back to article Microsoft Windows: The Next 30 Years

Windows anniversaries are a bit like Halloween. You can bring out a Vista or Windows Me to scare the children into bed on time. Microsoft Windows turned 30 this month, and blogs are full of nostalgia. (Here's our Fright Night – we dare you to click.) But what will the next 30 years look like? Is the last 30 years of Windows a …

  1. Chairo

    Thailand is the only Asian country never to be colonised

    Huh? Who colonized Japan?

    But yes, they also ran a rather radical reform program during the "Meiji restauration", so the point is still valid.

    1. jake Silver badge

      @ Chairo (was:Re: Thailand is the only Asian country never to be colonised)

      "Who colonized Japan?"

      The USA.

      Well, you asked. Like it or don't, them's the facts.

      1. joeldillon

        Re: @ Chairo (was:Thailand is the only Asian country never to be colonised)

        Only if you think the US also colonised Germany!

        1. pakman

          Re: @ Chairo (was:Thailand is the only Asian country never to be colonised)

          Maybe Chairo was referring to the Unequal treaties imposed on Japan by Western powers in the 1850's and 1860's. This started with Commodore Matthew Perry's arrival in Japan in 1853. Not full-on colonisation maybe, but certainly "sphere of influence" stuff that was very much in the spirit of 19th century imperialism. Like other imperialist manoeuvres, it fuelled a nationalist reaction against the imperialist powers. Japan then developed imperialist aspirations of its own of course....

        2. Michael Wojcik Silver badge

          Re: @ Chairo (was:Thailand is the only Asian country never to be colonised)

          Only if you think the US also colonised Germany!

          A wildly inaccurate comparison, since the US - in the person of SCAP, i.e. MacArthur - was the supreme political authority in Japan for nearly eight years. Nothing equivalent happened in Germany. And the US retained control of Okinawa until 1972. (Of course, Okinawa - the Ryukyu kingdom - itself had been colonized by Japan during the Meiji period, and had been a tributary state to Japan and before that China for decades.)

          And US colonial influence over Japan was already a century old when the Occupation ended.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: @ Chairo (was:Thailand is the only Asian country never to be colonised)

        No. Those are not the fact. The facts are very much more complicated. Obviously. Perhaps the article meant mainland Asia and standard 19th-century-style colonisation by European countries (so the non-European parts of Russia were colonised by European Russia). But what about Turkey?

      3. Robert Helpmann??
        Childcatcher

        Re: @ Chairo (was:Thailand is the only Asian country never to be colonised)

        Who colonized Japan?

        Perhaps you should ask the Ainu.

      4. oldcoder

        Re: @ Chairo (was:Thailand is the only Asian country never to be colonised)

        Nope. Unless you count the occupation after WW2. Even then, it wasn't "colonized", as the government was setup to be an independent country.

        1. stephanh
          IT Angle

          Re: @ Chairo (was:Thailand is the only Asian country never to be colonised)

          Asian countries never colonized:

          Turkey & Japan as already mentioned

          Iran/Persia - territories lost to Russia but kept its independence

          China - many "unequal treaties" and territorial concessions (Hong Kong, Macao) but never colonized as a whole

          Nepal - had to cede territory to the British but kept its independency

          Bhutan - similar story as Nepal

          Mongolia - part of Qing China, declared independence after fall of Qing, under USSR influence but nominally independent

      5. Fungus Bob
        Facepalm

        Re: @ jake (Who colonized Japan?)

        Yep, that worked out real well for us, too.

        1. Bleu

          Re: @ jake (Who colonized Japan?)

          I am a little disappointed at Andrew's poor perception of 'never colonised.' Most states of what is now Malaysia were never colonised. Thailand was never colonised, they even gained their now-fractious southernmost provinces in a showdown with Britain.

          India was not, as a whole, colonised. Bhutan was not colonised. Former outer Mongolia was never colonised. Most of China was never colonised.

          Japan was only colonised at the end of that war, but within a few years, politicians of the habitual ruling party were claiming that we had actually won the war, I am not sure of the logic there, mix of very upper-class profiteering and bravado, I suppose.

          I will also answer the earlier commenter, of course Germany and Japan remain colonised, only they are not colonies in the old Greek sense at all, the US occupying forces are still here, but most have very little to do with the population (many crimes in Japan, fewer lately, do not know about Germany).

      6. Pseudonymous Diehard

        Re: @ Chairo (was:Thailand is the only Asian country never to be colonised)

        The US colonised Japan?

        IMPOSSIBRUUUUUUUU!

    2. Bleu

      Re: Thailand is the only Asian country never to be colonised

      You need to study it more, I have a romantic attachment to many of the rebel movements.

      Under the last shogunate, clockwork, western-style medicine, architecture, all became very advanced.

      Meiji reformation was a long process, many betrayals, much opposition. Not a simple thing.

      Many of the ideas of some rebels later became policy, like invading Korea.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Sorry Nadella looks more like Erdogan...

    ... a clueless leader trying to enforce his personal power building upon some groups religious faith.

    Look at how he decided Windows *must* collect as much data as it can about users, and upgrade itself even on machine of users who didn't approved it. It's an authoritarian move.

    After all Nadella culture has its root in a country which still has a lot of troubles to become a modern one where people's right are fully understand and endowed - and where tribalism still plays a big role. It's not enough to study and live abroad.

    Nadella is also what I call a "monodimensional" leader. They have a fixed idea, are unable to change it, and try to force everything into it.

    1. Phil W

      Re: Sorry Nadella looks more like Erdogan...

      "Look at how he decided Windows *must* collect as much data as it can about users, and upgrade itself even on machine of users who didn't approved it."

      If only this were true, you'd have a point.

      Much/all of the data collection that is new to Windows 10 can be turned off, yes it's on by default (even in Enterprise edition which is not so good) but for home users this is probably a good thing. You'll find the average home user (i.e. not a someone like you or I) is far more interested in having an enhanced and personalised experience than they are in their privacy, and for those of us that do care it's not extraordinarily difficult to turn this stuff off.

      Bearing in mind for the most part we're talking about people who would much rather their predictive text learning on their phone/tablet/laptop were all synced up and are not at all bothered if that means their typing patterns get sent off to Microsoft (which is what the input collection feature in Windows 10 is for).

      I have yet to see a case of a Windows 7/8/8.1 user having their machine forceably updated to Windows 10 without their consent. There may well be cases where a user says they haven't clicked anything to do the upgrade but if you believe everything a non-techy user tells you then you've either been working in IT too long or not long enough.

      Sure for those who aren't interested in upgrading having Windows Update remind you about it and/or automatically pre-download the OS installation files is annoying and waste of time and resources. But again this is aimed at streamlining and optimising the experience for the majority of users who want the new shiny thing, especially because it's free.

      In almost all cases, those who are genuinely not interested can in one way or another prevent this upgrade prompt from bothering them.

      What Microsoft are really guilty of if anything is over reaching in their efforts to streamline the experience for the less tech-savvy user, rather than forcing their will on you and giving you no choice.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Sorry Nadella looks more like Erdogan...

        Have a downvote for bringing facts to a Microsoft comment thread, we'll have none of that here.

        1. Phil W

          Re: Sorry Nadella looks more like Erdogan...

          Have an upvote for the best possible reply to my post!

      2. DrXym

        Re: Sorry Nadella looks more like Erdogan...

        "Much/all of the data collection that is new to Windows 10 can be turned off, yes it's on by default (even in Enterprise edition which is not so good) but for home users this is probably a good thing. "

        No, it's not a good thing. It's a terrible thing.

        The power of the default means that lots of people unwittingly opt into data collection which provides little benefit to them, which they don't understand the implications of and didn't explicitly give consent to. Microsoft doesn't allow users to change all the privacy settings during installation (even assuming they spotted less prominent link which lets them change them). Some settings for Edge, Cortana, Media Player and who knows what else have to be changed after installation. Some things can only be changed by logging in online with the Live account and changing them there.

        The correct way for Microsoft to have approached this is to explicitly ask the user in a single clear, coherent, unskippable screen what information they want to give and what benefit if any it provides. They could still have a "recommended" button if they want, but it should not receive any due prominence and there should be a maximize privacy button right next to it.

        Let people explicitly pick. And thereafter they should see ALL the Microsoft controlled privacy settings from a single location. Not just most of them with more smeared around elsewhere.

      3. James O'Shea

        Re: Sorry Nadella looks more like Erdogan...

        "You'll find the average home user (i.e. not a someone like you or I) is far more interested in having an enhanced and personalised experience than they are in their privacy, and for those of us that do care it's not extraordinarily difficult to turn this stuff off."

        Why all the downvotes? This is perfectly true. Not only can you turn the spyware off, Microsoft will tell you how to do it. They'll try to make things difficult, and they may turn things on again so you have to go back and turn them off, but they'll tell you how to turn off the spying. Yes, they will. You just have to look hard enough. You shouldn't have to look hard. You shouldn't have to look at all, as these things should be off by default, but they do tell you how to turn the spyware off.

        But, again, as usual, the knee-jerk anti-MS frothing rules supreme.

        1. nkuk

          Re: Sorry Nadella looks more like Erdogan...

          James, you cannot turn all the spyware off. Even with every single privacy option disabled the OS will still send data to Microsoft domains. It has been independently proven many times by many security Researchers. All you need to prove it is time and a copy of Wireshark. You can't disable all the telemetry, even if you jump through all the privacy hoops scattered throughout the OS.

          Also, some of the settings have no "off" you can only change them from Full to Basic.

      4. oldcoder

        Re: Sorry Nadella looks more like Erdogan...

        nope. "telemetry" is still spying. And a useless flag to "disable" features that doesn't really disable them is just being ....

      5. GrumpenKraut
        Mushroom

        Re: Sorry Nadella looks more like Erdogan...

        > an enhanced and personalised experience

        > aimed at streamlining and optimising the experience

        > efforts to streamline the experience

        Aaaaaarghh!!!1!11!!eleventy!!!

        1. Phil W

          Re: Sorry Nadella looks more like Erdogan...

          @GrumpenKraut

          I would like to state for the record that I've never worked in marketing or PR.....perhaps I should.

      6. Pompous Git Silver badge
        FAIL

        Re: Sorry Nadella looks more like Erdogan...

        automatically pre-download the OS installation files is annoying and waste of time and resources. But again this is aimed at streamlining and optimising the experience for the majority of users who want the new shiny thing, especially because it's free.

        How can using up my bandwidth without my permission that cost me money to purchase be in any way construed as "optimising [my] experience"? Unmitigated bullshit! I was so impressed at the reduction of my bandwidth from 10Gb/s to 256 Mb/s for two weeks thatI converted two machines to Linux Mint. Frankly, when I booted W7 yesterday for the first time in several weeks, I felt not even the slightest twinge of regret for jumping ship.

        Yes, rats are well-known to jump ship... and it's usually for a very good reason.

        1. anonymous boring coward Silver badge

          Re: Sorry Nadella looks more like Erdogan...

          "I was so impressed at the reduction of my bandwidth from 10Gb/s to 256 Mb/s for two weeks"

          Wow! On a good day I have 11 Mbit/s..

    2. RobHib
      Unhappy

      @LDS – My reasons for not upgrading to W10 are too numerous to mention here.

      As you say, as Nadella has decided 'Windows *must* collect as much data as it can about users...' is the principle reason I will not upgrade to Windows 10–even if Microsoft were to give me a 10-pack Windows for free to use on any machine of my choosing. Simply, my privacy is worth more than a few freebie trinkets.

      Almost equally important is that literally there are thousands of user-orientated changes Microsoft should have implemented in Windows since XP but which it has not.

      Most of these omissions are blatantly obvious to savvy techies, they range from ergonomic matters to data management to security issues to even selecting what Windows modules a user wants to use (many I've mentioned in past El Reg posts).

      It's a damn nuisance that MS is forcing me away from its Win APIs after 30 years–yes, I've seen it all. If I'd known at the very beginning that Gates et al were only interested in marketing software rather than also simultaneously advancing the state of the art–i.e.: that Gates was bullshitting when he said 'MS needed the freedom to innovate' then I'd have not come within miles of MS products.

      Frankly, I feel let down and deserted–in fact conned–by the company that I've supported for so many years. Even though I've been in IT/IT management for years, not once throughout my IT career has Microsoft ever asked any of my colleagues or me what we would want from its Windows O/S.

      I used to think this was strange but it's now clear Microsoft doesn't want to know what users actually want–its only concern is maximizing sales/market share (which, as we've seen by not talking with us users, it often gets wrong). To me, such a strategy is truly perverse.

      With the advent of Windows 10, many of us users now consider ourselves to be in a post-Windows era. Hopefully, this ought not be for too long, for as we've seen with the phenomenal growth of Android, very soon something better will fill the void left by Windows.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Sorry Nadella looks more like Erdogan...

      After all Nadella culture has its root in a country which still has a lot of troubles to become a modern one where people's right are fully understand and endowed - and where tribalism still plays a big role.

      You mean the USA, right?

    4. Voland's right hand Silver badge

      Re: Sorry Nadella looks more like Erdogan...

      Close, but no cigar.

      Sat Nad's delusions of grandure have so far failed to deliver 8Bn+ of sanctions levied onto Microsoft. That is roughly the economic effect of Russian tourism withdrawal (4Bn per year or thereabouts) and the stoppage of issuing of transit documents for any Turkish trucks carrying trade to Middle Asia via Russian Territory (4bn+, hurts Turkey more, but is not on the news). This is before gas, etc.

      I know - Sat Nad can still get there, take on the DOJ or the Eu commission perhaps? MSFT has a history in that. It has always managed to pull it off during the Empire days. Trying to do that today will definitely be an Erdoganism.

  3. Timmy B

    Nice Article

    Thought provoking and interesting. I like that it doesn't go over the top in either a pro or anti MS way. I know loads of people on here would like to see them die a rapid and painful death. I hope they stick about for the next 30 years as without them I think something would be lacking; not totally sure what, but something. In fact without them some diversity would be lost and an Apple, Linux, or whatever, OS monopoly wouldn't be all that great. JMO.

    1. This post has been deleted by its author

      1. jaywin

        Re: Nice Article

        > ask some non-tech if he knows Android is Linux

        That's the thing, nobody outside the fanatical tech world cares.If it works, great, if it doesn't then Samsung need to fix it.

        1. Amorous Cowherder

          Re: Nice Article

          "That's the thing, nobody outside the fanatical tech world cares."

          That's the gospel truth. Very few people give a monkey's toss what makes their shiny toys "tick-tock", so long as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter spring up when clicked. It could be built from unicorn shit flown to Mars to be spun into gold, so long as they get to see that picture of Auntie Janice falling over at Fred's wedding that was posted on Facebook!

        2. James O'Shea

          Re: Nice Article

          "That's the thing, nobody outside the fanatical tech world cares.If it works, great, if it doesn't then Samsung need to fix it."

          That's it exactly. Far too many Tuxers care far too deeply about this kind of thing. Most (for flavours of 'most' which exceed 95%) non-techies neither know nor care that Android is a Linux. They just want their bloody phone to bloody work. They tend to be vague on the differences between iPhone and Android. Last night I heard a newstwit on a national news network make a statement which implied that her low even for a newstwit IQ let her 'think', if that's what she does, that all smartphones are iPhones. Really. She was holding a bloody LG in her hand... (No doubt one of the more rabid Tuxers out there who happened to see that newstwit in action can supply which model LG it was, I don't actually give a damn...)

    2. John 104

      Re: Nice Article

      I hope they stick around too. Otherwise my paycheck will be lacking. Wocka-wocka!

  4. jake Silver badge

    I, me, personally ...

    ... hoped that Win2K was the turning point into greatness.

    I was so, so, wrong. Alas.

    Dave Cutler, why on Earth did you go all corporate & commercial?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: I, me, personally ...

      Indeed, Windows 2000 was the last release before things really started to go down hill.

      It was also the last release of Windows NT whose installer didn't try to sell to you how good it was and how exciting your computer was going to be!

      (Seriously Microsoft, who actually looks at those?)

      1. Peter Simpson 1
        WTF?

        Re: I, me, personally ...

        I'm seriously interested in why Microsoft hasn't built the definitive desktop OS.

        They've had years of "experience" with less-than ideal software. Plenty of money. Lots of bright people, including some who have built great OS designs in the past. And they're still at the bottom of the list -- which is often a good place to be, because you have examples of what people want, above you, and no place to go but up. You'd think the company would be tired of being the joke of the OS industry -- "Windows, the default OS...just good enough to do the job...most of the time" It would be easy to set up a "skunk works" project to design a better Windows from scratch.

        So, why isn't Windows now the be-all and end-all of OSes? The technical ability is present, the money and staff are available...management *must* be willing...

        1. itzman
          Paris Hilton

          Re: I, me, personally ...

          why isn't Windows now the be-all and end-all of OSes?

          Because above all, Windows was designed to sell, over and over.

          Actually working was merely coincidence.

          It only works/worked just well enough so that the pain of installing OSX or Linux was marginally greater than Windows.

          It is. in the end, all chrome and tail fins. Underneath its a solid axle, cart springs and an agricultural V8.

          And a dashboard that looks pretty, but is ergonomically useless

        2. Michael Wojcik Silver badge

          Re: I, me, personally ...

          So, why isn't Windows now the be-all and end-all of OSes?

          Oh, I can think of any number of reasons:

          An enormous and in many cases intractable codebase.

          Backward compatibility.

          Teams defending their fiefdoms.

          Lack of consensus on user experience.

          But most importantly, there never will be a "be-all ... of OSes" because no OS will satisfy all use cases and users. Look at the fighting over systemd: even in the small world of people who use Linux and know enough to care, there's a fundamental, fierce disagreement over the architecture of userland services. No OS will bridge that gap, much less the one between Linux fans and Windows users (who range from sysadmins running server farms to power developers to folks who aren't clear on the difference between "web browser" and "Internet"). And then you're also going to please the zOS sysprogs who are quite happy with their JCL and TSO and SDSF, eh? And you're going to replace embedded OSes? And you'll provide hard real-time support? And the reliability guarantees required by safety-critical systems? And so on - I think the point is obvious.

          Not that Microsoft haven't tried. XP and Win2K were one attempt: Let's rewrite the consumer OS to use the server OS kernel, and try to unite the UIs. And it was a good move, but it couldn't be all things to all people.

          Then the unfairly-maligned Vista, which again fixed a wide range of fundamental Windows problems, tried to alleviate others, and brought a lot of new features that were better-conceived than their older equivalents into the mix.

          Win8 was an attempt, but one so wildly misguided that it was a step backward, on the whole.

          Even this sort of incremental progress is a huge effort that often (Vista, Win8) backfires. Drop everything to rewrite the OS entirely? When has that plan ever gone well. (Hint: It did not go well for IBM with Future Systems - though IBM were able to recoup some of that investment thanks to S/38 and OS/400.)

  5. Ol'Peculier

    SPV

    I had one of those phones, Orange SPV. Very good it was too IIRC, although playing Doom on it was decidedly difficult. Only problem was I went to America shortly after getting it and forgot the charger.

    Gave up going into the likes of Target, Radio Shack etc. to find one pretty quickly, realising it was going to have to survive on one charge. Didn't half impress the American sales people I showed it to though.

    1. WolfFan Silver badge

      Re: SPV

      You had an Orange Spectrum Pursuit Vehicle? Damn. I thought that they were all a kind of silvery blue. And I always wanted to drive one, too.

      (For the culturally deprived, and possibly depraved.... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spectrum_Pursuit_Vehicle)

  6. AMBxx Silver badge
    Windows

    Two new Lumia phones available in a few days will not only run "desktop" or "legacy" Windows

    You sure? The 950 and 950XL don't run 'proper' Windows 10, so they only run 'Modern' apps.

    Still great phones though.

    Unless you've something else in mind?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      "the experience can only get better"

      ... unless they abandon the platform entirely, like Windows RT.

      And I guess you could have said "the experience can only get better" about Windows 7 too, until Windows 8 came along.

    2. Bruce Ordway

      Re: Two new Lumia phones available in a few days will not only run "desktop" or "legacy" Windows

      >> run 'proper' Windows 10

      For my personal life, I can use pretty much anything that has a web browser, and some video capability. I do have some preferences but really... I don't care THAT much about what is running underneath..

      But for work...

      This is where I feel a little betrayed by Microsoft these days.

      For now I'm hanging on to my conventional PC, Windows 7.

      (And even staying away from Office 365 when possible).

      Regardless of what finally comes out of this revolution.

      I'm pretty sure I'm still going to need a keyboard and at least three monitors to be productive.

  7. fung0

    The strategy of stupid

    Microsoft has repeatedly demonstrated the right way to move into the future: make the big paradigm shifts optional, and allow users to adopt them at their own pace.

    They did it with the shift from command-line DOS to GUI Windows. The latter ran on top of the former (quite nicely) for a decade or more, allowing users to use both modes as they needed. Even when the DOS underpinning was removed, the DOS box maintained backward compatibility elegantly and conveniently.

    They did it again with the shift from the Win 9x codebase to the far more sophisticated NT codebase. The two versions of Windows coexisted happily for nearly a decade. (We've recently discovered that Windows 3.x is still doing its job out in the field, in some pretty major applications. That kind of longevity is a good thing, except maybe to corporate bean-counters.)

    But Ballmer and Nadella forgot those brilliant examples. They decided, quite wrongly, that the way to embrace mobile was to mutate the core OS and bludgeon users into coming along. Even Apple wasn't that arrogant. This strategy will fail, not because users hate it (which they do), but because it's not technically feasible. It's one of those software feats that looks workable, but in practice breaks down for a million small reasons.

    For example, Microsoft may be able to squeeze Windows 10 onto mobile devices, but those devices will never be as mobile as those running a dedicated mobile OS. It's like Achilles and the Tortoise: by the time the Surface is as thin as an iPad, the iPad will be as thin as a sheet of paper. An awkward hybrid, Windows 10.x is guaranteed to always be second-best. Not to mention buggy, unusable and un-maintainable. (Linux is already vastly easier to install and service, and the gap is widening, not shrinking.)

    Microsoft has become IBM. It seemed inconceivable in the early 1990s that there could ever be a microcomputer world without IBM as a significant force in it. But all it took was a few bad strategic choices - choices that were probably not as dumb as those Microsoft is making today.

    1. a_yank_lurker

      Re: The strategy of stupid

      @fung0 - Slurp's real stupidity is to move Windows away from a scheduled release model to rolling release model. Even the best rolling release distros are known to be fussier to maintain and will require more user expertise when the inevitable flakiness occurs. It is mostly minor stuff but it is stuff well beyond the skills of most users to cope with. When W10 hits mostly average users the howling will really begin. There will be many very frustrated, angry users and their informal IT department will not be very pleased either. Given most users do not do much more than email, shopping, surfing, Facebook, and the like they do not need a specific OS. They a stable OS with a well behaved browser with a few goodies to view photos, watch videos, and listen to music. All stuff OSX and Linux distros do very nicely.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: The strategy of stupid

      " Windows 10.x is guaranteed to always be second-best. Not to mention buggy, unusable and un-maintainable. (Linux is already vastly easier to install and service, and the gap is widening, not shrinking.)"

      I love these unsubstantiated claims stated as though they are fact. Keep them coming - they amuse me :-). The great thing about Linux (on the desktop) is that people can make all sorts or grandiose claims of technical superiority, but because almost no-one uses it (apart from you hobbyists), you never get called on your own bullshit. How is City of Munich going with their migration back to Windows/Office?

      1. Richard Plinston

        Re: The strategy of stupid

        > How is City of Munich going with their migration back to Windows/Office?

        It never started.

      2. a_yank_lurker

        Re: The strategy of stupid

        @AC - Having installed many versions of Windows and Linux, I detest installing Winbloat. Installing the base Winbloat is fairly easy but it is all the extra stuff one must do to have a usable system that is time consuming. Depending on what has to be done, it is an easy afternoon job (4 -6 hrs). With most Linux distros, the install of a usable system is about 30 minutes with maybe an 15 - 30 minutes of customizing to do. One is a weekend project and the other is doable in an evening.

      3. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: The strategy of stupid

        I seem to remember that the entire Google development dept (or was it the entire company? not sure) uses some Linux version for their PCs.

        I'm sure there are other companies out there too that have realised the benefit of paying nothing for OS licences.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    What will Windows look like in the future?

    Perhaps like this.

    Okay okay, I jest, that's of course a Gimped screenshot of 1.01 with some digits switched around, but compare this screenshot of Windows 2012 R2 and this screenshot of Windows NT 3.1 and tell me how they're all that different.

    1. AJ MacLeod

      Re: What will Windows look like in the future?

      " tell me how they're all that different."

      Well the second one allows much more flexibility in how you group and arrange things...

    2. WolfFan Silver badge

      Re: What will Windows look like in the future?

      compare this screenshot of Windows 2012 R2 and this screenshot of Windows NT 3.1 and tell me how they're all that different.

      They removed the #1 reason for having Windows from the 'new' one: no Freecell! Or Solitaire! Or, dare I say it, Minesweeper! Such evil must be punished! I proclaim Holy War upon Redmond! Deus Vult!

  9. TheOtherHobbes

    >The world of personal computing hasn't really changed radically since 1985

    Huh? What?

    I suppose if you ignore the Internet and mobile computing, then yes - a late BBC Model B really is totally indistinguishable from an iPad.

  10. HmmmYes

    Hammer that code

    I liked W2K. I thought, for the time, it was the holy grail of a workstation with a GUI. Fantastically well done, nice + clean UI. But that was 15 years ago.

    MS problem is this belief in 'Windows everywhere' FFS Windows does not belong on a phone. So they write a phone UI, which becomes UI, so they hammer that on the desktop.

    FFS why can't they seprate the modules out and have some form of WIndows-proxy every where instead of trying to port the GUI and whole kitchen sink?

    1. cambsukguy

      Re: Hammer that code

      My W10 machine looks nothing like my WinPhone - most of the time.

      Press Start and one starts to see the resemblance, but I don't press Start much, I have a taskbar with most of what I want on it.

      The most striking similarity is of course the Universal apps that control settings etc.

      These allow most users, most of the time to control/see most things they need to see.

      The biggest issue is that they also need a 'Show Advanced Options'. These invariably start up a 'real' desktop app taken from W7 that does the full job.

      However, this isn't a requirement of the system, it is a consequence of a truly massive amount of software already written in W32/MFC blah that hasn't been converted. This is sensible since it is less useful than (say) converting Word or writing a universal Mail app/program.

      It is entirely possible that they will convert *all* software to run as universal apps which will remove some of the jarring aspects of the UI.

      Now, as to whether you hate or really hate the W10 universal apps that is up to you. My main machine has a touch screen now so it is useful to tap away at them without needing a stylus etc. They are actually quite clever, menu drop downs spread out at a touch (ooer) allowing fat fingers to work better.

      And, of course, the big benefit, anything converted gets to make the phone version also converted. Even if MS only do the work and I get the more functional Mail for instance (better editing features and speech input etc.).

      The fact that they do not have to develop two UIs should mean that the phone gets any new feature or fix more promptly.

      It is early days but I am hopeful and will probably get a Lumia 950, although that would be easier if my 1020 would break or something.

      1. fung0

        Re: Hammer that code

        "The fact that they do not have to develop two UIs should mean that the phone gets any new feature or fix more promptly."

        If Microsoft is only going to develop one UI, it should be the Windows UI, not some hastily-concocted tablet UI. The Windows UI has a 30-year legacy to support. Switching one or two billion users just to make a few phone users happy is insanity.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Hammer that code

          Yeah, they tried the Windows UI on a hand-held device. Do you not remember those god awful Windows CE things from last century?

        2. ADRM

          Re: Hammer that code

          10,000 up votes to you sir. This is exactly what I have been saying. They are throwing us desktop users under the bus for the trendy phone / tablet user. Why can we not have a Windows 7 SP2 with all the improvements to the core software and feature improvements without the data slurping, no tiles and basically the same UI as Windows 7 has now? Aero and the default 2000 desktop. As an insider I asked for it numerous times and was ignored. Maybe if the uptake of 10 is as "good" as 8 and 8.1 we'll see some heads roll and a reversal of directions that will save the company. For me and my 13 computers in our home Linux Mint will be the next Windows OS after Windows 7 End of Live. Ex Technet subscriber which they closed along with Map Point and AutoMap and AutoRoute in Europe. It is amazing what M$ have stopped producing lately.

  11. Ashton Black

    @fung0

    That's an interesting take on it fung0, have an up. I agree in the main. I will disagree with the comparison between the Surface and the iPad, however. The surface (mine is a pro 3), is more of a decent laptop replacement that doubles as a content consumption device. The better comparison would be with the MacBook Air, where it compares quite favorably.

    1. fung0

      Re: @fung0

      The comparison to the iPad is not mine, it's Microsoft's. And a lot of pundits are going with it. Even 'tablet' stats are now starting to include Windows 'convertibles.' (Quite wrongly, I would contend.)

      I do agree that the Surface is a good laptop.

      1. Richard Plinston

        Re: @fung0

        > I do agree that the Surface is a good laptop.

        I disagree that it is a good _lap_top. It may be fine when used on a flat surface, such as a desk.

        For putting on a lap: the weight distribution is wrong, the length between front of keyboard and back of stand is too great, the screen size is too small for when it is positioned at the knees, the screen angle has inadequate adjustment, the keyboard/screen joint is too flexible, the edge of the stand digs into the flesh if shorts are worn, it is too unstable to use for touch, ...

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "Atatürk took the defeated, 700-year-old Ottoman Empire and proceeded to abolish the Caliphate and create the modern, secular Turkey we know today. "

    Not the best example to choose. Turkey is rapidly sliding back into a religious dictatorship. Many in the population are now persecuted for daring to differ from the president's view of how to live their personal lives.

    1. Nigel 11

      Not the best example to choose. Turkey is rapidly sliding back into a religious dictatorship. Many in the population are now persecuted for daring to differ from the president's view of how to live their personal lives.

      Seems a near-perfect analogy to me. Microsoft, having offered users a plurality of versions of windows and the option to migrate at their own pace, is now intent on forcing everyone into the Windows 10 orthodoxy and is persecuting (discontinuing support for) anything else. It's much the same story with the appification of Office.

    2. John Sanders
      Facepalm

      This is erdogan on women:

      Here is the sweetened (as always) BBC report:

      http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-30183711

      Here is what the bbc does not mention:

      http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/turkey-sumeyye-erdogan-says-men-inheriting-more-women-normal-fair-righteous-1494386

      http://theweek.com/speedreads/441173/turkish-president-erdogan-women-arent-equal-men

      1. Pompous Git Silver badge

        Re: This is erdogan on women:

        Wowsers! So different to the Turkey my friend who was in the diplomatic corps was describing 30 years ago.

    3. Desidero

      Yeah, awful Atatürk couldn't keep things under control 80 years after his death. Maybe time to depose him?

  13. DropBear
    Facepalm

    "...and the experience can only get better"

    Really now? Let me get this straight - this is "the interface formerly known as Metro" Microsoft we're talking about, yes? For a moment I thought I must be in some parallel reality...

  14. Arctic fox
    Windows

    Very interesting article.

    "Bill Gates hardly helped. His vision of mobile computing was the Tablet PC, remember. His idea of mobility was all the inconvenience of desktop Windows, with none of the convenience."

    I would not in any way dispute that Windows then was not remotely ready for any kind of "mobile world" but I think that I would also add that neither was the hardware of the period. (Those horrible resistive screens anyone? Battery life you could count in minutes? and so on and so forth). I feel that the progress that has been made on the hardware front over the last decade has been extraordinary and that is also an important part of the picture. Whether you are talking about a Galaxy Edge, an MBA or a Surface Pro, these devices would have been impossible to produce until relatively recent years never mind what OS you might install and whether or not it was fit for the purpose.

    1. Richard Plinston

      Re: Very interesting article.

      > these devices would have been impossible to produce until relatively recent years never mind what OS you might install and whether or not it was fit for the purpose.

      The Nokia/Maemo tablets were available to buy 10 years ago this month. I still use my N800 occasionally.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Very interesting article.

        The game changer was the introduction of multitouch technology (and capacitive as well) - which happened ten years ago. It made devices without a keyboard/mouse truly usable in an intuitive way.

        Then some OS could have taken advantage earlier of it than others - but without it most devices were not much user friendly.

    2. fung0

      Re: Very interesting article.

      The obvious solution for Microsoft would have been to evolve Windows CE/Windows Mobile, and adding a touch-friendly UI. That OS already had huge support - the library of third-party software was enormous, and my old iPAQ can still do things my Android devices can't. (I also don't recall it ever crashing... or spying on me.)

      It took about 10 years of persistence to make Windows a success on the desktop; if Microsoft had stuck with WinCE that long, the mobile world today probably wouldn't belong to Apple and Google.

      1. Richard Plinston

        Re: Very interesting article.

        > The obvious solution for Microsoft would have been to evolve Windows CE/Windows Mobile, and adding a touch-friendly UI.

        Windows Phone 7 was CE based with a touch friendly UI. Look how well that worked.

        CE was the MS-DOS of the ARM world. It could not support more than a single core (which is why MS asked such inane questions as "why would you need dual core?"**. It had no multitasking capability (hence 'tombstoning'), it had something similar to MS-DOS TSRs.

        ** Dual, Quad and Octocore is not so much about computing power as battery saving - cores can be turned off, the more you have the less battery draining standby is. This is why MS 950XLs have Octocore.

  15. graeme leggett Silver badge

    qualified comparison

    It's illegal to be critical of Ataturk or Thai monarchs in those countries I believe.

    Fortunately such obstacles to genuine criticism of IT companies are absent here.

  16. John Sanders
    Holmes

    Half truths

    ""Microsoft could demonstrate a functional version of Windows that had the requirement of desktop operating systems from over a decade before: around a hundred files took up 25MB of disk space. The benefits weren't really felt until Windows 8 in 2012""

    Yes 25Mb is the kernel plus the minimum operating system components... no programs, no convenience libraries at all, and no drivers. As an academic exercise is quite nice, on a practical sense, it does not matter much, that 25 Mb version of Windows will not be able to run Office for example, and I doubt it could even run something as taken for granted as notepad or the registry editor.

    As stated before, no one uses windows because people like windows, people use windows because they have software to do stuff with, and that software only runs in windows.

    The purpose of an operating system is to run 3rd party software on it, windows is not the beginning or the end of operating systems, just the more popular commercial platform to run 3rd party software on personal computers. MS as opposed to the rest of the world (who has short attention span syndrome) will never forget that, that's why they are so crafty mean.

    The claim that the core of windows now runs on little resources may be of some significance the day a modern windows desktop doesn't require 1.2Gb of ram just to present a desktop and have some fluidity while clicking on the start button (whatever its shape of fashion type of the month) to run the 3rd party app that I need.

    1. anonymous boring coward Silver badge

      Re: Half truths

      I used to run Unix and X-windows on a 4MB 386 PC, where I only could use 3MB of the RAM.

      I compiled programs on it, and surfed a bit with Netscape.

    2. fung0

      Re: Half truths

      "...windows is not the beginning or the end of operating systems, just the more popular commercial platform to run 3rd party software on personal computers."

      You hit the nail on the head. Microsoft disparagingly refers to "legacy support," forgetting that this (Win32) legacy is the only thing that makes Windows dominant. On a purely technical basis, both Linux and Mac OS are at least as good.

  17. Mark 85

    Telemetry and storage of the data...

    It's become pretty much of axiom that it's "not if you get hacked but when". So all these PC's, tablets, etc. with telemetry that no one really knows what it is be sent 'home' is set by default to "on". This data has to be stored somewhere.

    Which raises the question... what happens when MS gets attacked and pwned like a SONY or others? Methinks there's going to be any MS user is then even more vulnerable without even knowing it.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Telemetry and storage of the data...

      >> telemetry that no one really knows what it is

      Sure we do - its published in plain view exactly what they collect. You should investigate yourself rather than being "educated" by the rabid anti-MS horde that jump all over every post here...

    2. Someone Else Silver badge
      Coat

      @Mark 85 -- Re: Telemetry and storage of the data...

      Which raises the question... what happens when MS gets attacked and pwned like a SONY or others?

      Methinks many lawyers will get very rich....

  18. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I'll bet money...

    ...that Microsucks is just a bootnote in less than 10 years.

    1. azaks

      Re: I'll bet money...

      Wow. That's a bold prediction. Cant say we blame you for not wanting to put your name next to that one... ;-)

      1. stephanh

        Re: I'll bet money...

        If Microsoft stopped all its new product development today it could still be wildly profitable for at least 20 years by doing licensing and support for its currently installed user base.

        Actually, this might be a better strategy than the one they are following now...

      2. Captain DaFt

        Re: I'll bet money...

        "Wow. That's a bold prediction. Cant say we blame you for not wanting to put your name next to that one."

        Indeed. But I'll put my handle next to the prediction that in 20 years time, They'll be as irrelevant to personal computing as IBM is today.

  19. Charles Manning

    It isn't last 30/next 30. It's 15/15/15.

    If you look back over the last 30 years, that has really been split into two 15 year periods: 1985-2000, then 2000-2015.

    Business wise is most apparent by choosing your favourite stock viewer to view MSFT and zooming out to "max".

    So that allows us to make predictions based on 15 year blocks:

    1985-2000: The Bill Gates years. Growth.

    2000-2015: Ballmer years. Stalled.

    2015-2030: Nadella years. Decline

    1. azaks

      Re: It isn't last 30/next 30. It's 15/15/15.

      great analysis, except that it is wrong...

      MSFT stock price peaked at $59.96 on Dec 12, 1999.

      Took a hammering with the dot com burst and never recovered - languishing in the mid-high 20's for a decade (the forgettable "Balmer years"). Has grown steadily for the last 3 years to finish at $54 with most analysts rating the stock a "buy". To be 10% down from where they were in 2000 (when they had near-monopolies and Apple and Android were nowhere to be seen) is hardly evidence of your "decline". Wishful thinking perhaps?

      I am glad that there are forums like El Reg where people sympathize with your views and make you feel confident about your predictions. Your employers and population at large (sadly) don't share them...

      1. busycoder99
        Windows

        Re: It isn't last 30/next 30. It's 15/15/15.

        @azaks

        Except the stock price isn't the sole indicator of a company's health or future potential. When considering brand recognition, market share and developer buy-in, Charles is pretty much spot on.

        1. a_yank_lurker

          Re: It isn't last 30/next 30. It's 15/15/15.

          @busycoder99 - My take on Slurp's future is more like IBM or possibly Digital. Both were extremely dominant in the 80's into the early 90's and lost their mojo very quickly. IBM is shell of what it used to be and now just another player in the IT market. Digital floundered so badly they were bought by Compaq now part of HP. Both looked invincible back in the day and now one is a rather pedestrian large company and the other does not exist. Both made critical blunders about the future of the market and failed to adjust.

          If Slurp's management has a enough grey matter between them they should probably concentrate on the enterprise market and yield the consumer and small business market to others. They should provide versions of all their applications for Mac, ChromeOS, Linux, etc. not just for Winbloat.

          1. azaks

            Re: It isn't last 30/next 30. It's 15/15/15.

            a_yank_lurker

            A fine prediction. Backed up by what? - your declaration that win10 is shit and therefore viewed by everyone else as shit? And then ignoring the fact that they have multiple billion dollar businesses and that the demise of windows would finish them off? And your continued droning of copied terms like "slurp" do far more damage to your own credibility than they do to microsofts

        2. azaks

          Re: It isn't last 30/next 30. It's 15/15/15.

          busycoder99

          Help me out with this because I'm a bit confused. He based his stellar assessment on the stock price, but got it a tad wrong - looking at that indicator the company is growing strongly - not in decline. So you're kind of agreeing with him, but then your not? Show us your stats that show that the analysts have it all wrong and the company is in decline

      2. Mark 85

        @azaks -- Re: It isn't last 30/next 30. It's 15/15/15.

        with most analysts rating the stock a "buy".

        I'd be very cautious about listening to analysts. The last time I checked and admittedly it's been about 3 or 4 years, ENRON was listed as "buy".

        1. azaks

          Re: @azaks -- It isn't last 30/next 30. It's 15/15/15.

          >> I'd be very cautious about listening to analysts. The last time I checked and admittedly it's been about 3 or 4 years, ENRON was listed as "buy".

          You cant hold the analysts responsible for the fact that Enron lied through its teeth about its financial position and there were no checks in place to catch them out. I'm not entirely sure how this is related to the fact that MS are perceived to be in a strong position, despite all of the nonsense and wishful thinking spouted by the MS-haters on this forum...

    2. a_yank_lurker

      Re: It isn't last 30/next 30. It's 15/15/15.

      @Charles Manning - Two issues have stalled Windows growth. First they misread the mobile market and continue to do so. Second the basic PC market has matured to the point that most replace the OS when they replace hardware. Misunderstanding the mobile market is about a scaled up cellphone not a scaled down laptop explains how many botched the market. Most smartphone users use apps as conveniences to basic phone functions - phone calls and texts. The PC market is a mature market which means most sales any given year are replacement for worn out kit. As the kit lasts longer the replacement cycles stretch out.. Also some have found replacing Winbloat on older kit with lighter Linux distro has rejuvenated aging hardware and made usable again.

      1. fung0

        Re: It isn't last 30/next 30. It's 15/15/15.

        "... the basic PC market has matured to the point that most replace the OS when they replace hardware...

        @a_yank_lurker - Microsoft certainly believes what you're saying, but it's a self-fulfilling view. People don't upgrade because they can't afford disruption, not because they don't want more functionality. Everyone I know would happily pay Microsoft $100 or more per year, to get nice, non-disruptive feature updates to Windows 7. (Everything worthwhile in Windows 10 could have easily been delivered that way.) Multiply that by over a billion users, and it's a pretty good business model. Release a 'lite' upgrade for Windows XP, and you can add hundreds of millions more.

        Take all that revenue and invest it in newer growth markets, by all means - but don't f**k with the goose that lays platinum eggs. That was the key mistake that IBM made - the company thought it was smarter than the market. It forgot that the PC was strong not by virtue of technical superiority, by solely based on market momentum. Interrupt that momentum at your peril.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: It isn't last 30/next 30. It's 15/15/15.

      Well, if he keeps going the way he's going, it will be decline. That's a very simplistic way of viewing things however, since Satya hasn't been in the job all that long.

      He's got 15 years of ill-will to undo with Ballmer's effort. Lots of inertia in big companies, they do not turn around in an instant.

  20. Anonymous C0ward

    Forcing a mobile interface on the desktop

    is as bad as forcing a desktop interface on mobile.

    1. Captain DaFt

      Re: Forcing a mobile interface on the desktop

      I'd say it's as stupid as putting an electric kettle on a hob to brew tea.

  21. busycoder99
    Childcatcher

    I just finished reading a book on HTML5, CCS3 and ES 6. Boy have we come a long way from the dark ages of IE 6. Some of the new APIs like WebRTC (https://www.webrtc-experiment.com/), Web Audio (http://webaudioplayground.appspot.com/), Canvas(http://paperjs.org/showcase/) and WebGL (http://threejs.org/) look poised to make the web the dominant platform in the coming years, while thick clients get pushed into irrelevancy.

    Open, decentralized, and truly, write once, run anywhere. No wonder Microsoft is giving Windows 10 away, Google is pushing Chromebooks and Firefox is betting the farm on FirefoxOS.

    Yet somehow I couldn't help but feel HTML5 could have been standardized by now, and we would probably be several versions along, hadn't it been for Microsoft's crippling of the web through their default browser to extend their chokehold on the desktop market for a few more years.

    The future looks bright, and Windows is nowhere in sight. Good bye and good riddance, you won't be missed.

  22. Bleu

    Modern, secular Turkey?

    I think Andrew speaks of emigre communities or is three or four elections out of date.

    Do agree that MS is having a good go at an old model, as said before, kudos to them for having a serious go at context and content handover. Pour moi, I prefer fragmentation of devices, having to use physical media, reformat and all, control, but MS will really be on a winner if they can make the cross-device model work smoothly.

  23. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Home users are the seed...

    Well, in corporate settings the businesses do NOT want to pay for training. When home users got Windows and Office we quit doing ANY training.

    What do users consume at home? Photos, video, surf the net, facebook, twitter and other social web scale apps. They do NOT run ANY windows software win32/64/Metro.

    So the home market is dead for Microsoft and home users are buying Android phones and tablets as well as iPhones and iPads.

    So now all the corporate businesses do not have to train users on how to use Android phones and iPads, we can buy them and the users are IMMEDIATELY productive with the web apps or native apps on those devices.

    The mobile(tablets and phones) war is over, Microsoft has lost as 98% of the market is Android and IOS.

    I can tell you that the next 3 years Microsoft will die and cling to the enterprise licenses for the critical life support that a dying business needs to keep floating. Example Novell Netware, Mainframe and Minicomputer hardware and apps used in life support, missile control systems and nuclear reactors.

    Microsoft makes 100% garbage. The ONLY thin I find useful on the Windows platform in the enterprise is Windows Servers and Clients as I can dictate settings via group policy with ease and in a very organized manner. Mobile device managers allow us to do something very similar to a GPO at the same price of $100 per year on the high end.

    Linux is 1 step away from squishing Microsoft into irrelevance. If Google, Apple, VMware or Oracle decided to do a project like WINE where win32 apps could run without windows installed we would be rid of using windows as a launcher of our win32 apps. Then we would see Linux and Apple duke it out for the next Business desktop.

    Internet explorer and web sites that required it have always been hated by us IT technicians. We warned you software companies, developers and CIO's that this would end up costing more money and creating more problems. Now you get to feel what it is like to play with fire...

  24. FrMo

    2004 - Microsoft's Turning Point?

    In my experience, for all the achievements of Windows 10, Microsoft and Windows' turning point came around 2004. Mistakes it made then will be nigh on impossible fully to rectify. By early 2004 Redmond had squashed all resistance in desktop OS's, Office suites and, crucially, browsers. The desktop was still dominant - the iPhone was still 3 years away.

    At that point, Firefox emerged from the ashes of Netscape. Microsoft could have strangled it at birth but, perhaps because of the transition from Gates to Balmer, Microsoft had its eye off the ball. Just about the only advantage Firefox had over IE6, the then latest version of IE, was that it had tabbed broswing and IE6 didn't. Apart from that, Firefox rendered many websites less well than IE, and was not available to many corporate users. If Microsoft had quickly put tabbed browsing into IE, Firefox might never have got off the ground, and Microsoft could have continued with its work of de-standardising the Internet by deliberately putting quirks into IE which websites would have been forced to accommodate because of IE's 91% market share (according to Net Applications). Over the next few years, the entire Internet might have passed into Microsoft's de-facto control. Websites would have been further optimised for IE, and Mircosoft would have had an advantage in designing server software to cope with the secret quirks put into IE. Apache, Linux and Java might all have been stunted.

    Another big trick missed by Microsoft around this time was failure to put Office onto mobiles. If Microsoft had done that in 2004-7, it would have had a fair shot at eating Blackberry's lunch (corporate email would just have used Outlook for mobile), and Microsoft would have had an entrenched position to defend against the iPhone.

    Instead, Microsoft waited nearly three years before introducing tabbed browsing with IE7, and chopped and changed its mobile OS while failing to get Office properly onto it. Firefox, then Chrome flourished, and the mobile stage was clear for Apple to take it by storm with the iPhone. From there, Microsoft lost its overwhelming dominance and it is now entirely possible now to build an organisation's IT infrastructure without any use of Microsoft products at all.

    Whatever the future holds, it is unlikely to see a return to Microsoft's monopoly of most of the major areas of basic software any more than it is to see a return to dominance by IBM. That may be bad for Microsoft, but being shot of Microsoft's monopolies is surely good for the wider world of IT.

    1. Richard Plinston

      Re: 2004 - Microsoft's Turning Point?

      > Microsoft could have strangled it at birth

      Microsoft had strangled Netscape. They did it by giving IE away** (which also killed off Spyglass*). MS also killed off many other partner/competitors by buying them and dumping the product or using vapourware to stall the market.

      Firefox and other open source and GPL (or similar) licenced software has survived simply because it has evolved so that it _can't_ be killed by Microsoft. They could buy the company or otherwise kill it but the software can be forked and will survive. In fact the whole FOSS industry can be seen as 'natural selection' with Microsoft as the predator.

      Apple only survived because Microsoft's claws were clipped by an anti-trust suit at the time it was vulnerable (now MS couldn't afford it), Google has survived because MS didn't notice it until too late.

      * Spyglass wrote IE and would be paid by a few dollars for every copy _sold_. Microsoft claimed it never sold any copies even though it became part of Windows.

      ** Not only making it available for download but _forcing_ installs of it with Windows 98 (and later). After installing 98 the first boot would ask if you wanted to install IE - and the Cancel button was greyed out. There was no escape, rebooting simply asked again.

  25. anonymous boring coward Silver badge

    First, I admit to only reading three partial sentences from the article.

    Windows won't exist in 30 years time.

    There won't be any "PC"s either.

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