario, and one thing I've always promised my team is I'd never let our Infrastructure age and we'd refresh every 5 years!

      I do hate the fact that Microsoft has been very close-mouthed about all this spying crap, almost like they expect it to die away, it won't! But all (I hope) of the "telemetry" can be disabled via registry changes, so I suspect all of this and more will makes it way into Group Policy in Server 2016.

      1. Steven Roper

        Re: I'm linking rollout to a h/w refresh

        " But all (I hope) of the "telemetry" can be disabled via registry changes..."

        Any changes to the registry to block "telemetry" will simply be reset every time there's an update, or if enough people start blocking it then there'll be a process that polls the requisite registry settings every X minutes and constantly resets them.

        Windows 10 simply means you'll be entering into an endless war with Microsoft for control of your computer and your data.

        1. K
          Big Brother

          Re: I'm linking rollout to a h/w refresh

          @Steve Roper - Please share your source of this information?

          Sounds like codswallop to me, it would be fairly stupid of Microsoft to allow this stuff to be controlled via GPO, then try to override it via some local security check.

          Likewise, it would be even more stupid for Microsoft to force this stuff, when they're trying to get everybody on it, and Enterprise would simply not stand for it, and even if they did, huge markets would be prevented from adopting it by almost every global regulatory body (PCI, ISO, SAN, SOX, FISMA, HIPAA).

          Also let me ask, do you use a Android-phone or iPhone? Because if you really are this paranoid, please do not use an of the Google or Apple services.

      2. hayseed

        Re: I'm linking rollout to a h/w refresh

        Microsoft has already told people that setting the telemetry setting to "0" on the non-enterprise version is equivalent to setting it to "1", that is, it will still send basic telemetry to Microsoft. So the registry tweaks don't work any better than the formal control sets. Some people have suggested squashing some new services in articles, but better to let people discover whether some errors get logged due to this.

      3. Anonymous Coward
        WTF?

        Re: I'm linking rollout to a h/w refresh

        @AC - 'you shouldn't be 'hoping' or 'suspecting' anything in such a scenario - you should KNOW when it's a case of betting the business on it. And ISTR that it's already been reported that the consumer version of Win10 (resists the strong urge to call it Fail10, wups!) phones home even when all the options to tell it not to have been switched to tell it not to do so.

        IMO, it'd be downright irresponsible to promise anything regarding Windows 10 at the moment, in any environment. I certainly wouldn't do so unless I'd had the thing thoroughly tested for several months in a test environment where if it all went wrong it wouldn't do any real harm. Only once the test results were in would it be responsible to make any promises about the future, OS-wise, particularly in a business environment.

        It's one thing for an individual to say that they really aren't concerned about MS data-slurping from their personal kit (as one person has said to me already - their reasoning being that given the extent to which they're on 'social media' adding another in the form of MsSpace in the form of Windows 10 doesn't really matter. Suffice to say that I feel their argument is not a good one), it's a whole 'nother thing for a business, especially one that isn't in the same legal jurisdiction as Redmond.

        If I ran a business, I'd be taking a VERY hard look at getting the business off of any dependency on MS software asap. And with the trend towards companies betting the farm on cloud-based software (something else I'm uneasy with, at least insofar as putting company data 'out there' is concerned - buying compute time isn't so bad), for companies that are already doing that, why on earth NOT move to Linux - anything usable via webbrowser doesn't care what your OS is, and even if you go for a paid-for version from the likes of Red Hat or Suse, I'd be astonished if it ended up costing more than buying licences for Windows (not something I have to deal with, so not something I know off the top of my head).

        As for any Windows-specific software that's mission-critical, I'd be testing it on Linux via WIne and/or Crossover from Codeweavers and having a chat with the programmers as to whether it might be possible to make anything that didnt run nicely on Linux at the moment to do so in the near future.

        1. K

          Re: I'm linking rollout to a h/w refresh

          @Esme

          Its a nice utopian view, but in business the commercial needs and profit will always come out ahead. This is why so many business fail to refresh and get lumbred with legacy systems.

      4. hplasm
        Joke

        Re: I'm linking rollout to a h/w refresh

        "But all (I hope) of the "telemetry" can be disabled via registry changes,..."

        Hope is always good on your CV...

      5. Roland6 Silver badge

        Re: I'm linking rollout to a h/w refresh @AC

        " I'll rolling it out company-wide Q1/Q2 next year. Its either that, or we end up in a Windows XP scenario, and one thing I've always promised my team is I'd never let our Infrastructure age and we'd refresh every 5 years!",

        So I take it that you last updated in 2011? and will next update in 2021? But given the rules around W10, I suspect you will be updating again in 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2021...

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Linux

      Re: I'm linking rollout to a h/w refresh

      Lucky them

    3. hplasm
      Devil

      Re: I'm linking rollout to a h/w refresh

      "I've pencilled in 2,000 users in my organisation..."

      Jeez- do you even need to pay extra for Notepad in Win 10?

      Still - remember what they did to Mussolini...

  4. Wensleydale Cheese

    The devil will be in the detail

    "so I suspect all of this and more will makes it way into Group Policy in Server 2016."

    Does that imply that an upgrade to Server 2016 will be required for full Win10 support?

    That could be a bit soon for those who have just put in a lot of work to get off earlier Server versions.

  5. YARR

    I hope they test these new Enterprise features more carefully than they did Windows 10 itself.

  6. Pascal Monett Silver badge

    "employees can buy company-owned apps"

    What drunken idiot thought that scheme was viable ?

    Employees do not buy company-owned applications, they are installed on their computers by IT so they can do their job.

    Or are we going to witness BYOWorkplace as the follow-up to BYOD ? And pigs will have wings next year.

    Everything in this piece tells me that I'm going to be hearing a lot about Win10 update-related failures in the coming months.

    1. Afernie
      Facepalm

      Re: "employees can buy company-owned apps"

      "What drunken idiot thought that scheme was viable ?

      Er, The one who realised it's possible to put a price tag of 0.00 on items in the store? Buy is a poor choice of words in the article.

      "Employees do not buy company-owned applications, they are installed on their computers by IT so they can do their job."

      That's right, they do. And this is simply a way to provide internal apps to an employee in the same way as you can obtain publicly developed free apps. The only scenario where I'd expect employee would actually buy internal apps is where the company or organisation has an internal market - and (horrifyingly) there are places that have that kind of thing, you know.

      1. Roland6 Silver badge

        Re: "employees can buy company-owned apps"

        Haven't you heard about the new fad that is set to sweep business: BYOA - Buy Your Own App's !

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