What's next for Windows 10?
Ads, ads ads ads and some more ads. Ads on your login screen, Ads on your logout screen. Ads on your ads. Then more ads. Ads on your start menu. Ads in every help screen. Ads on your home page. Then more ads.
After 12 months of “free” upgrades, it's now business for usual for Microsoft and the hard work begins on trying to shift paid-for Window 10. Microsoft closed the door on free upgrades from Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 to Windows 10 on July 29. The Anniversary Update of Windows 10 arrived on August 2. From now on, if you want to …
So basically being more like Google?
No. Google pushes ads at you when you ask it a question, it by and large leaves you alone the rest of the time. MS controls your desktop and so can interrupt you whenever it feels that it won't cause you to hit the screen. You can't get away from it.
OK: watch something long (& popular) on youtube and you will be occasionally interrupted with an ad for something.
"No. Google pushes ads at you when you ask it a question, it by and large leaves you alone the rest of the time. MS controls your desktop and so can interrupt you whenever it feels that it won't cause you to hit the screen. "
1. You're ignoring Chrome, and
2. You're running an Ad Blocker on Youtube so you don't see the constant inundation of advertising.
3. AdWords -- that is Google. Google does advertising on maybe 80% of web pages served up.
Agree, there is a big difference between me searching for suits because I want to buy a suit and Google throwing a few relevant suit ads on top, which is actually helpful or at least not bothersome... and me searching for a file on my OS and Windows 10/Bing asking me if I want to search for something in my file title. That is plenty annoying... not least of which because they are using Bing and not Google. I don't want to search the internet and, if I did, I certainly wouldn't want to do it with Bing.... on the OS that I PAID to use. It is a straight double dip from MSFT. Aside from the inferior tech, that is the annoying part. Yep, we'll be charging for licenses. Yep, we'll also be using this as an ad engine. Yep, our tech, especially search, will be inferior.
Agree... and Google doesn't charge you for software. It is a pretty sweet deal really. Would you rather pay a $120 for this, awesome, software, or would you rather have us show you, generally relevant, ads when you search for stuff? Most will take the ads. If you don't dig it, you can pay them for Google Apps, etc and then there are no ads. They play it pretty straight and don't try to double dip. Give Google some credit for coming up with a business model which is a universal win.
Me neither. Not sure if most of the users commenting here even use Windows 10. I think it's a very good OS, my personal favorite of the big 3 and much better than Windows 8 was.
I've been using it since day 1, and ran the previews too.
There are Ad's, but they're never obtrusive and can be turned off.
-The lock screen can show ads over the login picture, but they're text based, and are only activated with the Spotlight feature that shows a different bing image each day.
-The start menu will suggest apps to install underneath the Most Used section - it'll only show 1 app and doesn't really get in the way.
-Edge's new start page will show occasional ads advertising MS products - just change your home page to something else..
-Cortana uses Bing - until you change your default search engine to Google
No ad's in any apps, except News/Money/Health - where ad's are expected due to the news sources.
People love to beat on MSFT, they always have.
>So basically being more like Google?
Except that Google isn't my OS and only gives me ads when I visit their site. More to the point, Google don't own most of my (Windows) applications so that they can insert adverts.
Time to work on a new FLOSS application to provide managed presence information.
Except that Google gives me ads when I visit 80% of web sites. Google's ad package is used so widely that its search data about me is used when I read blog posts and newspapers. Microsoft aspire to have the same sort of data about me, perhaps even more.
BTW, I use a Flash manager but never an ad blocker. I'm one of the old fashioned types who thinks that advertising is a necessary cost of reading worthwhile content. Publishing firms who include "feature articles" from clickbait operations need to understand that they are seriously devaluing their businesses.
Has anyone written a personal data junk generator? Something that runs invisible-to-me background searches and link followups to innocuous sites about harmless things of which I have no interest? Something that is smart enough to run when internet access doesn't cost me anything?
Google isn't your OS until you use Android or ChromeOS. Using the Chrome browser gives it a deep access to most online activities. Mail and Drive put a lot of your data at its disposal.
But just intercepting almost every search made in the Western world gives it a lot of data about what people do. And Google tracker is active on mots sites, so it tracks you even if you land there from somewhere else.
"Ironic then that MSFT ship AdBlock for Edge browser."
no, because their NEXT 'feature' would allow PAID FOR ADS (i.e. pay up or we don't let your ads get through) to slip past it... (yes, that DOES happen with OTHER ad blockers, doesn't it?)
So not "ironic" - more like sneaky, underhanded, ...
I don't see how MS can go back to paid versions of Windows 10 after the free period. All of the MSFT fans and people remotely interested took advantage of the free OS upgrade, so the low hanging fruit is gone. The rest of the Windows users, not on 10, are people who are indifferent or negative about the new version of Windows. Those people, clearly not really jazzed about Windows 10 in the first place, are not going to dig MS making them pay when others got it for free. I think they will have to continue to give it away or they are going to see a bunch of Chrome/Android PC defections for a free OS. There is just no margin for Windows in PCs when MS is trying to chase Google into the $200-300 PC space. Difficult for an OEM to create a $300 PC and stay afloat when MS is asking for $199 for Windows.
If your business model relies on you being able to sell a fully operational PC for $300...
... how is that Microsoft's problem?
You want to serve the market segment of People With No Money? Good on you, best of luck with that, let us know how it goes. We'll be over here selling PCs for $1000, and we anticipate no shortage of customers at that price point.
I guess they expect to work with the current user base to convince the other ones it's a worthy transition through their testimonies. The reluctance of the early adopters had to be broken somehow. Their continuous feedback made sure the next customers will get a polished OS. They'll upgrade probably together with a new machine.
So the low hanging fruit were harvested. The other ones will follow slowly but surely, while the next [very profitable] harvest awaits to be ripened: corporate customers. Those customers usually wait for a couple of years until an OS matures before plunging in. Their time will come soon. And that's where Microsoft gets its profit.
Don't worry. Microsoft knows how to make money.
> I don't see how ...
No, you don't, but never mind.
> go back to paid versions of Windows 10 after the free period.
I wasn't entirely free. You had to have paid for Windows 7 or 8 previously, and it wasn't free for enterprise.
> Difficult for an OEM to create a $300 PC and stay afloat when MS is asking for $199 for
Windows.
That is easy, MS don't ask OEMs for $199.
More likely they are pricing Windows 10 upgrades artificially high to encourage consumers to buy new computers, on which the OS is likely to be more reliable and stable. It's even more difficult for an OEM to stay afloat NOT offering Windows since it would mean offering a computer that can't run most desktop software.
"Everyone knows Windows isn't worth $199 anymore. By giving it away they've permanently devalued windows as a brand, and it will be perceived according to loss-leader economics."
They gave it for free to select non-enterprise users with Windows 7 onwards for a limited time. Windows 8 was available for Windows 7 users for $15 for a limited time. Before that Windows 7 had a limited time discount offer for Vista/XP.
I can't get a free Windows 10 license for a blank computer. It is still not a free licence. It requirer an underlying Windows7/8 licence which was paid in some form (e.g. part of cost of computer)
Windows is actually last to the free OS party on desktop. OS X has been free for years, so is ChromeOS, Android, IOS, Linux etc. Did OS X lose value when Apple started to give it for free?
Windows is actually last to the free OS party on desktop. OS X has been free for years, so is ChromeOS, Android, IOS, Linux etc. Did OS X lose value when Apple started to give it for free?
OS X is free? Care to point me to a download site so I can install it on my hackintosh?
"OS X is free? Care to point me to a download site so I can install it on my hackintosh?"
Yes, OS X is free. The license says that you're supposed to install it on Apple hardware. Installing on non-Apple hardware is not supported. Anyone who has a Mac which can run OS X 10.6.8 or later has the Mac App Store app; launch it, find the installer for the latest version of the OS (usually right on the front page) and download said installer. It will usually autolaunch and request permission to install; if you give it permission, when its done it will delete itself. If you want to keep a copy, quit the installer, copy it to somewhere else (the installer usually is installed into the Applications folder so that you can find it easily) and then you can have an installer you can use later. Or on another machine. Even a hackintosh. And you can create USB install media, so you can stick the installer on a USB stick and install on anything which has acceptable hardware, including a hackintosh.
And, finally, every ever so often Apple releases a stand-alone installer. The latest is for OS X 10.11.4 and is available at https://support.apple.com/kb/DL1869?locale=en_US
But you could have found this for yourself by actually going to Apple's site and typing 'download OS' into the search box.
Is that supposed to be a joke ?
For an entire year, we were continually bashed over the head with how Windows 1 0 was free, how much faster it was, how much better it was, and how free it was. We were repeatedly told that existing kit would run better on it. Oh, and it was FREE.
Next to the marketing, MS tried absolutely everything to push it out whether you wanted it or not, including malware tactics.
With all of that, what should have happened is MS touting the fastest-ever adoption of a new OS version, and the almost-total conversion of all Windows PCs in existence.
Instead, it barely made a quarter of the market, and you're saying that is "especially well" ?
I hope you enjoy your check.
Windows 8.1 is Windows 9. Joke's on you if you missed it, it was the last "good" Windows release.
Really. If the 'Metro' thing annoys you too much, install Classic Start Menu. Then you'll have the speed and security of Windows 10, the control and customisability of Windows 7, and extended support to January 2023.
TBH, the suggestion that "Windows 10 did especially well" is the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the nonsense in that article. I'm not entirely sure when the author is speculating on the future or talking about the past - he seems to switch tense in random places.
While the overall piece seems to be trying to speculate on how Microsoft can sell the OS - either on its own or via OEMs on new hardware - it almost entirely fails to address the issues that lead many of us to be "upgrade hold-outs".
Microsoft's pushiness gets only a brief mention, and there's no mention at all of the telemetry. Any problem with failed downgrades to Windows 10 - of which there have been plenty - appears to be blamed on the users owning "old PCs".
But hey, us hold-outs (and no mention of those who finally took the step over to Linux) apparently have short memories - because we're going to so easily forget the upgrade hell Microsoft inflicted on us.
Yeah, right.
And I've finally realised the real reason for the jump from 8 to 10, skipping a 9. We've come to expect a bad-good-bad-good cycle with Windows versions. 8 was bad, so we expected the next version to be good - Microsoft knew otherwise, so they deliberately jumped the version number up by one to give us a heads up.
<pedant mode>
I believe the real reason for skipping 9 was because of badly written software which checked to see if was running on an appropriately advanced Windows by refusing to run on anything that reported as Windows 9* (matching Windows 95 and Windows 98 - and which, unfortunately, would also have matched Windows 9).
Apple didn't think of this when it released Mac OS X 10.10 - and one or two programs broke because 10.1 (the mathematically correct interpretation of 10.10) < 10.6 or whatever they were developed to run on.
</pedant mode>
Apple didn't think of this when it released Mac OS X 10.10 - and one or two programs broke because 10.1 (the mathematically correct interpretation of 10.10) < 10.6 or whatever they were developed to run on.
I would argue that Apple probably *did* think of it..... They just didn't care. Apple has a long and cherished history of not giving a fig about developers, sometimes making fundamental changes to the underlying OS, and leaving it up to the developers to catch up or GTFO.
There is plenty of software for example, that used to run fine in 10.6 but no longer runs on the most recent versions of OSX because Apple made some changes, and the developers basically shrugged their shoulders and left their users out to dry because it's not worth it to them to update.
Thumbs down, both for Apple and for said developers.
i can think of a lot of software which worked in OS x 10.8 and died on impact with 10.9. The vast majority of it was software which went out over the network, including email, ftp, and usenet systems, and all of them used a technology named 'Open Transport'. Apple had 'depreciated' Open Transport when the very first OS X versions hit the street. Developers had been on notice for years, since OS X 10.4 in 2004 or so, that it was going to go sometime. Not only did they not migrate to APIs which were going to be supported, some rolled out new versions of their software, using the old APIs, a few months prior to 10.9 hitting the streets. Others simply hadn't updated their stuff for years. When 10.9 hit, there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth... tough. It had been marked as being doomed years before, and the devs had not paid attention. Open Transport had been around since 1995. It was visibly growing moss.
In the case of 10.6, a lot of the dead software depended on having the old Motorola 68000 APIs around, and some depended on PPC APIs. By the time 10.6 arrived, there hadn't been new 68000 Macs for well over a decade, and there hadn't been new PPC Macs for several years. And Apple had told everyone who was listening that the old stuff was doomed. The only thing they didn't say was when. Turned out it was 2009. That would be three years after Apple started shipping Intel Macs. Devs had three years to move on. Whose fault is it that they didn't, again?
I personally have an old eMac sitting around just so that I can play a very old game (Harpoon; I love sending in regimental Backfire strikes against imperialist carrier battle groups or flushing all the Shipwrecks, including the nukes, from an Oscar at very close range to a Yankee carrier... Slavsya, Otechestvo nashe svobodnoye! Nothing like 54 to 81 Kingfish or 24 Shipwrecks to ruin an imperialist admiral's whole day! The Glorious Red Banner Northern Fleet owns the Atlantic!) and I'd just love to be able to play it on modern equipment, but the vendor's dead and it will never be updated.